The Winter Long (34 page)

“She's sowing dissent, that's what, the same as she always has,” said Evening. She turned to face me, a cool wind blowing between us and carrying the scent of snow and roses. Roses. That was another clue I should have caught. When I believed that my mother was Daoine Sidhe, the fact that they both smelled of roses made perfect sense. Once I learned that Mother was something else entirely . . . but ah, Evening was speaking, and I needed to pay attention to that. I always needed to pay attention to her.

“My sister is the sea witch,” said Evening, taking a step toward me. The skirt of her torn and dirtied dress swayed around her legs, and I felt a pang at seeing such beauty disturbed. “She is the darkness under the waves and the bargain you fear to make. Of course she's a troublemaker. Of course she wants to turn you against me, October, can't you see? I've been your friend for years. I've always been your friend.”

The Luidaeg can't lie and this woman just said in so many words that she could never be your friend,
whispered the part of my mind that was distant enough from Evening's spell to hold itself separate. Sadly, that part of me was outweighed by the sweet, cloying scent of her magic as it rose around me.

“I was the one who came for you when you returned from the pond,” said Evening, taking another step toward me. “I was the one who told you how your human family would react to your return. I tried to save you so much pain. Don't you remember?”

I frowned, trying to find the line between what she was saying and what I knew her words actually meant. It had been so clear only a few seconds before, but now it was blurred and difficult to see. She had been my friend for so long. She had allowed me to enter her presence and treated me like I was almost worth something, despite my human heritage. She had hired me to do the things she didn't want to do herself. She had . . .

She had ordered Simon Torquill to kill me. She had orchestrated the kidnapping of Luna and Rayseline Torquill, tearing wounds in the fabric of their family that would never really heal, just scab over and fester. She had treated me like dirt and, because I was a changeling, desperate for any sign of acceptance, I had allowed her to do it.

“You're not my friend,” I mumbled.

“What's that?” asked Evening.

“I said, you're not my friend.” I forced my right hand into a fist, sending bolts of clarifying pain through my broken arm. It cleared the fog out of my thoughts as I raised my head, forcing myself to look at her. The air around her head crackled with the power she had gathered around herself, splintering and refracting the faint light until it seemed like she almost glowed. “You were never my friend. You were just using me until you didn't need me anymore. I don't know if you still need me. But I don't need you.”

Evening smiled languidly. “You will,” she said, and let all that gathered power go, directing it straight at me, and at the thin cord of my fealty. What had been a faint glittering in the air exploded into true light, virtually blinding me. She was perfect, she was untouchable, she was above reproach, she was undying, she was everything I had ever wanted to be and everything I could never approach, she was—

—
she was casting a spell, she was casting a spell on me, and spells could be broken
—

Shaking from the effort, I forced my hands up, one balled into a fist and coated in my own dried blood, one holding Dare's silver knife. My broken arm howled in protest. The pain was still helping me focus, no matter how much damage I might be doing to myself. I squinted into the brilliance, finding the individual threads of Evening's compulsion. Then, before I could think about it too hard, I opened my right hand, grabbed a fistful of threads, and yanked them tight, slashing my knife down across them in the same gesture.

Evening shrieked with pain and surprise. The spell snapped, casting the clearing back into its previous darkness. And the faint smell of smoke drifted out of the trees across from me. That was my only warning before Simon Torquill stepped out of the tree line, a longbow in his hands, and fired the arrow that he had been aiming during our confrontation.

It flew straight and true, and would have embedded itself solidly in Evening's back, had she not turned as fast as a striking snake, raising her hand in an imperious gesture. The arrow froze in midair, becoming completely motionless.

Simon's eyes widened and he dropped the bow, turning to run. Not fast enough. With a small gesture, Evening sent the arrow flying back to him. He yelped with pain as he fell. I didn't see the arrow strike, but I didn't need to.

I could smell his blood.

“Simon!” He'd tried to kill Tybalt. He'd nearly killed me. But he was also Daoine Sidhe, and I had seen firsthand just how hard it was for Evening's descendants to tell her “no.” When the chips were down, he'd tried to change sides. In that moment, in that place, that was good enough for me.

I ran across the clearing, heedless of the fact that I was putting an angry Firstborn behind me. Let the Luidaeg distract her; Simon needed me.

He was facedown in the brush when I reached him. The arrow protruded from the top of his left arm. I dropped to my knees, pushing him onto his side with my left hand. “Simon? Simon, look at me.”

