A Killing Frost

by Seanan McGuire

  I wrinkled my nose at him. “Okay, good. Then, on behalf of Tybalt and myself, and to avoid someone trying to claim offense on your behalf, would you please come to our wedding?”

  Simon couldn’t have looked more startled if I’d hauled off and slapped him. He stared at me for a long, frozen moment—long enough that I started to fear the answer I was going to receive wasn’t the one I wanted. If he was invited and chose not to come, would that leave any avenues open to offense? Pureblood etiquette is awful.

  “I . . . October, I don’t expect you to wait a century for me to wake before you marry,” he finally said.

  “She’s not going to wait another six months before she marries,” said Tybalt, voice low and dark. “After stunts like she pulled today, she’ll be fortunate if she waits six days.”

  “I don’t think we can pull a wedding together in six days without leaving someone off the guest list and offending them forever,” I said. “Especially not when we’re supposed to get married in Toronto. Quentin’s parents will never forgive us if we just go down to the courthouse.” Although it was tempting.

  Simon shook his head. “I would love to be in attendance. I don’t think . . . I mean, you can’t intend . . .”

  “To keep you awake? Yeah, we sort of do.” I glanced from him to Tybalt. “Everyone get in the car. We’re going on a road trip.”

  “Shotgun,” said Quentin, heading for the front seat. He paused to check the back for intruders, a habit he’d picked up from me, and Tybalt smirked as he stepped around him to claim the front. It was a familiar routine, and a comforting one. I turned toward the car.

  Simon grabbed my arm before I could take a step. I gave him a quizzical look. “Yes?”

  “October, what I’ve done—my brother will never forgive me.”

  “You’re probably right about that. Although, honestly, I’d be a lot more worried about Luna. She’s not very forgiving these days, not since she lost the skin she stole.” I shook my arm free of his grip. “It’s about time we stop holding the past against each other, don’t you think? Oberon’s back. Anyone wants to be a jerk about letting you keep your eyes open, I’ll just point to the actual King of Faerie and tell them you helped me find him.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “You kinda did. If not for Riordan deciding she was going to recolonize Annwn, he would never have followed me through Chelsea’s portal and been stranded in deep Faerie while playing at being human. If not for August having taken a Babylon candle and journeyed there, I wouldn’t have gone looking for her, and wouldn’t have found him. I don’t know why he wasn’t able to shrug off his own spell, but presumably he had a reason.” One I would be very interested to learn, once we had the chance to sit down and talk this all out. There were going to be so many long, awkward conversations in my future.

  Well, as long as no one was trying to stab me, I’d be fine with sitting down for a few awkward conversations. I’d pretty much had my fill of stabbing for the moment. “And while the Luidaeg has been hinting that finding her father might be on the docket, I wasn’t planning to go looking for him until I absolutely had to. It was looking for you that let Evening get her hooks back into me, even if it was only for a few minutes, and she accidentally told me where to find him. So you see, without you, none of this would have happened. Now get in the car.”

  I slid into the driver’s seat, glancing at Tybalt, who was already securely buckled and looking straight ahead like a man on the way to his own execution. “Hey,” I said softly. Quentin could hear us, but it wasn’t like I had that many secrets from my squire. This certainly wasn’t one of them. After all, he’d been there. “Are we gonna be okay?”

  Tybalt started to huff, probably intending to tell me that no, we weren’t. Then he caught himself, reaching across the front seat to rest a hand on my thigh. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “What you did to me, what you did to yourself—it was the only way forward, and you made your choice with all the information needed to bring yourself back.”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Stop.” His tone was gentle. I stopped. “Had you failed to find Oberon, I might have been able to convince the Luidaeg that if Simon being married to your mother made him your father, us being engaged made me your husband, and your fate could be my own. My anger isn’t because you did it. It’s because you did it without explaining to me what you were doing, or why, or how you hoped to have it undone. I know you’re accustomed to leaping first and looking during the fall, but I need you to tell me when you’re going to jump. I need you to give me the opportunity to jump with you.”

