The Winter Long

TWENTY-THREE

WE 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.