The Winter Long

ELEVEN

MY PHONE RANG. I stiffened, instinctively pulling away from the Luidaeg before I recognized the sound and pulled the phone from my pocket. “Hello?”

“I’m parked on the street,” said Quentin’s familiar voice. He sounded like he was scared out of his mind, which was only to be expected, given the circumstances. “Toby . . . the shadows that should be blurring the Luidaeg’s alley aren’t there. It’s like she dropped all her illusions.”

“She did,” I said. “Come on in. Make it quick, we’re not going to linger here long.”

“Okay,” he said, and hung up.

I lowered the phone. “Quentin’s here,” I said. “He says the normal defenses are down. I was sort of hoping he’d be smart and go straight for Arden instead of following instructions and coming here.”

Tybalt chuckled. There was an edge of strain to his voice, but it was fading; I had saved the Luidaeg without killing myself in the process. He could stop worrying about me for a few minutes, at least until he figured out how much blood I’d lost. As long as I didn’t try to stand up ever again, he’d never know. “He simply puts great stock in your ability to survive even the most ridiculous of situations. To be fair, you have yet to prove him wrong. Also to be fair, it is not as if seeking the assistance of the Queen is something you have encouraged him to do. It will take some time to adapt to the idea of the monarchy as an ally, not an enemy.”

“Whose side are you on, anyway?” I demanded peevishly. I recognized my own relief, spreading through me and trying to make me giddy. I pushed it aside—we weren’t out of the woods yet. We still didn’t know who had attacked the Luidaeg, or whether they were coming back. Raising my voice, I called, “We’re in the bedroom, Quentin. Did you crash the car?”

“I’m a better driver than that,” my squire protested, steps coming faster as he hurried down the hall to the open bedroom door. “Did you see the apartment? The place is trashed. Where’s—” He stepped inside and stopped, going statue-still as he took in the scene in front of him. Finally, quietly, he said, “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh,’” I agreed. “She was almost dead when we got here.” No need to tell him that “almost” was understating the case. “I managed to bring her back, but she’s still in pretty bad shape, and she’s not waking up. We need to move her someplace safe before whoever came here and did this to her realizes that they need to finish the job.”

Quentin blinked, sky-colored eyes widening. “You think they’d know?”

“Whoever this was knew when the Luidaeg answered one question she shouldn’t have answered,” I said grimly. “They’re going to know she’s not dead. We need to move her before they come back. The only question is where.”

“What of the Library?” asked Tybalt. “The place has its own defenses, and could no doubt protect her, if the lady Librarian was willing to let her inside.”

“I don’t think Mags would agree, and I don’t know that the Luidaeg could handle any of the available Roads, or that we’d be able to carry her,” I said. I hesitated before I continued, “Shadowed Hills is out—”

“For more reasons than I can list in a day,” said Tybalt.

“—and so is my mother’s tower. Whoever attacked the Luidaeg has Simon under a geas, and the tower recognizes him as family. He could just walk right in and take her.”

“Maybe Patrick and Dianda could let her stay with them?” asked Quentin. “She’s the sea witch. Unless her attacker was from the Undersea, she might be safe there.”

“I think there’s a better option,” I said, looking at Tybalt.

His eyes widened minutely and then narrowed again, turning considering. Finally, slowly, he said, “You do not understand the scope of what you are asking me.”

“Actually, I do,” I said. “That’s why I’m asking. A place where no one can go without permission, not even the Firstborn, because Oberon told them they weren’t allowed. A place we can reach and our enemies can’t. A safe place.”

“A place for things that have been lost,” said Tybalt slowly.

“Wait,” said Quentin, as the penny finally dropped. “Are you talking about taking her to the Court of Cats? She can’t hold her breath on the Shadow Roads if she’s unconscious!”

“So we move her to a place where the Court is closer to the surface.” I looked to Tybalt. “Will you do this?”

Silence. Then, finally: “Yes. But we must hurry.”

I smiled. I couldn’t help myself. “Okay, you two. Help me get her to the car.” Thankfully, when I stood, my legs agreed to support my weight, and my headache was a dull enough roar that I could walk without crying. I was messed up, but I would heal. Hopefully.

