The Winter Long

by Seanan McGuire

  “Good day, my liege,” I said. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but it was genuinely important.”

  “October?” He sounded confused, and when I straightened, I saw that he looked even more so. Then the confusion passed, replaced by growing wakefulness, and worry. “Of course you wouldn’t disturb me if it wasn’t genuinely important. Is someone hurt?”

  I thought of Jazz. “Someone was, but I fixed it,” I said. “Sylvester . . .”

  He raised a hand, cutting me off before I could finish the sentence. The worry in his expression deepened, turning slowly into a deep, burning fury. “I can smell him on you,” he said, voice honed to a razor’s edge. It could have drawn blood. “I should have known that if he ever came back here, he would come for you first.”

  “My liege?” I said, reeling a little. When Oleander had come back, I hadn’t been able to convince anyone she was in the Kingdom. She’d managed to halfway convince me that I was losing my mind. It seemed almost perverse for things to be so much easier this time.

  Then again, I had been throwing Simon’s spells around like they were softballs. It made sense that some of the stink of him might have clung to me, and if anyone was sensitive to the smell of the man’s magic, it was his twin brother.

  Sylvester turned his cold, furious face toward me. I quailed, and he blinked, looking briefly surprised before his fury melted into resignation. “I’m sorry, October. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just . . . I didn’t think he’d really come back. Not like this. I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me for not being there?”

  “You had no idea it was going to happen today,” I said, still shaky. My headache wasn’t helping. I heal so fast these days that I had become unaccustomed to lingering pain.

  Sylvester stepped through the gate, pulling it closed behind him. The glimpse of the darkened bedchamber I had seen when the door opened disappeared, replaced once more by the empty air. Without another word, he stepped forward and folded me into a hug. I made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a sob and simply let him hold me, enjoying the safety and comfort of his arms. I lost my mortal father when I was seven years old. Sylvester had been the closest thing I’d had ever since.

  “I am so sorry,” he said again, when he finally let me go. He started down the cobblestone path, and I followed, walking with him to the first of the marble benches. He sat down, motioning for me to sit beside him.

  I sat.

  “I knew he’d return one day. There’s too much for him in this Kingdom for him to stay away forever, and my brother has never been anything if not stubborn. Even when we were children, when his magic still smelled like smoke and mulled cider, he would have his way no matter what the cost.” Sylvester shook his head. Something like grief was lurking in his eyes. “He should never have come near you.”

  “He said he transformed me to save me,” I said hesitantly. “I think there’s something wrong with him.”

  Sylvester’s laugh was thin and bitter. “Oh, I know there’s something wrong with him. There’s been something wrong with him for a very long time. But . . .” He hesitated.

  I frowned, eyeing him sidelong. “I don’t like the tone of that silence.”

  “You have to understand, October, that time is different for the pureblooded.”

  “I know that.” I’d always known that. From my mother’s inability to remember that my birthday was something important to the sad way most purebloods looked at changelings, like the fact that we’d die someday meant we were as good as dead already.

  “Yes, but . . .” Sylvester hesitated again before he said, “I admit, I’ve often wondered about the nature of what he did to you. Transforming you into a creature with a long lifespan, using a spell you could someday break yourself . . . I think he may be telling the truth, disturbing as it is to consider. He may have transformed you as he did because the alternative was killing you, and he didn’t want to be responsible for your death.”

  “Why the hell not? He’d already kidnapped Luna and Rayseline. It’s not like he could have done anything to make you angrier.” And he’d laughed. I remembered that so clearly. Simon and Oleander, laughing while they watched me gasp and struggle to breathe the air that had become poisonous to my body. How could that have been an attempt to save me?

  “It’s not my wrath that he was worried about. Not in that moment.” Sylvester looked at me sadly. “Did you come here alone?”

  “No. Quentin and Tybalt are waiting in the hall.”

