The Winter Long

“And now here we are,” I said. “What can you do for me, Simon? You’re still bound, you’re still hers, for all I know, you’re leading her here—so what can you do for me?”


He stopped stroking Spike, but left his hand where it was, resting on the rose goblin’s thorny back. “I can bleed,” he said quietly. “I can let you see.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling my eyes go wide and round with surprise. “Yeah. I guess that is something you can do.”

And here I’d been so pleased to be wearing something that wasn’t covered in blood.





NINETEEN


MOST MAGIC FALLS into one of three schools. Flower magic—illusions and wards—is inherited primarily through Titania. Water magic—transformation and healing—comes from Maeve. Blood magic, the magic of memory and theft, comes from Oberon. There’s crossover, but as a rule, no race will be strong in a school that isn’t somehow connected to their First. As a descendant of Titania and Oberon, Simon had access to flower and blood magic. As a descendant of Oberon, and Oberon alone, all I had was blood . . . but I was very, very good at using it.

“Are you sure?” I hated to ask. I wanted to grab him and bleed him dry, drinking any scrap of information he might have—but the line between me and the monsters was thin enough as it was. If I started taking instead of waiting for things to be freely given, I would cross that line. I needed his consent to be absolute. “Once this starts, I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull back. I’ve never drunk directly from a living person for the purpose of riding their blood. It could go anywhere.”

Simon nodded. “Yes. I understand what you can do, perhaps better than you do at this stage in your development. I give my full permission, and I will not stop you from learning the things you need to know. It’s not like I could stop you anyway, once we’ve started. Words can lie. People can lie. Blood never can.”

That was about as good as it could possibly get. I cast a nervous glance toward Tybalt as I walked across the living room and sat down on the couch next to Simon. Spike raised its head, making an inquiring chirping noise. I stroked its thorny ears. “It’s probably going to hurt.”

To my surprise, Simon smiled. “No, it won’t. There’s nothing in my blood for you to change; I am Daoine Sidhe to the core. My blood won’t fight you.”

That was new information. “Good to know,” I said faintly, and drew my knife. “Give me your hand.”

“No need.” He pressed his palm flat against Spike’s back, not hard enough to hurt the rose goblin, but hard enough to break Simon’s skin in half a dozen places. The smell of blood flooded the room, and saliva flooded my mouth in a Pavlovian response that I really didn’t want to think about. The sight of blood still freaked me out, but the smell of it promised answers: something I almost always needed.

Simon held his palm out toward me. The blood from the scratches was leaking out onto his skin, turning it an enticing red. I glanced to Tybalt. He nodded once, not moving from his position by the wall. Whatever came next, he would be here for it.

That helped a little. I reached out and took Simon’s bleeding hand in both of mine, trying to ignore the way my stomach lurched.

“This may take me a moment,” I cautioned.

“Take all the time you need,” he said.

There was nothing I could say at this point to change what was about to happen, and so I brought my lips to his palm, and closed my eyes, and drank.

—believe she’s really willing—

—looks so much like her mother—

—doesn’t look like her mother at all—