  At some point during that speech, the car door had opened and closed again as Simon slid into the backseat alongside Quentin. Neither of them spoke. Both of them were smart enough to know that they wouldn’t enjoy my reaction if they did.

  I took a breath, put my hand over Tybalt’s, and squeezed his fingers. “I’m sorry,” I said. It seemed silly to be having a serious relationship conversation with the King of Faerie less than twenty feet away—or maybe twenty miles; distance is always a little negotiable when the Luidaeg is involved. That didn’t mean we didn’t have to have it. Life went on. In the face of heroes and villains, gods and monsters, life went on, and I didn’t get to opt out of the hard parts unless I wanted to risk losing the pieces of it that really, truly mattered.

  “Just don’t do it again,” said Tybalt, and exhaled slowly, seeming to release some tightly coiled inner tension.

  “Wasn’t planning on it,” I said, and started the car.

  As always, Tybalt’s focus shifted to the road once we were moving, hands locking down on the dashboard so hard that it seemed impossible for him not to leave indentations when he finally let go. I smothered my smile. His dislike of riding in cars was well established, and the fact that he was not only willing to do it for my sake, but willing to do it in human form, where we could all talk to each other, was a statement of incredible trust and love.

  Simon, who was roughly the same age, was much more relaxed in the backseat, but then, I knew for a fact that Simon used to have a car of his own. Maybe he still did. A lot of purebloods have systems in place for long-term protection of their assets, and I’d never cared enough about Simon’s car or lack thereof to ask. I smirked and drove a little faster.

  “Must you?” asked Tybalt, sounding aggravated.

  “Do you want to go home and put all this behind us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, unfortunately, yes, I must.”

  He sighed loudly and closed his eyes.

  In short order, we were pulling up in front of the museum. It was early enough that the parking lot was entirely empty. “Everybody out,” I said, pushing my door open with my foot.

  Tybalt and Quentin tumbled out of the car, the one because he was desperate not to be confined any longer, the other because he was desperate to get inside and see his boyfriend. Simon didn’t move.

  “Simon?” I opened my door and peered over the seat at him. “We’re here. Come on. Get out of the car.”

  “You can’t expect me to face them after what I’ve done,” he said. “I can’t—this is cruel, to everyone. Please don’t make me do this.”

  “This is the easiest way I know of to get a message to Saltmist, and you should probably apologize to Dean before he tells his parents what you did,” I said, and closed my door before opening his and taking hold of his arm. “Come on. Get out of the car before I drag you out of the car.”

  “This is assault,” he said mildly, unbuckling his seatbelt and allowing himself to be tugged free. “I’ll have you know that this is behavior entirely unsuitable for a lady.”

  “Good thing I’m a knight, not a lady,” I said, letting go of him and starting toward the shed that would grant us access into the knowe. Quentin and Tybalt hurried to pace me, while Simon lagged behind, which made sense, given h
ow little he wanted to be here. Goldengreen had been his second home when it belonged to Evening. Now, he was an enemy, unwelcome in these halls, and had no reason to expect a warm reception.

  And that didn’t matter, because we were nearly finished, and that meant pressing forward until we reached the ending.

  We passed through the shed into the knowe, which was a much easier and more pleasant transition than approaching through the Summerlands, for all that I’d learned things on the other route that I had very much needed to know. Evening had been shaping and reshaping the Mists for a long time. She must have had a reason. What was it about the place that kept attracting Firstborn?

  Hell, what was it about the place that had attracted Oberon? Every time I tried to think too hard about his presence, it was like my mind flinched away from the concept, refusing to consider it more than absolutely necessary. Oberon. I’d found Oberon. I’d interacted with Oberon. The King of Faerie was here, in San Francisco, in his eldest daughter’s living room, and it was because of me. But why had he been pretending to be a human police officer? Had he been hiding as a human for five hundred years? What possible utility could that have?

