The Winter Long

“He’s here,” I said, lowering my hand and starting for the kitchen door. “I guess we’re really doing this.”


“I suppose we are,” said Tybalt. He looked unhappy as he paced along beside me. I couldn’t really blame him.

“If it looks like he’s going to turn me into a fish again, you can gut him, okay?” I flashed a humorless smile. “As long as no one ever finds the body, there’s no reason for anybody to know that we broke Oberon’s Law.”

“I am not sure whether I find this new viciousness enticing or terrifying,” muttered Tybalt.

“Oh, trust me, sweetie: where Simon is concerned, this is nothing new.” I pushed open the door, sniffing again as I stepped into the hall. The smell of Simon’s magic was coming from the living room. I walked to the doorway and stopped, blinking at the sight of Simon Torquill sitting on my couch with Spike curled in his lap. He was running his hand down my rose goblin’s thorny back, stroking with the grain rather than against it, and looked as if he’d been there for quite some time.

I must have made some small noise when I arrived in the doorway, because Simon looked up, eyes tired, and said, “I fed your feline companions, as well as this thorny fellow here. They were most insistent, and I thought you might appreciate it.”

“I appreciate your concern,” I said. I couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of my voice. “Why didn’t you tell me Evening was alive?”

“I couldn’t, could I? The geas under which I operate left me very little leeway for the telling of wild tales—and why should you have believed me? I, who should have been your father, and was your enemy instead.” Simon chuckled. For some reason, it didn’t sound mocking: it was more self-loathing, the laughter of a man who had looked upon his life and found very little to be proud of. “I did my best. I told you what I could, and prayed you would be smart enough to know what I’d been forbidden to say. It worked, to a point. You went to Goldengreen.”

I blinked. “You knew that?”

“I saw you fall.” There was no laughter this time. Just deep, crystalline sorrow. “You appeared in midair and dropped like stones, like you’d been slapped aside by the hand of Oberon himself. There was nothing I could have done.”

“That explains your regret, coward,” snapped Tybalt. “How could you have gone to your lady wife and reported that you’d watched another daughter die?”

“August isn’t dead,” snapped Simon. Tybalt and I both went still, watching him like we might watch a venomous snake. Simon blinked at us, looking surprised by his own outburst. Then he looked away. “My . . . my apologies. It’s a sensitive subject.”

“So sensitive you never mentioned it, even as you were turning your stepchild into a fish,” said Tybalt.

“Much as I’m sure we all need the group therapy session, this isn’t the time,” I said. “Simon, what are you doing here? You’re not my friend. You’re not even my ally. Why are you in my house?”

“I knew the fall wouldn’t kill you. I once saw your mother’s throat cut so deeply that you could look at the bones of her spine. They were delicate, like coral, and washed with red.” Simon kept stroking Spike. “An hour later she was laughing and asking when I would buy her a new gown to replace the one she’d ruined. You’re not her equal—none of us are the equal to our First—but I thought you might have enough of her in you to let you make a miraculous return. I was right. As for your cat . . .” He shrugged. “I suppose some old wives’ tales must be true, or else the old wives would stop telling them.”