The Winter Long

“So she can control Sylvester because he’s her descendant, and she can control the people who are sworn to him through their fealty,” I said slowly. “Can she control me?”


“If you allowed her to, yes, but it would have to be your choice,” said the Luidaeg. “You’re too aware of her now. She’d have to work harder to have you, and if there’s one thing she can’t abide, it’s hard work.” She paused, appearing to finally realize that our little duo should have been at least a trio. Fear crept into her voice as she asked, “Toby, where’s Quentin?”

“I left him in the Court of Cats,” I said. “Even Evening is going to have trouble getting to him there. You would have seen him if you’d stuck around after you woke up.”

“My Court was sealed to my kind by Oberon himself, and none among the Daoine Sidhe holds fealty over any of the Cait Sidhe. He will be safe,” said Tybalt.

“He’ll be safe until she finds a Cait Sidhe of Erda’s line. Don’t discount the part Titania played in the making of your kind. My sister has the most control over her own descendants, but anyone she shares blood with is vulnerable, to a degree,” said the Luidaeg. Tybalt looked uncomfortable. She turned her attention to me. “You know my sister wants your squire.”

“I do,” I said grimly. Quentin was the Crown Prince of an entire continent. There was no way someone as interested in power as Evening apparently was could ignore the potential of a game piece like my squire. “But let’s get back to figuring out her limits. What about Dean? Or Etienne? Shouldn’t she have been able to control them?”

“Again, that would be harder for her,” said the Luidaeg. “Etienne is descended purely from Oberon, which makes him more resistant to my sister’s charms. If he felt he had something more important to defend, he’d be able to avoid her snares, at least for a time. As for Dean, he’s only half Daoine Sidhe, and his fealty is sworn to the Mists, which means Queen Windermere. She’s Tuatha de Dannan, like Etienne, so my sister has no openings there. Before that, he would have been sworn to his mother.”

“Who’s Merrow,” I said thoughtfully. “Got it. Blood makes him hers, but fealty doesn’t, and we’re back to hard work again. She’d have to want him enough to take him.”

“Exactly,” said the Luidaeg. “It’s much better if she can push her hard work off on someone else. She probably didn’t feel like she needed to make the effort for a half-breed son of a Merrow and a man who willingly gave up the chance at ever holding a position of his own. She’s always been . . . focused . . . when she truly wanted something.”

I looked at the Luidaeg, and then at the warm, homey kitchen around us, with the pot of chowder still bubbling on the stove. I’d never seen her look so domestic. It had to have come from somewhere. I hesitated, the question burning on my lips. She met my eyes and nodded marginally, giving me permission to ask what I needed to know.

“You told me once that one of your sisters betrayed you,” I said slowly. “That she was the one who put the knives into the hands of the people who would become the Selkies.”

“Yes, I said that,” said the Luidaeg.

“Was it Evening?”

Silence followed my question. That wash of black danced across the Luidaeg’s eyes again, crossing them so quickly that it was almost like she was blinking an eyelid made of nothing but darkness. Then, finally, she nodded.

“I loved my children. They loved me. They didn’t want power, or to be part of any noble court, or anything but each other, and me, and the open sea.” The Luidaeg leaned back in her chair, fixing her eyes on the ceiling. “I think that’s what condemned us in her eyes. We were too happy, and nothing happy could ever be genuine. Not to her. She thought we were pulling some elaborate ruse . . . or maybe she was just jealous. I don’t honestly know, and I’ve never been willing to ask her. I can’t raise a hand against the children of Titania, after all.”