  “Good. That means you’ll have someone to rant at when I finish telling you what I’m about to tell you.”

  I blinked. “What are you talking about?”

  Sylvester paused for a moment before he continued. “Have you never wondered why the doors in Shadowed Hills are willing to acknowledge you as family, or why Luna could enter your mother’s tower uninvited, despite the wards Amandine has put in place over the years? I know you believe the knowes are alive, and I don’t think you’re wrong, but they’re normally inclined to follow their own rules.”

  A horrifying picture was starting to form at the back of my mind, assembled from things people had said to me over the years. Arden’s confusion when I said my mother was married to a human; Oleander’s visit to the tower, all those years ago, when she’d taunted Amandine with her relationship with Simon. The way Sylvester cared for me . . . and then the last piece of the awful puzzle fell into place as I recalled Simon’s own words about my mother in my kitchen only a few hours ago.

  “You’re not serious,” I half-whispered.

  “I’m afraid I am,” he said.

  “I want to hear you say it.” My tone was suddenly challenging. I didn’t try to rein it in. “Say it! I won’t believe it if you don’t say it.”

  “You are my niece, October, in the eyes of the law, if not the substance of your blood.” Sylvester looked at me solemnly. “My brother took Amandine to wife long ago. Things were different then. He was different then. And no matter how much he changes, no matter how much he has changed, I truly do believe that he still loves her.”

  “You are not serious.” I jumped to my feet, beginning to pace back and forth. “Why are you telling me this now? You don’t think this is something I should have known years ago, like, I don’t know, before you sent me after him? This is not okay! This is the new dictionary definition of not okay!”

  Sylvester sighed, shaking his head. “I didn’t expect you to take this well, but I had expected you to take it a little bit better than this.”

  “You think I’m overreacting? You’re telling me your brother was married to my mom, and you thought I was going to do anything other than exactly what I’m doing right now?” I glared. “This is not okay.”

  “According to fae law, my brother is still married to your mother,” said Sylvester, sounding apologetic.

  I stared at him.

  Under fae law, a pureblood who has an affair with a mortal isn’t even cheating on their spouse. Showing bad judgment, maybe, but that’s it. Which meant that marrying Dad wouldn’t have required my mother to divorce Simon, because the marriage wouldn’t have counted under fae law. It was just a dalliance taken uncomfortably far. It wasn’t real.

  “This isn’t happening,” I said.

  Sylvester stood. “I’m afraid it is.”

  “Simon Torquill is my stepfather.”

  He nodded.

  “That’s just . . . that’s not okay.”

  “No, it’s not. But I believe it may be why he chose to transform you, rather than killing you. My wrath means nothing to him. Your mother’s, on the other hand . . . there is nothing in this world he wants or yearns for more than Amandine’s forgiveness.”

  “Forgiveness for what?” I asked.

  Sylvester turned his face away.

  I groaned. “So great, he did something so bad you won’t tell me about it even now, and
now he’s back in the Kingdom, where he can get to her.” I shook my head, pushing my shock and anger aside in the face of something much more immediately important. “Oak and ash, Sylvester, we have to warn my mother that he’s coming.” Amandine would have no idea. She wouldn’t be prepared. And Firstborn or not, if he took her by surprise . . .

  Sylvester shook his head. “Your mother is the last person he would bring to harm, in this world or any other. He loves her. He has always loved her.”

  “He’s your brother, and he kidnapped your wife and his own niece,” I snapped. “Why the hell would his estranged wife be off the list of people to hurt?”

  “Perhaps because he and Luna have never cared for each other,” Sylvester said. “Why he would hurt Rayseline, I don’t know.” The fury sparked in his eyes again, just for an instant; long enough that I had to struggle not to look away. “I would love the opportunity to ask him. In private.”

  I swallowed hard and said, “We don’t know why he’s here. We don’t know what he wants. I want to know that my mother is all right. Please.”