Tybalt seemed to know that something was wrong, but since he didn’t ask me directly, I didn’t have to answer him. It was relatively easy for the three of us working together to carry her down the junk-choked hallway to the gaping wound of the door, and out into the cool afternoon air. I carried her feet this time, while Tybalt held her head and arms and Quentin walked near her hip, helping to keep her body from knocking against anything. Once again, Tybalt walked backward, leading the way.

My car was parked to fill the mouth of the alley. I don’t think I’d ever been happier to see it, especially not after Quentin ran ahead, peered into the backseat, and called, “It’s clear.”

“Thank Maeve,” I said, and started toward the car.

As soon as my foot left the Luidaeg’s front step, there was a grinding, shifting sound from behind me, like rocks sliding into position. Tybalt stopped where he was, a nonplussed expression on his face.

“Well,” he said. “That’s one means of guaranteeing the security of your belongings.”

I glanced over my shoulder. The Luidaeg’s door was gone, replaced by an unbroken expanse of plain red brick. “I hope she can reopen that when it’s time to come home,” I said. “Now let’s move.”

Buckling a limp, unresponsive body into the backseat of my car was not something I’d rank among my favorite experiences, although it didn’t make the list of the worst things I’d ever done, either. With a lot of shoving, swearing, and prayer, we managed to fold her into the vehicle and secure her with a seat belt, thus hopefully guaranteeing that she wouldn’t fly out of a window in the event of an accident. I straightened up, swiping my sweat-dampened hair out of my eyes with one hand, and turned to Quentin.

“Keys, please,” I said.

“You’re going to make me ride in the backseat with the unconscious woman, aren’t you?” he grumbled, digging the keys out of his pocket and dropping them into my waiting palm.

“Got it in one,” I said. “We need to get the Lu—get her to our destination, and I need you free to focus on casting the best don’t-look-here spell you’ve ever put together in your life.”

“Promise you’ll at least turn the radio to something decent?”

“No,” I said. “Now get in the car.”

Quentin sulked theatrically as he climbed into the backseat. He might have seemed flippant to someone who didn’t know him, but I could tell how worried he was by the way he twisted in his seat as soon as his own belt was buckled, his eyes going to the Luidaeg’s face. She had been his friend for almost as long as I had, and their relationship had always been refreshingly straightforward, unlike the relationship I had with her. She always threatened to kill me like she meant it; when she threatened to kill him, it was like she was saying “I care.”

Then again, maybe she’d been threatening us both that way, and I’d just been too close to the situation to understand. I turned on the ignition, trying to push my own concerns to the back of my mind. She was going to be all right. I had saved her. I was a hero.

Speaking of heroism . . . “Quentin, do you know if Arden has the phones working yet?”

“They’re not stable,” he said. “April’s got them doing all kinds of weird stuff with wires and fast-growing vines, but it’s going to be a little while before they’re consistently accessible via phone. Why?”

“I need to know if May and Jazz have reached her safely and brought her up to speed. I also need to let her know that someone beat the holy hell out of the Luidaeg, and damn near killed her.” Had killed her, but that wasn’t something I wanted to advertise. Ever. If I could raise the dead, that was going to be my little secret, at least for now. “If I were Queen, I’d want to be informed if something powerful enough to mortally wound a Firstborn was loose on my lands. You know. Just because I’m nosy that way.” I scowled at the traffic around us. “Call May. I know her phone works in the Summerlands.”

I hated to delegate something as important as bringing the Queen in the Mists up to speed, but even after we put a don’t-look-here on the car, I was going to need to focus on traffic, or we were going to die. I always drive a little sloppily when I have a headache, and tempting as it might be to take the time to heal up after a serious injury, I couldn’t afford the delay. I’d been awake for more than a full day at this point. Exhaustion was going to hit me sooner or later, and it was going to hit me hard.

That didn’t mean I could stop. Not even for a second. Simon showing up in the Mists made everything personal. The Luidaeg being attacked made it urgent. Someone was going to pay for what had happened to her.

“Okay, I’ll call May,” said Quentin. “What do you want me to tell her?”

