The Winter Long

THREE

THE WORLD SEEMED to slow down, turning crystalline around me. I automatically flipped the deadbolt as I finished closing the door, moving carefully and deliberately, like I was in a dream. Shutting myself in with my personal bogeyman wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done, but I didn’t think it would make a difference in the grand scheme of things. We weren’t both going to walk away from this. I was unarmed and effectively alone as long as the others were asleep—and I prayed they’d stay asleep. There was a chance Simon didn’t even know I had roommates. They’d be safe. Whatever he did to me, I just hoped it would be quick, and quiet enough that he wouldn’t wake anyone else before he left. I had no illusions about being able to defeat him. There was no way in the world Simon Torquill would have appeared on my doorstep if he didn’t feel like he somehow had the upper hand.

I turned to find him studying the hallway walls, his hands folded politely behind his back. His face was visible only in profile, still softened and humanized by the illusion plastered over it. I guess he didn’t dare release it. Most people couldn’t catch the taste of his magic just by walking past him, but any child of Faerie, however weak, would be able to smell the rot lurking inside him if they were standing nearby when he dropped the spell.

I’m not most people. I’ve always been incredibly sensitive to the scent of magic, and I knew exactly who he was.

He really did look exactly like Sylvester, even down to the design of his human disguise. It made sense: they were identical twins, after all. They had the same sharp jaw, the same fox-red hair and golden eyes. But where Sylvester’s eyes were kind, always ready to smile or forgive, this man’s eyes were hard. He’d seen things, done things that even a hero of Faerie should never be called upon to witness.

“You’ve done an excellent job with the place,” he said. “It’s more untidy than I would have expected, given your upbringing, but it’s still good to see someone living here. I assume you haven’t moved the kitchen?” He took off down the hall, moving with the proprietary speed of someone who knew exactly where he was and believed he had every right to be there. I followed him, trying to swallow the dust-dry feeling in my throat as I scanned everything around me, looking for things I could use as a weapon if necessary.

If necessary. Ha. As if there was any chance weapons weren’t going to be necessary. I was alone in my hall with Simon Torquill, the man who’d turned me into a fish for fourteen years. I’d been lucky to survive our last encounter. Here and now, even changed as I was by the things I had experienced since then . . .

I couldn’t win this. I didn’t have the power.

Simon stepped through the swinging door to the kitchen, which swung shut behind him, briefly blocking his view of the hall. That was my chance to run, either for the front door or for the stairs, where I could grab my phone and call for help. But that would put May, Jazz, and Quentin in more danger. Even if I screamed for them to get out of the house now, they’d never go if they thought I was in trouble, and they’d be risking themselves for nothing. Simon could cast a spell before anyone would be able to reach me. I knew that from bitter experience, even if I didn’t know why he was there.

I stepped into the kitchen.

“Ah, good,” said Simon, who was putting a kettle on the stove. “I found your tea, but is there honey? I wasn’t sure.”

“Look in the basket next to the toaster,” I said. It was too domestic and peaceful to be real. I glanced around, hoping for a second that I’d see Karen, the oneiromancer daughter of my friend Stacy, come to help me through my nightmare. There was no one there but Simon and me. I was awake, Oberon save and keep me.

“There it is. Very good.” Simon held up two mugs. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

“No, that’s okay.” I dug my nails into my palms, fighting the urge to grab a knife from the dish drainer and start screaming for him to get out of my house. “I’m not a tea drinker. I keep it around for company.”

“Oh, yes. You’re more of a coffee girl, if I remember correctly.”

I opened my mouth to say that no, I wasn’t even drinking much coffee these days, and paused, eyeing him. “You’re not even trying, are you?”

“Excuse me?” Simon turned to face me. He had a squeeze bottle of honey in one hand. It was shaped like a bear. Somehow, that struck me as unutterably hysterical.

“I said, you’re not even trying. You haven’t done anything to make me believe that you’re Sylvester. You can drop the illusion, Simon. I know who you are.”

He blinked, disappointment flashing in his eyes. “I never claimed to be my brother, you know,” he said. “I actually thought you were inviting me inside.”

“I’d kiss the Luidaeg before I’d do that.”

“And she’d let you, assuming the stories are true.”

“What stories?” I asked, unable to stop myself.