  Sylvester sighed. “All right,” he said. “If nothing else, he may have gone to see her. If he has been and gone, perhaps she can tell me where to find him—and if she won’t agree to do that, I may be able to find a trace of his magic to follow. And then . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.

  For the first time in my life, I found myself in the awkward position of actually feeling bad for Simon Torquill.

  FIVE

  WE STEPPED BACK through the main gate. Tybalt and Quentin were standing on the other side of the hallway, next to the wall, and talking in low, intense voices. Tybalt glanced up, seeming to realize that they weren’t alone anymore. Quentin did the same a heartbeat later. Both of them went quiet, stepping apart. Quentin looked at me anxiously. After that first moment, Tybalt didn’t look at me at all. I sighed and filed that away as something I could ask about later. I had a huge file of things to ask about later, and I almost never remembered to ask any of them.

  “I should get a secretary,” I muttered.

  “What’s that?” asked Sylvester.

  “Nothing.” I turned to the boys. “Do you want the short form or the long form? Never mind, scratch that, you’re getting the short form right now, and you’ll get the long form later, probably over alcohol, ice cream, or both. Simon Torquill was married to my mother. Is still married to my mother under fae law. That means he’s family, and that means he can enter her tower without her giving direct and immediate consent. She’s probably not in any danger, since she’s Firstborn, but she’s also confused, so he might be able to get around her defenses. I want her warned at the absolute least, and preferably moved here. Any questions?”

  They both gaped at me. Quentin recovered first. “So are you going to call him ‘Daddy’ now? Can I watch? From behind a safe Plexiglas barrier, like they use on MythBusters?”

  “No more TV for you,” I snapped. “And I will call Simon Torquill ‘Daddy’ right after I do something else that’s never going to happen, ever. I have a father.” He was long dead and forgotten to almost everyone in the mortal world, but he wasn’t forgotten to me.

  “What do we do?” asked Tybalt.

  I could have kissed him for that. Would have kissed him for that, if it wouldn’t have required time I wasn’t willing to spend right now. “Sylvester tells his people Simon may be on his way, and that they shouldn’t trust his face—Simon has the same one. They need to make him cast a spell. They need to trust his magic. We head for Mom’s tower. If she’s there, we warn her. If she’s not there, I try to negotiate with the wards and convince them to keep Simon out.” Modifying a spell that had been cast by one of the Firstborn would be easy, right?

  Probably not. Even though the spell was my mother’s, it would be like sticking my hands into live current. I still had to try. Amandine was so bad at taking care of herself these days, and Simon was . . . well, Simon. There was no telling what he’d do if he got his hands on her.

  For just a moment, I tried to picture the man he must have been in order to get my mother to marry him. I couldn’t find any path between that man and the one I knew.

  “What if Simon’s there?” asked Quentin.

  Sylvester smiled that thin, alarming smile again, and said, “If he’s there, my brother and I can finally have the reunion I’ve been dreaming of for so long.”

  I shuddered. There was no way to interpret his words that didn’t end in blood and screaming.

  “We can manage without you,” said Tybalt.

  “Ah, yes,” said Sylvester, raising an eyebrow. “Because a half-trained squire, a knight with an abnormal sensitivity to transformation spells, and a King of Cats, that’s the appropriate way to handle my brother, whose magic has been honed to a killing edge by many, many years of villainy. Whatever was I thinking?”

  “Okay, can we fight with Simon, instead of with each other?” I asked. “Pretty please?”

  “That is my intention, assuming we can find him,” said Sylvester calmly. He continued, “Amy will listen to me, if she’s there, and may respond to me when she doesn’t respond to you. I’m sorry, October. I know she’s your mother, but there are centuries of history between us, and those may be enough to pull her back into the present day, if only for a moment.”