“Explain that the Luidaeg has been attacked, and that we’re taking her somewhere safe, but we can’t say where. Tell her I may not be available by phone for a while.” I paused before adding, “And tell her what we learned about Mom. Arden can confirm it if she says you’re full of shit.” Arden knew my mother had been married to Simon—she’d been shocked when she met me, because she couldn’t believe Mom would have a half-human child. So at least she’d be able to help May cope with that part. Everything else . . .

It was what it was.

While Quentin pulled out his phone and dialed, I glanced to Tybalt and asked, “Can you cast the first don’t-look-here? You’re better at them than I am.”

“Only because you refuse to practice,” he said, but raised his hands, sweeping them through the air in a grand gesture before saying, “My good lords and ladies, if you will attend to the stage, I would like to prepare you for an evening of wonders untold, and miracles such as the eye has never once beheld . . .” The smell of pennyroyal and musk rose and burst around us, perfuming the air inside the car. Quentin sneezed in the backseat.

I gave Tybalt a sidelong look, keeping most of my attention on the road. “What’s that from?”

“Something a friend of mine used to say before curtain on each night’s show.” He smiled, the expression visible in the tension of his cheek and the way his lip curled upward. “He would be pleased to know that his magic lives on in the spells and wastrel charms of this modern world.”

“May’s caught up, and she called you some things I don’t want to repeat,” said Quentin, poking his head up between the seats. “She said to tell you that Jazz is awake and feeling better, even though she’s still shaky, and that Arden has a really sweet guest room. We should go there for a vacation after all this is over.”

“The day I get a vacation is the day the world ends,” I said. “Still, you have done well, my squire, and as your reward, you may choose the radio station.”

Quentin made a noise of wordless satisfaction, leaning farther forward as he clicked on the radio dial. The sound of Canadian folk-rock filled the car. I strongly suspected he’d convinced April to mess with my radio reception, since we seemed to get more folk music than was strictly normal, but it made him so happy that I didn’t care that much. He pulled back into his seat, resuming his position next to the Luidaeg, and I drove on.

Quentin cast a don’t-look-here on top of Tybalt’s when we neared Golden Gate Park. It seemed like the safe thing to do.

The most common entrance to the Court of Cats appeared periodically in the alley next to the old Kabuki Theater. I don’t know why Tybalt chose that location—I would have expected something on Market, in the actual theater district—but it was isolated enough to be safe, and with two don’t-look-here spells shielding the car, I was able to drive right up to the mouth of the alley. I parked to block the sidewalk. A lot of people were going to find themselves jaywalking to the other side of the street without being able to explain why.

Once again, the three of us wrestled the Luidaeg’s unmoving body out of the backseat. As soon as she was clear of all obstructions, Tybalt swung her up into his arms, holding her in a perfect wedding carry. He looked down at her sleeping face, and then back to where Quentin and I stood in momentary silence.

“I will be back,” he said, and turned, carrying the Luidaeg into the alley like her weight meant nothing to him. I watched him walk away. Between one step and the next he was simply gone, taking the sea witch with him out of the world.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” asked Quentin quietly.

“No,” I said. “But it’s the only one we have right now. She needs to be safe. Tybalt will keep her safe.”

Quentin nodded. “Okay,” he said. He hesitated before saying, “I almost expected you to say that we should take her to Shadowed Hills. That’s where you always would have taken her before.”

“I know.”

Minutes slunk by like hours, and I had to fight with myself not to run into that alley and begin clawing at shadows until one of them opened and let me inside. Finally, Tybalt came walking back, empty-handed and wearing a shirt that looked almost exactly like his previous one, only minus the blood stains.

“She is safe,” he informed us gravely. “I have advised my people of what must be done, and she will not be left alone. Someone will always be with her.”

I bit my lip and nodded, unwilling to trust my voice. He smiled, very slightly, as he reached out and touched the side of my face.

“She wasn’t elf-shot, October; she’ll be awake and making your life miserable before you have a chance to properly miss her.”

“I know,” I said, and sniffled, fighting the urge to cry. “Let’s get the hell out of here. We still have way too much work to do.”