“The ones that say you’ve finally decided to start finding allies, learn your place in this world, and grow into your potential.” Simon dropped a teabag into his cup before taking the kettle off the stove and pouring water over it. There hadn’t been time for the water to boil—the stove wasn’t even on—but it came out hot and steaming all the same. “It’s been a great relief. I’d been worried that you were going to break your mother’s heart.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Don’t talk about my mother. You don’t have any right to talk about her.”

“October, believe me. If anyone is allowed to talk about Amandine, it’s me.” He added a generous amount of honey to his tea, releasing the illusion that had made him look human at the same time. The smell of smoke and rotten oranges filled the room. The change did nothing to make him look less like his brother. Raising an eyebrow, he asked, “Well? Will you do me the same courtesy?”

“I don’t want to do anything for you,” I said, through gritted teeth. I released my illusion all the same. It was a small thing, and antagonizing him wasn’t going to do me any good.

For a moment—less than a second, but long enough for me to see—his expression changed, arrogance and calculating coldness turning into something that looked almost like longing. The moment passed as quickly as it had come, and he nodded. “Yes, this is much more what you should have been from the start. I’m sorry, my dear, but Amy did you no favors when she spun the balance of your blood from gold into straw on the wheel of her powers. It seems you’ve done better for yourself, now that you’ve taken the spindle in your own two hands.”

“You know, as metaphors go, you probably couldn’t have chosen a much creepier one.”

“Sometimes ‘accuracy’ and ‘creepiness’ go hand in hand.” Simon sipped his tea, made a face, and added more honey. “You’re surprisingly calm. From the reports I’d heard, I expected you to attack me as soon as you realized who I was.”

“I’ve learned some self-control,” I said. “I can’t beat you. I know that.”

“So you’re giving up in the face of a greater adversary?”

When he put it like that, it stung. That didn’t make it the wrong decision. “You haven’t attacked me yet. I figured I’d wait for you to make the first move.”

Simon sighed. Then, slowly, he put his tea and the bear-shaped bottle of honey down on the counter, seeming to stretch the action out so that it took longer than was strictly necessary. Finally, he turned back to me, spread his hands, and said, “I am not the enemy you think I am.”

I stared at him. “What?”

“I know you’ve painted me as some great bogeyman, some terrible threat, but—”

“You kidnapped your brother’s wife and daughter, you stranded them in a realm of eternal darkness that drove Rayseline out of her mind, and you turned me into a fish.” I didn’t mean to argue with him. The words came out anyway, dragged forth by years of anger and fear. “You laughed. You turned me into a fish and you left me there to die. How dare you tell me that you’re not the enemy I think you are? You are exactly the enemy that I think you are.”

“It’s true. I did those things. But, October, if you’d just listen to me—”

“What do you want, Simon? What are you doing here? I didn’t invite you here. I never wanted anything to do with you. Now tell me what you’re trying to accomplish, or get out.”

“October.” His tone was chiding, the sort of voice you’d use for a wayward child or an unruly pet. “Is that any way to treat a guest?”

“You’re not my guest!” My temper finally snapped. I lunged for the dish drainer, fumbling for the knives.

Simon’s stasis spell caught me before I was halfway there. I froze, arm outstretched, one foot off the ground. Gravity no longer seemed to be a factor. The smell of smoke and rotten oranges was heavy in the confined kitchen air.

“I’d hoped we could do this in a more civilized manner,” said Simon. I heard the faint clink of his mug against the counter as he picked up his tea, followed by footsteps as he walked around me. He stopped where I could see him. “You are your mother’s daughter. I mean that in the best way and the worst way at the same time. She always inspired contradictions.”

Held by his magic, all I could do was glare, and rage silently against the horrible symmetry of his intrusion. The last time my life had seemed to mean something, Simon Torquill had come and taken it all away from me. It made perfect, horrible sense that he would do it again.

“I never wanted you to hate me, October. Far from it. I wanted to be . . . I wanted to be a part of your life, but I was never given the chance. That’s why I did what I did. That’s why I saved you.”

Wait, what?

He must have seen the question in my eyes. Simon sighed, and said, “Forgive me. I didn’t think about what fourteen years would do to your mortal life, because I never had a mortal life to lose. I honestly didn’t think you’d remain enchanted so long, either. Amandine’s work went deeper than I realized. But you won yourself free, in the end, and—” He stopped, mouth working wordlessly, like something was preventing whatever he wanted to say from getting through. The smell of smoke grew stronger.

