The Winter Long

We walked down a short hallway to a half-open door. Bridget pushed it the rest of the way open, motioning for me to go inside. “You can change here,” she said. “Bring your wet clothes out with you, and I’ll get them on the rack to dry.”


“Okay,” I said. I closed the door behind myself, leaving Bridget in the hall.

The room contained a large, perfectly made bed, a wardrobe, a desk loaded to the point that I worried about its structural integrity, and several bookshelves that made the desk look empty. More books were stacked on the bedside table. The one on the top of the pile was called A Field Guide to the Little People. I blinked, unsure whether I should be insulted or amused. This was clearly Etienne and Bridget’s room; she couldn’t be blamed for her reading material. Most of it was probably for class, and it was a good thing if she was teaching her students some things that weren’t quite true. The last thing we needed was a bunch of overenthusiastic human college students showing up and asking to meet the local Fairy Queen.

It only took a few minutes to swap my wet shirt and jacket for the dry sweater, remove my wet shoes and socks, and wipe my feet dry enough to let me pull the new socks on. Putting my wet shoes back on over them sort of canceled most of the benefit, but I’d take whatever I could get at this stage in the game.

Bridget was gone when I emerged back into the hall; instead, Quentin was waiting for me, his hands shoved down into his pockets and a distressed look on his face. “What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t like you going to see the Duchess by yourself,” he said.

“Neither does Tybalt, I bet, so why are you the one telling me this?”

He shrugged. “Because he doesn’t like the Torquills much these days—not like he used to—and he thought you’d be a little bit more likely to listen if it was coming from me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “How much more likely are we talking here?”

Quentin raised his hand, holding his thumb and forefinger about half an inch apart.

“That may be a small exaggeration,” I said, and started walking back down the hall to the kitchen. “I am going to go and talk to Luna because with Mom being . . . well, Mom, and the Luidaeg out of commission, Luna is the person most likely to be able to tell me more about Evening. Assuming she is who I think she is.”

“And what if she is?” demanded Quentin. There was an anguished note in his voice that actually made me stop and blink at him. He shook his head, repeating, “What if she is? What if she’s the mother of my kind, October? Do you honestly think I can stand against her? That I can side with you against the Firstborn of my entire race?”

“I don’t know,” I said quietly. “My mother is the Firstborn of my entire race, and I do pretty good standing against her, but my situation isn’t the same as yours. I guess that if I’m right, we’re going to find out whether or not you can be on my side when I’m going up against the root of your tree. But either way, you’ll still be one of my best friends, and I’ll still love you. So don’t worry about it too much.”

“Okay, Toby,” he said, with a smile wobbling at the corners of his mouth.

“Besides, you know that if it comes to that, I’ll go easy on you.” I ruffled his hair before resuming my walk down the hall, leaving him to chase after me. It seemed like the only reasonable way to end the conversation. Because if I was being completely honest . . .

There are a lot of Daoine Sidhe in power in the Westlands, from High King Sollys on down. If Evening was the Daoine Sidhe Firstborn, and her descendants couldn’t bring themselves to stand against her, I was in a lot of trouble.





SEVENTEEN