“If I may?” Tybalt leaned forward and tapped the collar of my shirt. I looked down at my bloody shirt, then back up again to him. “You need to change your clothing. Your house is five minutes’ drive from here. You will feel better if you’re not covered in someone else’s blood. I will feel better if you’re not covered in your own blood.”

“I’d just like it if no one was covered in blood for a little while,” said Quentin.

I paused before sighing and saying, “All right, I’ll give. Let’s go get me some clothing that can’t stand up on its own—and then it’s back to the Library, all right? Maybe we can still shake something out of the stacks. And if not, at least we’re somewhere safe while we figure out our new plan.”

“As my lady wishes.” Tybalt sketched an elaborate bow before stepping around the car and sliding back into the passenger seat. Quentin ran after him, and I actually smiled as I got behind the wheel. Clean clothes would be a blessing. Getting the Luidaeg’s blood off me would be even better.

Tybalt’s estimate wasn’t perfect: we pulled into the small covered garage next to the house about ten minutes after leaving the Court of Cats. Quentin was the first out of the car, as usual. What was unusual was the way he froze halfway down the path, shoulders going tense and back going ramrod straight. I was out of the car in an instant, hand going to my knife as I ran toward my squire and whatever threat had caused him to stop in mid-step. Tybalt was right behind me, and he would have been in front of me if the path had allowed him to pass without shoving me to the side.

Not Quentin, I thought fiercely. I couldn’t be sure of raising the dead twice in one day—I wasn’t even willing to count on doing it once under most circumstances—and I would throw myself in front of whatever bullet was coming for him before I allowed him to be harmed. It wasn’t just the whole “Crown Prince” thing; that was a relatively new development. He was my squire and my friend and he would not be harmed if I could prevent it.

I stumbled to a halt as I pulled up alongside him, blinking at the back porch. Tybalt was more decorous about his confusion; he strolled to a stop, rather than skidding like the rest of us, and frowned in bewilderment. Normally, I might have teased him for looking so openly baffled. This time, I couldn’t blame him.

The sight of Simon Torquill sitting on my steps with his arms full of roses was plenty confusing, after all. The fact that I was already able to tell him from his brother without thinking about it was worrisome to me, but that aspect of the situation was lost as I stared at the roses. He was holding at least fifty of them, long-stemmed and wrapped in a cone of tissue paper. Their petals were a dozen shades of blue and white, from the pristine shade of falling snow to the near-black color that lives at the heart of glaciers. Sprigs of a purple flower I distractedly identified as rosebay ringed the bouquet, protecting the roses from harm.

Simon stood, walking silently toward us. I shied back before I could think better of it, my shoulder bumping against Tybalt’s chest. I felt his sternum vibrating from the slow, rumbling force of his growl. It was comforting. This time, if Simon decided to raise a hand against me, it wouldn’t be me and one Raven-maid with a baseball bat against his transformation magic.

He stopped a respectful distance away from the three of us and held out his bouquet. When I didn’t move to take it, he cleared his throat and said, “I would be most grateful if you would accept this small token of apology for the trouble that I have caused to you and yours.”

“Aren’t those flowers from Duchess Torquill’s garden?” asked Quentin, narrow-eyed and wary. “It seems to me that giving someone a gift of stolen flowers sort of negates the apology.”

“Shadowed Hills is my brother’s land, and I have long had permission to walk its gardens and pick what I like from its soil,” said Simon. His eyes never left my face. “My brother has barred me from his halls, but his lady wife has not yet barred me from her grounds. I think she hopes to trap me, like a spider traps a fly. I will not risk her succeeding, and so I say again that I would be most grateful if you would accept this gift from me. I doubt I’ll be able to provide you with anything so lovely in the future.”

“Why are you here, Simon?” I asked. My voice sounded thin to my own ears, and if my shoulder hadn’t still been pressed to Tybalt’s chest, I doubt I could have stood my ground without shaking.

“To bring you this,” he said, holding out the flowers a bit more pleadingly. “They are yours. You have earned them, and they are the least that I can do.”

This close to the bouquet, I could feel the chill rolling off their petals, like they had brought a little slice of Luna’s private snowfall with them. “Roses and rosebay,” I said. The combination tickled at the back of my mind, sorting through options until it finally reached the inevitable conclusion. I froze, straightening as I stiffened. “Get off my property.”