“October.” His eyes were closed when I first rolled him over, but he opened them, offering me the most honest smile I had ever seen on his face. “Even now you're trying to be a hero. Let it go, and run. Save yourself.” His eyes drifted closed again.

A horrible certainty stole over me. “You were trying to hit her with elf-shot, weren't you?”

“Mmm,” he said. “I'd been meaning . . . to rest . . .”

“Simon!” I shook him. “Don't go to sleep. You have to fight this.”

He chuckled. “As if elf-shot can . . . be ignored. You are your mother's daughter. Too stubborn . . . by half.” He yawned again. “You should have been mine,” he murmured, and went limp. The elf-shot had him. He'd wake in a century, if he woke at all.

I stayed frozen where I was for a few precious seconds, trying to make sense of things. Then, moving slowly and methodically, I reached forward and shoved the arrow through his arm, causing the already-crowning arrowhead to break out into the open air. A literal gush of blood accompanied the motion. I let go of the arrow and washed my hands with it, covering my fingers in as much of the wet redness as I could. Then I wiped them on my knife, until both my hands and my blade were completely covered. My arm throbbed. I ignored it.

“Sleep well, Simon,” I murmured, and stood, turning back to Evening. “He's gone.”

She had gathered the shreds of her glamour while I was distracted: she was once again beautiful, perfect, untouchable, so much better than me that it was a wonder I was allowed to look at her at all. I locked my eyes on her face as I started across the clearing, noting the small, smug smile that she wore.

“Good,” she said. “That means it's just us, at last. You've been very bad, October, but I can forgive you, if you'll let me.”

“I've been very bad,” I agreed. I cheated my eyes to the side. There was the Luidaeg, standing apart, bound by the injunction that she not harm Evening. At least she could defend herself now. I returned my attention to Evening before she could start to question, and said, “He was yours.”

“He was flawed,” said Evening. “You can be better.”

“I can be better,” I agreed. There were only a few feet between us. Could it really be this easy? Was she really that sure of herself?

“But first, put down the knife,” she said.

Apparently not. Damn. “Right,” I said, and lunged for her.

I expected a bolt of ice to catch me in the chest. Instead, she danced backward, trying to evade me. There was what looked like genuine fear in her eyes.

Several things suddenly started making sense. “Luidaeg!” I shouted. “What you said before, about her not being able to touch me. Is she allowed to hurt me?”

“No,” called the Luidaeg. She sounded almost smug. “She can't.”

“Good,” I snarled, and lunged again. This time, I didn't let fear of reprisal hold me back. I slammed my shoulder into Evening's stomach, bowling her to the ground. She screamed. I shoved her down, straddling her, and raised the knife covered in Simon's elf-shot-riddled blood in my left hand.

“Don't,” she begged.

“Sorry,” I said, and stabbed her in the shoulder.

It wasn't a mortal wound, but Evening stiffened all the same, eyes going wide with shock and pain before they clouded over in what looked very much like exhaustion. “You can't kill me,” she said, punctuating her words with a yawn. “I'm . . . the First . . .”

“I don't need to kill you. I just need you out of the way.”

“. . . be back . . .”

“Promises, promises.”

Evening closed her eyes.

I stayed where I was until her breathing leveled out, becoming deep and slow. Then I crawled off of her, watching warily for some sign that she was going to wake up. The Luidaeg walked over to stand beside me, and we watched her together.

Finally, after several minutes, the Luidaeg said, “You can pull your knife out now.”

“Soon,” I said.

She put an arm around me, pulling me close. I let myself be pulled, sagging against her as my own pain and nonmagical exhaustion threatened to overwhelm me. We stood there, watching Evening sleep, and I had never been so tired in my life, and I had never felt so far away from home.

W
E LEFT HER THERE,
naturally. What else were we supposed to do? She was Firstborn; there was no telling how long the elf-shot would keep her under, and not even the Luidaeg was powerful enough to bind her. The best we could hope was that being stranded on a road that had been intended for use by Maeve's children would slow her down when she finally woke up and decided to come after us. It wasn't a good solution. Under the circumstances, it was the best one that we had.

Sylvester was waiting in the ballroom when the Luidaeg and I stepped back through the hole in the air, Simon carried limp between us. He didn't say a word. He just put his arms around me while Grianne and Etienne took Simon and carried him away into the knowe. Another glass coffin for the collection; another sleeper to wait for. I hoped the brothers would be able to make peace when Simon finally did wake up. I hoped they could forgive each other.