  Tybalt spoke before I could. “I do not like you,” he said, looking straight at Sylvester. His voice held the perfect, bald honesty that has been the birthright of the feline kingdom since time began. He stepped up to stand next to me, putting a hand possessively on the back of my arm. His gaze remained fixed on Sylvester the whole time, making it clear who the show of ownership was directed at. “I think you are too comfortable here, in your marble halls, and have forgotten what it means to fight for what is yours. But if you insist on coming, at least you’ll be one more person between Simon and October. Are you sure your men can hold your wards against a member of your own family without you here to bolster them?”

  I turned to gape at Tybalt. Sylvester was already nodding. “They are well-trained, and they know their jobs. October was one of them for a reason, after all.”

  “Fine. We will wait for you outside in the garden, where October may shout imprecations at her leisure.” One corner of Tybalt’s mouth tilted upward in a smile. “I believe she’ll be calling both of us some rather inventive names.”

  “You’ve got that right,” I muttered.

  “Very good.” Sylvester nodded to me, and then to Quentin, before turning and heading off down the hall at a rapid clip.

  “Come along,” said Tybalt, turning to head in the other direction. He kept his hand on my arm, using it to steer me. “We have much ground to cover.”

  I was startled enough that I allowed him to pull me for several steps before I stopped, becoming a dead weight against his hand. He turned his head to look at me, expression mild.

  “Are you going to begin the shouting while we’re still inside? I ask only because I advised your liege that we’d be in the garden, and I know how you hate disappointing him.”

  “Sylvester has been lying to me for my entire life,” I said. “To say I’m not happy with him would be an understatement, but I don’t need you at each other’s throats—”

  “October.” Tybalt didn’t take his hand off my arm. “There is no love lost between Sylvester Torquill and myself; there may never be any love there to lose. But I have no objection to his presence, if he will protect us from his brother. Forgive me if I would do whatever needs doing to keep you safe. If you cannot forgive, please understand that I’m never going to change my ways in this regard. Perhaps not in any regard touching on your safety.”

  I blinked at him, glancing reflexively to Quentin.

  He shook his head. “I’m not getting involved with this one. He’s your boyfriend. Also, I think he’s pretty much right, but I’m not sure I’
m allowed to say so, what with the whole squire and loyalty thing in the way.”

  “Why did I let you people outnumber me?” I demanded. I turned, starting to walk in the direction Tybalt had been trying to push me. I kept my chin high, trying to show that I was choosing to walk this way.

  “Because somewhere in that lovely skull of yours is a glimmer of self-preservation, fighting against all odds to remain intact and keep the rest of you breathing,” said Tybalt, hurrying to keep up. He still didn’t take his hand off my arm. Matching his steps to mine, he continued, “This does raise an interesting question of protocol, however. I had regarded Sylvester as the closest thing you have to a father figure. However, if Simon has a legal claim to the role, I may have to approach him as your eldest male relative.”

  I opened my mouth to swear at him, and paused, walking in silence for several steps before I asked, “Is this your way of distracting me from the fact that we’re going to wait on the lawn when my mother may be in danger?”

  “Yes,” said Tybalt calmly. “Is it working?”

  “If you mean ‘is it making me want to kill you with a brick,’ then yes. It’s working.” I sighed. I might be furious, but it was good to know there were some things I could always count on where Tybalt was concerned. It was even better to know that Sylvester was going to be with us, serving the dual purposes of providing backup and keeping himself in my sight. Upset as I was with him, I didn’t want to think about him here, at Shadowed Hills, where I wouldn’t be able to do anything to help him.

  “I know you’re worried, but Amandine is Firstborn,” said Quentin. “I’m pretty sure she can take care of herself.”

  “Amandine’s not so good at paying attention to her surroundings right now, and she married Simon,” I said. “Maybe she can take care of herself, but is she going to realize she needs to? Because I’m afraid she’s just going to open the door and invite him back into her life.”

  “I doubt even your mother would be so foolish,” said Tybalt, and opened the door to the back garden. For a moment, we all just stared.