Simon blinked. “What? But I—”

“Rosebay is a member of the same family as the oleander,” I snapped. “They both mean ‘danger’ or ‘beware’ when they show up in a bouquet, and given that my mother’s magic tastes of roses, it’s pretty hard not to read your little gift there as a threat against my mom. Get the hell out of my yard or I’m calling the Queen.”

“I always forget that Amandine took the time to train you,” said Simon. He sounded almost embarrassed, like he’d committed some unthinkable error in judgment. “I apologize, October; I assumed you did not speak the language of the flowers, and included the rosebay in hopes that someone around you might translate. It was not my intention to distress you more.”

“Perhaps you did not hear my lady when she bid you leave her grounds,” said Tybalt, speaking in the tightly clipped tone that meant his mouth had suddenly filled with fangs. He had better control over his feline nature than most Cait Sidhe, but I knew from experience that his control could—and would—slip when he felt that the things he loved were being threatened. “If you do not heed her, you will wish that I had left you to your brother’s tender mercies.”

“I intend no insult to your mother and would have used another flower for my bouquet had I not considered clarity to be more important than discretion.” Simon spoke hurriedly, like he was afraid of being chased away before he could get his message out. “I would never hurt Amandine. She is the only woman I have ever loved, and I was privileged beyond measure when she chose to be my wife. I am here to help you, not to hurt you. Please.”

“We do not need your help,” snarled Tybalt.

“Wait.” Once again, the sound of my voice surprised me. Was I really the one telling him to wait, rather than ordering him to rip Simon’s throat out with his teeth? It seemed that I was. I stepped forward, finally accepting the offered roses. The tissue paper was thick enough that I didn’t fear the thorns as I gathered them close and sniffed their cold perfume. It smelled like snow, like ice, and like the first stirrings of a storm, all overlaid with the sweet, familiar attar of rose. I looked up, meeting Simon’s yellow eyes, and asked, “Why did you bring me flowers?”

“There is so much I can’t say to you, October,” he said. “The best I can do is work within my limitations, and try to prepare you for what’s coming.”

I hesitated. He sounded so lost . . . “The Luidaeg was attacked.”

He started. I think that was the moment when I really started to believe that he was trying, however poorly, to help: he looked genuinely surprised, and more than a little bit afraid. “The sea witch? Is she . . . is she well?”

“She died.” That wasn’t the full truth, but it was close enough that I didn’t have to fake the grief in my voice, or the tremor in my hands as I considered the magnitude of what had happened to her—and what I’d done. The roses in my arms seemed to be getting colder, threatening to freeze me clean through. “She died alone in her apartment, bleeding out on the carpet with no one to save her.”

“That isn’t possible,” Simon said, staring at me. “I did not think . . . she can’t die. She’s the sea witch. She’ll outlive us all.”

“Firstborn are immortal, not unkillable,” I said. “Hard to kill, I’ll give you that, but wow did her attacker put in the effort.”

Simon closed his eyes. “Then I am too late already. You should have let me make of you a tree, October. I am very good at making trees, and you would have had a little time. You would have been stronger still by the time you won free of the soil. That might have been enough.”

“If you so much as whisper the first word of a transformation spell, I’ll have your larynx in my hand before the second word can form,” said Tybalt, with a chilling calm.

“I assure you, no further harm will come to her by my hand.” Simon opened his eyes and then, to my utter shock, he bowed to me. “Sir Daye, you have done your bloodline a great honor. Your words and deeds will be remembered long after mine have faded into simple villainy. You have no reason to trust a single word I say as truth, but please believe me when I say that I am sorry I did not get to know you better.”

“Uh, what?” I said.

“Good luck,” he replied, before turning and walking away into the garden.

Tybalt growled, starting to step past me. I put out my arm, blocking him. He shot me a startled, almost injured look.

“Don’t,” I said. “He didn’t threaten us. He even apologized, in his weird-ass Simon way. And he gave us something.” I looked down at my bouquet of ice-white, glacial-blue roses. “He gave us a riddle to solve.”