  The main hall of Goldengreen was empty, the witch-lights burning pale gold in their sconces and beating back the shadows. No pixies flitted by overhead; they must have still been mushrooms in the courtyard, unable to spread their absent wings.

  “I’ve never been a tree,” I said quietly. “I was almost a tree once, but the spell was never finished. Do trees know what’s happening around them?”

  Tybalt reached over and took my hand, squeezing my fingers. I shot him a grateful look. He smiled. It was, for a moment, almost pleasantly normal.

  “No,” said Simon. “They don’t, or if they do, it’s only in the slowest of vegetable manners. They’re essentially asleep without dreaming, until such time as they’re released back to their original shapes. Sap and silence are all.”

  “That’s terrible,” said Quentin. “Why would you do something so terrible to people?”

  Simon gave him a startled but appraising look. “If you had to remove someone from your path, and your choices were killing or changing them, which would seem the kinder?”

  “I don’t know,” said Quentin.

  “Changing,” said Tybalt.

  “Killing,” I said.

  Simon smiled a little. “You see? There is no agreement. Everyone must decide on their own, when the situation arises and cannot be set aside. A man who has become a tree cannot do you harm, or flee, or anything else. So long as you don’t intend to set either ax or flame to his roots, it has always seemed to be the kinder choice, at least to me.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Quentin.

  “No one’s asking you to,” said Simon.

  We were approaching the kitchen. The lights were on, spilling warm and buttery into the hall. This was Marcia’s territory; she’d be inside if she wasn’t out of the knowe running an errand for Dean. I motioned for the others to stay where they were, pulling my hand out of Tybalt’s, and hurried forward to stick my head into the room.

  As I’d expected, there was Marcia, kneading dough on one of the counters. She was back in her usual clothing, no signs of blood or trauma, and her hair had been brushed sleek. That was a good sign. I rapped my knuckles against the doorframe. “Marcia?” I called.

  “Oh!” She jumped, barely managing not to drop her dough as she spun around and clutched her flour-covered hands against her chest. “October! I didn’t expect to see you so soon. The Luidaeg just left.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’ve been at her apartment. We had to take care of a few things. Where’s Dean?”

  “Down in the cove,” she said. “He’s understandably shaken by the events of the day, and he needed time to clear his head. If you have any business for the County, you can present it to me, and I’ll do my best to help you.”

  “Unfortunately, my business is with Saltmist,” I said. “I need Dean to call his parents, and I should probably get the rest of my party out of the hall before—”

  A shrill scream from the hall penetrated the kitchen air. I grimaced.

  “—someone sees them,” I finished. “Dammit.” I spun and ran back into the hall, Marcia close behind me.

  One of Lily’s former handmaidens, a delicate Silene with willow boughs braided in her cascading green hair, was pressed against the wall, knees shaking, pointing at Simon. Marcia grabbed a broom from beside the door and strode forward, pushing past me in her hurry to smack him upside the head with the bristles. He yelped, shielding his face with his arms. She hit him again. As she was pulling back for a third swing, I grabbed the broom handle, and was relieved to find that I was sufficiently stronger than her to stop her before she could continue her assault.

  “Marcia, he’s with me,” I said, trying to wrestle the broom away from her.

  She didn’t let go. Well, I couldn’t entirely blame her for that. As long as I was holding one end of the broom, she at least wasn’t hitting Simon anymore. She snarled—literally snarled—and tried to kick him without letting go of her portion of the broom handle. Simon yelped again, ducking behind Tybalt, who looked mildly amused by the whole situation.

  “Still a coward, I see,” he said, shifting his body just enough to shield Simon from further assault. “What else hasn’t changed, I wonder?”

  “My profound dislike of pain also remains intact,” said Simon stiffly. Unlike Tybalt, he sounded distinctly unamused.

