The Winter Long

Tybalt snorted. He pulled me closer and pressed his cheek against mine, only to draw back and look at me disapprovingly. “You are cold,” he said. “Can I convince you to reconsider your position on properly outfitting yourself for this expedition?”


“Mom’s tower isn’t far, and it’ll be closer if I have genuine need to get there,” I said. “I’ll be cold, but I’ll live.” The Summerlands are the last layer of Faerie to remain accessible. They’re both larger than the mortal world and smaller, following some strange set of physical laws that no one has ever been able to adequately explain. My friend Stacy’s oldest daughter, Cassandra, is majoring in Physics at UC Berkeley, in part because she’d like to be able to figure out how the Summerlands can bend space the way they do.

Living in the mortal world makes it easy to forget that Faerie doesn’t follow the same laws. Maybe that sounds a little pat—I mean, my boyfriend is a cat in his spare time, and my sister was originally the physical embodiment of my impending death—but those things are normal to me. Unlike snow in California, and land that can expand and contract like a rubber band according to the needs of the people who use it.

The one thing that never changes is the size of a claimed demesne. Shadowed Hills had set boundaries and borders. No matter what happened, it remained the same size. Technically, the same could be said about my mother’s tower, but it was a pretty small chunk of real estate: the tower and grounds occupied a patch of land scarcely larger than the footprint of my own Victorian house. I guess that’s one of the side effects of building upward, rather than outward.

The door opened behind us. I pulled away from Tybalt, turning to see Sylvester standing there with an assortment of coats slung over his arm. He had added a military-style greatcoat to his own attire, tan camel hair or something close, with patches on the elbows. “It occurred to me that you had not made allowance for the weather in your plans,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind if I reduce our chances of dying of exposure during the walk.”

There was no point in arguing now. “No, coats are great,” I said, shivering exaggeratedly before I held out my arms. “Gimme. Please. Before I lose feeling in my fingers.”

“You chill too easily,” said Tybalt, with an “I told you so” look.

“You love me anyway.” The coat Sylvester had brought for me was patchwork wool in a dozen shades of red, trimmed with rabbit fur and large enough to fit over my leather jacket. Slipping it on was like enfolding myself in a giant fabric hug. I stuffed my hands into the pockets, enjoying the feeling of being completely surrounded.

“True enough.” Tybalt’s coat was of a similar style, if in a more masculine cut, and made of shades of brown and gray. He sniffed once, and then said, “These will do.”

“You’re darn right.” I took the last coat from Sylvester—this one done in shades of purple—and held it up, shouting, “Quentin! Come put this on before you catch your death of cold! I need you to live long enough to be cannon fodder when Simon decides to attack.”

“You’re really inspiring, you know that?” asked Quentin, as he trudged through the snow to take the coat from my hands.

“I learned from the best,” I said. “Come on. Let’s move.”

The boundary of Sylvester’s land was always marked by a forest. We walked toward the trees, our feet crunching in the snow, and into a veritable winter wonderland. Everything was limned in glittering white. Most of the trees were leafless and dormant. Meanwhile, the scattered trees that always appeared brown and dead during the summer had come alive, putting forth frost-laced leaves and even delicate winter flowers. I glanced to Sylvester, who knew more about fae flora than I did.

He took the hint. “Luna planted some of these, of course; she took cuttings from others, for the winter gardens. They’re all naturally occurring. They can lie dormant for years while they wait for a good snowfall.”