Tybalt didn’t look happy, and I couldn’t blame him, but he followed me as I unlocked the door and poked my head into the silent house.

May and Jazz were gone, of course, departed for Muir Woods in the back of Danny’s cab. It still felt strange to come home and know that no one was there to meet us. I’d worked a long time to build a place for myself—a place, and the family to go with it. Now Simon was back, and it felt like everything was at risk. I still didn’t know why he’d come here, or whether he’d left us any unwanted surprises. I turned, pressing my bouquet into the arms of my startled squire.

“Stay here,” I commanded him. “Tybalt, you’re with me.”

Tybalt nodded, understanding my concern immediately. Quentin followed us into the kitchen, still looking utterly confused, but he didn’t ask what was going on, and for the moment, that was good enough for me.

Side by side, Tybalt and I made our way from the kitchen to the hall. I gestured for him to check the living room while I started up the stairs, drawing my knife from my belt and holding it close to my hip. It wouldn’t do me any good if Simon had hidden a monster in the upstairs closet, but holding it helped focus me a little, and I needed all the help that I could get.

This is your fault, I thought. Quentin and Tybalt are in danger because of you. If you didn’t let them stay around, they wouldn’t be in harm’s way. This is on you.

The thought was unfair, and I pushed it aside almost as quickly as it formed. Maybe it was true, but if it weren’t for me, Tybalt would still be lonely, Quentin would still be trapped in the spiral of pureblood superiority, and May wouldn’t even exist. She’d be a night-haunt named “Mai,” scavenging for the bodies of Faerie’s dead, surfing from identity to identity without ever truly owning any of them. Jazz might have been safer if not for me, since it was her association with May that kept putting her in harm’s way, but I somehow doubted she’d see things that way.

The upstairs hall was dark. I didn’t turn the lights on, choosing instead to pause on the landing and sniff the air, looking for traces of blood or magic. I didn’t find any, and so I started moving again, checking the rooms one by one for signs of a struggle or a spell. Light footfalls behind me signaled Tybalt’s return, and I kept walking, feeling safer now that I knew I wasn’t alone.

The upstairs was clean. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, bringing up the entry for May. Still staring at her room, I raised it to my ear. Pick up, I thought. Come on, May, pick up. Just this once, do something because I want you to do it. Pick up the phone.

There was a click, and then May demanded, “Maeve’s tits, October, what is it now? Please tell me you didn’t do something you can’t actually bounce back from, because I am so not up for pulling your bacon out of the fire right now.”

I bit back a gale of completely inappropriate laughter. Oh, yeah, my nerves were fried. “Simon was on the back porch when we got home,” I said. “I’m sorry to wake you, but you needed to know that the house is officially off limits until we catch him.”

“I was already planning to stay at Queen Windermere’s Hotel and Day Spa for the foreseeable future, especially after Quentin’s cute little status update,” said May without pause. Then she took a whistling breath and said, “He was there? At our house? Again?”

“He was,” I said grimly. “Quentin brought you up to speed on the situation?” I was willing to let Simon go out into the world thinking that the Luidaeg was truly dead—it was better if we kept the knowledge of her survival close to our chests—but I wouldn’t do that to May.

“He did, and sweet Titania, that’s terrifying,” said May. “Are you safe?”

“I honestly don’t know,” I said. “I’m just really, really glad you’re in Muir Woods.”

May actually laughed. “What a difference a monarch makes, huh? Six months ago you’d have gone for elective facial piercings before you went to see the Queen, and now you’re happy to pawn me and Jazz off on her protection.”

“It’s amazing how quickly I can adapt to having someone on the throne who isn’t actively trying to get me killed,” I said. “Just stay safe, all right?”

“You know, I don’t like that the pattern has become ‘danger arises, get May the hell away from it,’” she said. “I want to help.”

I hesitated before saying, “Maybe you can. This geas—it’s on Simon and the Luidaeg, and the Luidaeg confirmed that the person who cast it is someone I know. We already know that whoever did it is still alive, or the geas wouldn’t be active. So who knows me, Simon, and the Luidaeg, and has the power to bind one of the Firstborn? I’ve been trying to figure it out all day, and I’m coming up empty.”