For a second, it felt like the bonds holding me suspended in the air were slipping. I tried to move, and they snapped tight again. Simon raised a chiding finger.

“Please don’t fight. I don’t want either of us getting hurt.” He shook his head. “It seems my geas is still intact, despite its not having been renewed in years. I cannot speak the name of my employer. Let me say, instead, that I was paid to do what I did. I was promised something I could not resist, and I was instructed to steal my brother’s wife and child. They were to be returned as soon as . . . my employer’s . . . goals had been met. I didn’t know those goals included your death. I swear, on the root and the branch, I didn’t know. Even if I’d been willing to kill you, I wouldn’t have been able to meet your mother’s eyes after I had slain her child.”

He reached for my face, hesitating for only an instant before completing the motion. His fingertips caressed my cheek, and the spell that held me wouldn’t even allow me to shudder.

Simon looked at me, eyes pleading, and said, “I transformed you to save you, and then I ran. I had no way of knowing I’d be branded a traitor by the one who had set all these things in motion or that, in my absence, Luna and Rayseline would remain captive. I swear. On your mother’s name, on my sister’s grave, I swear it.”

It was strange, but I almost believed him. He sounded so earnest, and so sad . . . and that did nothing to change the fact that I was held suspended in a stasis spell in my own kitchen, and that I couldn’t stop him from touching me.

He took a deep breath. “October—” he began. He never had the opportunity to finish.

“Hey, fucko!” Jasmine’s shout was loud enough to wake the dead. It would almost certainly wake anyone else in the house who was still asleep. I guess there’s something to be said for having someone naturally diurnal around. She charged into the kitchen and into my field of vision, my old friend the aluminum baseball bat clutched firmly in her hands. She had it raised like she was going to hit a home run, using Simon’s skull as the ball.

Simon turned toward her, raking the fingers of his free hand through the air. The smell of smoke and rotting oranges rose around him in an instant, thick and cloying. Jazz made a sound that was half human, half challenging raven, and swung her bat. Simon swept his hand down, pointing at her, and said a word that was less language and more the sound of water on rocks.

Jazz screamed as she fell. I could live to be older than Oberon himself, and I would never be able to forget that sound.

The echoes of Jazz’s scream were still ringing in my ears when Simon turned back to me, eyes blazing with a strange combination of fury and sorrow. “I didn’t want it to happen like this,” he said, and followed the statement with another of those horrible, misshapen words. The smell of rotting oranges grew stronger, all but obscuring the smell of smoke.

I don’t know what I did. I don’t think I could have done it if I’d understood what needed to be done; I wouldn’t have known where to begin. But I was angry, and I was scared, and when he flung his spell at me, I reacted on instinct alone. The stasis spell was an inconvenience, and so I pushed it aside as I snatched the shape of his magic out of the air and flung it back at him as hard as I could.

The spell burned my hands, and I fell as soon as the stasis broke, hitting the kitchen floor in a heap. Somehow, that didn’t matter. Simon screamed, a shrill, agonized sound, and turned, running for the hall. There was something wrong with the way he was moving, but that wasn’t my concern; not right here, not right now. All my attention was reserved for Jazz, who was crumpled in a heap on the floor, her hands webbed together and covered in shining scales, her face mercifully concealed by her hair.

She wasn’t breathing.

“Oh, sweet Maeve, no.” I scrambled to her side and rolled her onto her back, trying not to look at the twisted outline of what had been her face. The raw pink slashes of newly formed gills scarred her neck, lying flat and unmoving against the skin. I didn’t know where to start looking for a pulse, and so I didn’t bother to try; I just braced my hands on her chest and shoved downward, calling on what little I remembered of CPR as I tried to force her to respond. “Come on, Jazz, come on! You’re not allowed to die on me!”

She didn’t respond. I heard the front door slam. I kept doing chest compressions; I couldn’t think of anything else to do. There was a scuffing sound from the direction of the hall. I turned, hands still moving, to see May standing frozen in the kitchen doorway.

“Toby . . . ?” she said.

“Simon was here I thought it was Sylvester but it was Simon and he put me in a stasis spell only Jazz came in and he hit her I don’t know what he hit her with I think it was a transformation spell I broke the stasis but I wasn’t fast enough and now she won’t wake up!” The words tumbled out in a rush, undisciplined and wild.