  “If we could stop hitting each other, that would be nice,” I said, giving the broom another hard tug. This time, Marcia let go. I managed not to stumble. “Simon needs to apologize to Dean for what he did, and then we all need to speak with Patrick and Dianda.”

  “How is he with you?” Marcia demanded. “He—he—he attacked us all! He’s a monster!”

  “No,” I said gently. “He’s a man, and men make mistakes. The woman who thought she’d purchased his soul, she’s a monster, and she’s asleep. She’s going to be asleep for a long, long time.” Although I was going to have to talk to the Luidaeg about that. After what Evening had said about her power being strongest when she was sleeping, I wasn’t sure leaving her elf-shot forever was really the safest thing for the rest of us.

  But that could wait.

  “I am profoundly sorry for my actions here; if I could take them back, I would,” said Simon, stepping out from behind Tybalt now that Marcia was no longer armed. “I acted under the constraints of a spell which clouded my mind and left me unable to tell friend from foe. You have my apologies.”

  “Friend from foe and right from wrong,” said Marcia. “I don’t go around turning people into trees just because they’re not my friends.”

  Simon looked, for a moment, like he wanted to remind her that she didn’t have the power to do anything of the sort. Then he shook his head, expression clearing, and said, “That as well. It won’t happen again. I’ve been freed from the consequences of my own actions and have no intention of selling my soul to anyone else. I’m quite done with masters of that sort. I have no reason to expect you to forgive me, but still, I hope that you can learn to see me as something other than your enemy.”

  Marcia glanced down the hall to the courtyard door. “I’m not ready for that yet,” she said, in a tone which made it clear that she might never be ready. This was a betrayal that ran deep and would continue to do so for some time.

  That made sense. As a former member of Lily’s household, Marcia had already lost one home due to Simon, and all the “I wasn’t myself at the time” in the world couldn’t change or undo what had been done. No one here was going to force her to forgive him. Not even me.

  “Dean’s in the cove, you said?” I asked.

  Marcia nodded silently.

  “Then we’ll go down,” I said. “I’ll see you when we’re done.”

  “A
ll right,” she said, and held out her hand. I gave her back her broom, and she stepped back into the kitchen, leaving us to proceed on our own.

  The normal door to the cove receiving room was present and unlocked, saving me from the need to go searching for it. That was something of a relief, as it meant the knowe at least partially approved of us going to speak with Dean. I patted the doorframe reassuringly as we passed through it, trying to signal to the knowe that we meant no harm. Tybalt gave me a tolerantly amused look.

  “Someday your penchant for being kind to buildings will stop entertaining me,” he said. “Not today.”

  “I can’t keep you and Simon both around,” I said. “You both talk like you think Oscar Wilde is going to come along and give you dialogue notes, and there’s only so much I can take.”

  He laughed, and the four of us began to descend the stairs.

  Architecture and distance are fluid inside knowes. It felt like the descent took less time than it had in the past, Quentin and Simon all but racing one another in their hurry to be first to the bottom. Tybalt and I followed at a more leisurely pace, fast enough not to let them out of our sight, slowly enough so as to not create a total traffic jam. It was almost pleasant.

  Then we came around the curve of the stairs and Dean’s private beach appeared beneath us, and two things happened at once. Quentin slung a leg over the banister and abandoned all pretense of walking down the stairs like a normal person in favor of sliding to the bottom, precariously balanced enough that if he hadn’t been plummeting toward sand, I might have been worried he was about to crack his skull open, and Simon froze dead where he stood, not descending any farther.

  Tybalt and I exchanged a look, nodded, and as we caught up to Simon, each of us grabbed one of his arms and lifted, hoisting him neatly off his feet as we continued our descent. He looked first to Tybalt and then to me, before protesting, “Oh, no—no, I can’t. I’m terribly sorry, but I can’t—this isn’t appropriate, not with their son right there—”

  “That’s cool,” I said. “You’re technically my prisoner right now, thanks to you having committed all sorts of crimes.”