“Not quite empty,” said Tybalt, from behind me. “You still have to consider the possibility your mother is involved with this somehow.”

“He’s right,” said May wearily. “Tell kitty-boy I can hear him, and that he has a damn good point. Amandine is Firstborn, and she knows all three of the people who have to be checked off before someone makes the list. She’s been sort of cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs for a while now, so there’s an absolute chance that she could have done this.”

“Why?” I asked. “What would she have to gain? And how could she have hurt the Luidaeg the way she did? Mom’s not a fighter. She can mess with the balance of someone’s blood, and yeah, that hurts like hell, but there’s nothing in the Luidaeg for her to catch hold of.”

“Maybe she didn’t attack the Luidaeg,” said May. “Maybe she hired or compelled someone else to do it, or maybe this isn’t her at all. I’m just saying we can’t cross her off the list because she’s your mother. If anything, that puts her closer to this than almost anybody else.”

I ran one hand back through my hair, wincing as my fingers snagged on several poorly placed knots. “Right. So you and Jazz will stay where you are, and stay safe. I’ll take Tybalt and Quentin and go back to Mom’s tower. It looks like I need to verify, once and for all, whether she’s behind all of this.”

“And if she is?” asked May. “Because let’s face it, Toby, this is a pretty weak plan.”

“It’s what I’ve got.” I dropped my hand. “If Mom is there, I arrest her for compelling the kidnapping of Luna and Rayseline Torquill, and I take her before the Queen to be held accountable for her crimes.” Yes, I’d allowed Simon to walk away, even though he was the one who’d actually kidnapped them. I was going to be sorry about that later, I was sure. And yet the geas—which genuinely existed, since it also bound the Luidaeg, although I wasn’t sure why Mom would have needed to bind him—had left him with little choice about his actions. Under those circumstances, it made sense to bring the mastermind to justice first, find out how much free will the underlings really had, and take care of things in the proper order.

May laughed unsteadily. “Sounds like you’re going to have a fun night.”

“I always do,” I said. “Open roads.”

“Kind fires, and Toby . . . be careful.” She hung up, presumably to keep me from saying anything she didn’t want to hear. I could understand the sentiment.

I put my phone back in my pocket. “Wait here,” I said to Tybalt, before ducking into my room and yanking off my blood-crusted shirt, replacing it with a clean one. He was right: I did feel better with less blood on me. He smiled when I rejoined him in the hall, giving me an approving look. Together we walked downstairs and to the kitchen, where a clearly anxious Quentin was slapping together egg salad sandwiches with more force than strictly necessary. The roses from Simon were on the kitchen table. Patches of frost had begun to form around the bouquet, and some of the glacier-colored flowers looked like they were actually melting.

He whirled when he heard our footsteps. “Well?” he asked, gesturing toward us with his spoon, which was still full of egg salad. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s all good,” I said. “If Simon came into the house, he doesn’t seem to have touched or done anything.”

Quentin relaxed slightly. “Oh, thank Oberon. I don’t want to deal with magical booby traps in my own home.” He turned back to his sandwiches. “I didn’t like standing idle, so I figured I’d start putting together something for us to eat. We’ve been running hard with no food all day. That can’t continue forever.”

“See, October, the Crown Prince’s association with you has done him good after all,” said Tybalt. “It has taught him to force-feed his elders, as they cannot take care of themselves.”

“That’s going to serve him well.” My stomach growled, reminding me that Quentin was right: I hadn’t eaten since getting out of bed, and I hadn’t been in bed nearly long enough. I walked over and snagged a plate with one of the fully assembled sandwiches, carrying it with me as I crossed to the table and peered more closely at the roses. The chill coming off of them was enough to make me want to turn the heat up, but something told me that would just make them melt faster, and any message they might imply would be lost.

“Some of them are Duchess Torquill’s own creations,” said Quentin, as he went back to mechanically slapping sandwiches together. “Some were cultivars from the Snow Kingdoms, or from the deeper lands. People brought them along when all the doors were sealed.”