May stared at me for a split-second. Then, pulling herself together with an almost visible force of will, she walked over to kneel by Jasmine’s side, sliding her hands beneath mine and taking over the chest compressions before I could tell her not to. “You said you broke Simon’s spell. How did you do that?”

“I . . . I don’t know.” It had just happened, too fast for me to really pay attention to anything beyond survival. “I just reacted. He was throwing another spell at me, and I knew I couldn’t let it hit me. I wouldn’t be able to help Jazz if he knocked me out or turned me into something.”

“Instinct is a wonderful thing. It doesn’t care about the lies our parents told us, or the ones we tell ourselves.” May kept working. Her voice was unbearably calm; she sounded like an undertaker’s assistant preparing for the biggest job of her career. “We don’t have much time. Close your eyes, and listen to me.”

“May—”

“Oberon’s balls, Toby, close your eyes and listen to me.” The facade of calm broke on her last words, showing a vein of raw, terrified need beneath it. “She’s not breathing, okay? But she’s not dead. I know dead, and she’s not there yet. You can save her, but only if you listen. Only if you do exactly what I say. Please.”

I gaped at her, and then closed my eyes, too dumbfounded to argue. I felt May pull her hands away as she stopped the chest compressions, and then her fingers closed around mine, pressing them to Jazz’s torso, so tight that they almost hurt.

“What does Simon’s magic look like?”

“It doesn’t look like anything. It’s magic. Magic is invisible. But it smells like smoke and rotten oranges.” Traces of it were still hanging in the kitchen air, turning it foul and horrible.

“That’s just the surface. Look closer. What do you see?”

I frowned, brows knotting together, and tried to concentrate on her question, rather than the deadly stillness of Jazz’s chest beneath my hands. Magic doesn’t look like anything, unless it’s the glitter of pixie dust or the wispy smoke that sometimes follows the Djinn. Magic is intangible, smells and sounds and flavors on the wind. Nothing that lasts. Nothing that makes a mark on the world around it. Simon’s magic was smoke and oranges, and it lingered in the throat like a bruise, but it was still transitory, just like everyone else’s.

“Try harder,” May said sharply.

Right. I screwed my eyes more tightly shut, trying to think. What does magic look like? What would Simon’s magic look like? The smell of it was horrible and rancid; it would have to look a lot like that, all slimy lines and angles—but sharp ones, precise and exact. He might be a bastard, but he was never sloppy. Gray-and-orange lines, twisted together into a tight, complicated net of knots and hidden snares that would catch you if you weren’t careful. The more I considered it, the more it seemed like I could see it, wrapped around the body under my fingers, pulsing with a sluggish, sickly light.

Sounding distant now, May said, “You see it.” It wasn’t a question.

I nodded slowly. The lines of it were getting brighter as I focused on them. “It’s like a web,” I said.

“Where’s the weak spot, Toby? Every web has a weak spot.”

That was easy. “Over the heart.”

“Good.” She shifted my hands to the side, pressing them over Jazz’s heart. “You can see the weak spot, Toby. Now break it.”

“What? May, I can’t—”

“Break it.”

There was no arguing with her tone. Wincing, I hunched down, and focused on the lines. I still wasn’t certain they were real, but they were brighter now, either because I was closer to them, or because I was achieving a state of serious delusion. The smell of my own magic was starting to rise around me, summoned by my tension. Oddly, the copper and cut grass smell of it just brought the lines into even clearer focus, making it harder to dismiss them as a fiction.

“Let go,” I said.

May pulled her hands away.

Moving my fingers with careful deliberation, I slid them under the network of lines, hooking them into two of the knots. My head began to throb, the pain beginning at my temples and then radiating outward. The web lifted up with little resistance, almost clinging to my hands. I tugged until it was a few inches off Jazz’s body, and then pulled as hard as I could, forcing the strands apart until they reached their bearing limit. The throbbing in my head got worse as the smell of smoke, mixed with copper, sizzled in the air around us.

The net snapped with a backlash that was only half physical, but which sent me tumbling backward, smacking my head hard against the kitchen floor. I groaned, as much from surprise as from pain, and lay still for a few seconds before pushing myself upright again, expecting to see May flung sobbing across her girlfriend’s body.

