The Winter Long

As soon as my fingers touched the metal of the gate it began to chime, quietly at first, but louder and faster with each passing second, until it was like I was standing in a forest of wind chimes. I yanked my hand back like I’d been burned. The chiming continued.

Then, with a final loud chord, the chiming stopped, the handle turned, and the gate swung open to reveal a tall, redheaded Daoine Sidhe in breeches and a sleeping shirt, squinting slightly in the twilight of the garden. An empty bed was partially visible behind him. I stepped forward and breathed in, catching the reassuring scent of daffodils and dogwood flowers. Only then did I allow my shoulders to unlock. I tried to settle my expression as I let out my hastily taken breath and bowed.

“Good day, my liege,” I said. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but it was genuinely important.”

“October?” He sounded confused, and when I straightened, I saw that he looked even more so. Then the confusion passed, replaced by growing wakefulness, and worry. “Of course you wouldn’t disturb me if it wasn’t genuinely important. Is someone hurt?”

I thought of Jazz. “Someone was, but I fixed it,” I said. “Sylvester . . .”

He raised a hand, cutting me off before I could finish the sentence. The worry in his expression deepened, turning slowly into a deep, burning fury. “I can smell him on you,” he said, voice honed to a razor’s edge. It could have drawn blood. “I should have known that if he ever came back here, he would come for you first.”

“My liege?” I said, reeling a little. When Oleander had come back, I hadn’t been able to convince anyone she was in the Kingdom. She’d managed to halfway convince me that I was losing my mind. It seemed almost perverse for things to be so much easier this time.

Then again, I had been throwing Simon’s spells around like they were softballs. It made sense that some of the stink of him might have clung to me, and if anyone was sensitive to the smell of the man’s magic, it was his twin brother.

Sylvester turned his cold, furious face toward me. I quailed, and he blinked, looking briefly surprised before his fury melted into resignation. “I’m sorry, October. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just . . . I didn’t think he’d really come back. Not like this. I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me for not being there?”

“You had no idea it was going to happen today,” I said, still shaky. My headache wasn’t helping. I heal so fast these days that I had become unaccustomed to lingering pain.

Sylvester stepped through the gate, pulling it closed behind him. The glimpse of the darkened bedchamber I had seen when the door opened disappeared, replaced once more by the empty air. Without another word, he stepped forward and folded me into a hug. I made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a sob and simply let him hold me, enjoying the safety and comfort of his arms. I lost my mortal father when I was seven years old. Sylvester had been the closest thing I’d had ever since.

“I am so sorry,” he said again, when he finally let me go. He started down the cobblestone path, and I followed, walking with him to the first of the marble benches. He sat down, motioning for me to sit beside him.

I sat.

“I knew he’d return one day. There’s too much for him in this Kingdom for him to stay away forever, and my brother has never been anything if not stubborn. Even when we were children, when his magic still smelled like smoke and mulled cider, he would have his way no matter what the cost.” Sylvester shook his head. Something like grief was lurking in his eyes. “He should never have come near you.”

“He said he transformed me to save me,” I said hesitantly. “I think there’s something wrong with him.”

Sylvester’s laugh was thin and bitter. “Oh, I know there’s something wrong with him. There’s been something wrong with him for a very long time. But . . .” He hesitated.

I frowned, eyeing him sidelong. “I don’t like the tone of that silence.”