“Makes sense,” I said. That was how goblin fruit had been transported from the lands where it grew naturally into the mortal world. It was actually sort of nice to realize that we’d carried more than just deadly narcotics with us when we had to flee our ancestral homelands. “How long has Luna been growing this kind of rose?”

“As long as I’ve known her,” said Tybalt.

“It’s hard to grow roses from the Snow Kingdoms when it’s not always winter,” said Quentin. “They’re really delicate. There are a few in the palace gardens back home, and Maman refuses to let me or my sister near them, since she’s afraid we’ll offend the Snow Kingdoms by picking flowers and turning prize blossoms into snowmelt.”

“You mean like Simon has?” I asked. I stuck my finger into the water pooling around the bouquet. It was freezing cold. “Okay, so Simon mentioned the language of the flowers. Rosebay is a warning. White roses mean ‘I am worthy of you,’ which, fuck no, he isn’t. Even if he weren’t my stepfather. Blue roses mean . . .” I stopped, drawing a blank.

“Blue roses mean nothing, because they do not naturally occur in the mortal world, and the language of the flowers was borrowed, like so many other things, from humanity,” said Tybalt. “They are a flower without a definition.”

“Well, I’m just going to take a wild guess that roses made of ice are also outside the flower language, so . . . he gave me a bouquet that means both ‘warning’ and ‘nothing.’ What the hell, Simon?” I frowned at the flowers, taking another bite of my egg salad sandwich. There had to be something I was missing. Something—my eyes widened, and I swallowed my mouthful only half-chewed, to ask, “What if the point isn’t the message, but the contents of the bouquet?”

Tybalt frowned at me. “What do you mean?”

“He’s not saying ‘beware, I am worthy of you,’ or ‘beware, no definition found,’ he’s saying ‘beware’ and giving me roses made of ice. Winter roses.” I dropped the rest of my sandwich onto the table, whirling. “He’s telling us that whatever’s coming next, it’s going to happen at Evening’s old knowe. We need to get to Goldengreen.”

“Are you sure?” asked Quentin.

I snorted. “Kiddo, I’m not sure of anything right now, but I’m sure we don’t have time to waste standing around and arguing about it. Tybalt?”

“Yes?”

“Much as I hate to leave my car behind, it’ll be faster if we take the shadows. Can you . . . ?”

He smiled a little. “You know, every time you request this of me, I laugh on the inside.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, once upon a time I freaked out at the idea of the Shadow Roads, and now I treat them like a faster version of the Monorail at Disneyland. The question stands. Can you get us both there without hurting yourself?” Tybalt was a King of Cats, but that didn’t make him indestructible. He’d died twice in the past three years, and while he’d recovered both times—it turns out the old “cats have nine lives” myth got its start with the Cait Sidhe—that didn’t mean I wanted to overtax him and go for a third.

Tybalt thought for a moment before he nodded. “Goldengreen is a friendly territory. I have passed through its wards before. I am more than willing to undertake this journey.”

“Good.” I offered him my hand. “Quentin, come on. We’re heading for Goldengreen.”

“I like field trips,” he said, and grabbed my hand, and Tybalt pulled us both with him, into the shadows.

The Shadow Roads seemed a little less cold than usual, as if the lingering chill from my contact with Simon’s roses was keeping the normal freeze at bay. That didn’t make me any more likely to linger, especially not with my head still pounding and my legs still a little weak from blood loss. Tybalt ran and I ran with him, keeping a tight hold on Quentin’s hand. The last thing I wanted to do was explain to his parents that I’d allowed him to become lost on the Shadow Roads for all eternity. Not to mention the fact that I would genuinely miss the kid if something ever happened to him.

We ran, as always, until I felt like there was no way I could run any farther; my lungs were going to give out, my feet were going to freeze solid, and I was going to fall. Then Tybalt’s body gave a lurch, his hand very nearly ripping out of mine as he abruptly stopped moving. There was a moment of disorientation, during which I couldn’t have said which way was up, and then Tybalt was pulling, and we were tumbling out into the empty air—

—some twenty yards above the cold black waters of the Pacific Ocean. I scrabbled to keep hold of his hand, and Quentin’s, but it was no use; the wind ripped them away from me as we fell, and then I hit the water, and everything went black.