I saw no such thing. May had pulled Jazz’s head into her lap and was stroking the other woman’s hair. She was crying, yes, but they were relieved tears; the smile on her face made that as plain as day.

“Jazz?” I asked. The pain from my head’s introduction to the floor was fading. The pain from breaking Simon’s spell wasn’t. It was almost a relief to have my limits so clearly delineated.

“She’s going to be okay,” said May. She looked up, smiling brilliantly. “If you can move, come over here.”

If I could move? That didn’t sound encouraging. I moved my fingers carefully, and found they still responded to my commands. If anyone noticed that I had a headache—something I tend to telegraph by wincing a lot—I could blame it on my impact with the kitchen floor. Blunt force trauma excuses a lot of things. I got onto my hands and knees and crawled over to them.

Jazz remained supine on the floor, eyes closed . . . but they were normal eyes, set in a normal face. What little I’d seen of her before I ripped the net away told me that this was a great improvement. I glanced downward. Thin red scabs ringed her neck, but the gills were gone. Her chest was moving normally, rising and falling in slow, shallow hitches as she breathed.

“She’s alive?” I whispered.

“She’s going to be fine,” said May, still smiling through her tears. “All you had to do was listen to me.”

“But . . .” I pushed myself into a standing position, reeling a little as my head throbbed in time with the motion. “I don’t even know what I did.”

“You know the trick with the dresses? The one where we’d take something the false Queen had transformed, and then you’d pull on the spell until it turned into something else?”

I nodded. I quickly regretted the motion.

May didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes were back on her girlfriend’s face. She was looking at Jazz like she was some sort of miracle. Considering what had just happened, maybe she was. “You finally figured out how to unravel fresh spells the same way you reweave them. That’s what you did. That’s what you did for me.”

“. . . oh,” I said. I didn’t really understand, but I wasn’t sure that mattered. Jazz wasn’t going to die, and she wasn’t going to spend the next fourteen years of her life living in a fishpond. Those were the important things.

“Thank you,” whispered May.

Those words—those forbidden words—were enough to finally shock me out of my shock. I straightened. “I need to go,” I said.

“Go? Go where?”

“Sylvester. He has to be told that Simon is back. He has to . . . I have to go.”

“Wouldn’t it be faster to, you know, call him?”

Yes: yes, it would have been faster. But I needed to see him. When I tried to picture Sylvester’s face, I kept seeing Simon’s instead, with those cold, hooded eyes staring at me, daring me to challenge him. I needed to see my liege. I needed to tell him what had happened, and let him put his arms around me and tell me that he would keep me safe this time. Even if it was a lie, it was a lie I needed.

So I told a lie of my own. “They’re identical twins, May. He may have gotten into Shadowed Hills already; who would stop him?” I shook my head. “I need to go to Shadowed Hills. I can’t know I’m actually speaking to Sylvester unless I can taste his magic.”

“At least take Quentin with you. He’s your squire.”

I started to take a breath to argue, paused, and tried pleading instead. “Jazz can’t be moved yet. You’ll need help if Simon comes back.”

“I’ll call Danny.” May shook her head. “Take him. I get that you don’t want to leave us alone, and I get that you don’t want to put Quentin in danger, but you’re forgetting that I remember what Simon did to you. I remember it like he did it to me. I can’t let you go alone.”

I paused a second time. May and I mostly tried not to talk about our shared memories these days. It was too confusing, for both of us. But she knew better than anyone else in the world what Simon had done. She’d gone through it, too, in her way. “If he’s awake, I’ll consider it,” I said finally. “Now, I’m going to get some clothes, grab my weapons, and ward the crap out of this place. Stay inside. Don’t answer the door for anybody. Do you understand me?”

“I do,” she said. “Toby . . .”

“Don’t tell me to be careful. We both know that’s not going to happen.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you to be careful.” Her eyes narrowed, mouth twisting in a vengeful line. “I was going to tell you to get the bastard who hurt my girlfriend.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” I said. “I will.” Maybe it was foolish of me to make promises I couldn’t be sure of keeping, but Simon Torquill had done more than enough to earn whatever he had coming to him. He’d come into my home; he’d hurt my family. He’d gone too far, and this time, finally, he was going to pay for everything he’d done.