The Winter Long

“Is Cait Sidhe. Quentin is a squire and a prince of the Divided Courts. His upbringing was a little more hardcore on ‘listen to your elders,’ and while I’m aware that I’ve done a lot to damage his early training, I think some of it is still in there.” I shrugged. “He’s not going to be happy. He’s going to give in.”


“You speak of ‘leaving the boys here’ and carrying on with your current quest, but I admit, October, I’m somewhat unclear as to what that quest is.” Tybalt leaned across the table to transfer half of his chicken onto my plate. I didn’t object. “Simon is in town, and this is troubling. Evening is returned from the dead, and was never dead to begin with. The Luidaeg is injured. We know these things are connected, and we know that they are terrible, but none of them provides a clear or immediate course of action. Running to the Queen in the Mists seems logical, except that it might draw our enemies to her, and while Evening is not her parent and original, she’s still no match for one of the Firstborn.”

“I know. We need to keep at least one place aside from the Court of Cats safe for our allies, and since we know Evening could eat Arden for breakfast, that means we need to keep Arden off of Evening’s radar for as long as possible.” I put a hand over my eyes, taking comfort in the temporary darkness. “I’m happier when I have a bad guy I can hit. Okay. Let’s look at this logically: both Simon and the Luidaeg were geased by Evening. We know that Evening was able to somehow know when the Luidaeg said something she wasn’t supposed to—she shouldn’t have been able to confirm that the geas had been cast by someone I knew. And when the Luidaeg broke the rules, Evening punished her for it.”

We both paused for a moment. I had no doubt that Tybalt’s thoughts were following the same dark path as mine, remembering the shattered condition of the Luidaeg’s apartment, and the condition she’d been in when we found her. The Luidaeg was one of the most powerful people we knew. The fact that Evening had been able to take her out was terrifying.

“Wait.” I dropped my hand, looking at him. “Evening is Titania’s daughter.”

Tybalt frowned. “Yes, and?”

“Raysel was able to make the Luidaeg stand down just by saying she was a descendant of Titania. The Luidaeg can’t raise her hand against Titania’s children. She’s said so before, and she can’t lie. That’s how Evening was able to beat the holy crap out of her without bleeding all over the place and leaving me a trail to follow. The Luidaeg didn’t fight back.”

Tybalt’s frown deepened. “If that’s true . . . someone must have bound her so. Someone who did not much care whether she lived or died, given what I’ve heard about the treatment of the children of Maeve by the children of Titania.”

“Yeah,” I said. My plate was somehow empty again, and my stomach was no longer screaming at me. I took that as a sign that I was ready to get up, and stood, grateful to find that I was right: my legs took my weight without protesting. My headache was barely a throb. “I’m thinking it was either Evening herself, or her mother. I can’t see Oberon doing that to one of his own kids. But it doesn’t really matter either way, I guess: the Luidaeg is bound, and she couldn’t fight back.”

“So our Evening is not only a liar, but a coward.” Tybalt shook his head as he stood. “Truly, it seems that I came into your life at precisely the correct moment.”

I blinked. “Okay, you’re going to have to take that one back a few steps for me.”