I wasn't sure I could forgive them—either one of them, even as Sylvester led me to Jin and held my hand while she broke and reset my arm. The pain was bad. The fact that I didn't want to be with my liege was worse. There was a chasm between us that had never been there before, and I didn't know how to cross it. From the way he was looking at me, neither did Sylvester.

I was Jin's last patient of the night. Tybalt was already patched up and waiting for me in the Garden of Glass Roses. When he saw me, he laughed and said, “To the last, covered in blood. Now I know we're on track to solving the world's problems.” I'd managed to smile at that, only somehow my laughter had turned into tears, and he'd had to hold me until they stopped. And then he, the Luidaeg, and I left Shadowed Hills, and walked back down the hill to my car, and went home.

I don't remember washing off the blood, only that I must have done it before I went to bed, because I woke up the next evening clean and dressed in a fresh nightgown, with Tybalt curled possessively beside me, his arm around my waist. I raised my head enough to sniff the air, and found no traces of foreign magic. No one here but the people who were supposed to be here, and that was good. That was the way that things were meant to be.

Tybalt stirred beside me.

“Hi,” I whispered. “Are the boys home?”

“Mmm?” He raised his head, blinking sleepily before he caught my meaning. “Yes. I went for them last night, after you had gone to sleep. May and Jazz are home as well. I believe May is intending to make waffles to celebrate everyone's unexpected survival.”

“Good.” I closed my eyes again. “No emergencies today.”

“No emergencies,” he agreed, and kissed my shoulder. “The Luidaeg left a message for you.”

“What's that?”

“She said to thank you again, and that you should do your best to reduce the hazard I present by keeping me separate from my greatest weapon.” He sounded confused. “What is she talking about?”

I sighed. “She's being creepy because she thinks it's fun. I don't think you should wear leather trousers to her place anymore.”

“Ah.” He kissed my shoulder again. “You were very brave.”

“I didn't die. I'm going to call that good enough.”

“October?”

There was something about his tone—some tight, querulous thing—that made me open my eyes and roll over to face him. He was shirtless, propped up on one elbow as he looked at me. “What's up, Tybalt?”

“I woke in a guest room at Shadowed Hills and was told that you had pursued two Firstborn through a hole in the wall of the world,” he said. “You were not guaranteed to return. I could not go after you. I would prefer you not do that again.”

“I'll try not to,” I said.

He inclined his head. “I appreciate that. I was . . . quite concerned. My fear caused me to realize that there was something I had neglected to ask you.”

I frowned, sitting up the rest of the way. He moved with me, until we were both sitting on the bed, disheveled and tangled up in sheets. “What?”

“October Christine Daye—my dearest little fish—you are probably going to die horribly one day in the process of doing something you feel is absolutely necessary, and can be done by no one else. Given that this limits our time together in a way that is quite unfair, I feel that patience has ceased to be a virtue, and has instead become an indulgence. I dislike indulgences. They have their place upon the stage, but all they really do past a certain point is pad the scene.”

My frown deepened. “You're being flowery again, Tybalt. You know it's a little hard for my non-Shakespearean-era brain to follow you when you do that, right?”

“I do. But some questions are difficult for me to frame without becoming somewhat, ah, ‘flowery.'” Tybalt sighed, running a hand through his hair and putting his stripes into brief disarray. “I am aware that my position is a difficulty. I believe it is one we can work around if we are so motivated, and I am more than motivated. And so . . . October, will you marry me?”

I blinked. I blinked again. And then, slowly, without any conscious intent, I began to smile. The smile grew until my lips hurt. Tybalt was watching me anxiously. It occurred to me that I should probably say something before he really started to freak out.

“Yes,” I said, in a small voice.

Tybalt blinked. Then he started smiling, too. “Yes?”

“Yes. I'll marry you. Yes.” I laughed disbelievingly. “I . . . yes.”

“Yes!” Tybalt pounced on me, driving me back down into the blankets. I wrapped my arms around him. He kissed me, and I kissed him back, and everything else in the world ceased to matter, at least for a little while. Maybe I had lost the family I'd counted on when I was a child; maybe Sylvester wasn't the man I'd always thought he was, maybe Evening was my enemy, maybe Luna and I would never make peace with each other. All of that was terrible, and yet I wouldn't have taken back what I had if I'd somehow been granted the power. I was building something better.

I was building something real.