The Winter Long

I turned to Sylvester to see how he was taking this news. He was staring at the tower, lips gone pale and bloodless as he pressed them into a thin, hard line. One hand was grasping the pommel of his sword. His knuckles were white, and I had to fight not to take a step away from him.

“I can’t follow this trail. Our magic is not so attuned as it once was, and he is too far for me to follow. He could see our walls from your mother’s land, and the wards would never tell me how close he had come,” said Sylvester, voice pitched low. “He could have been here for days, watching us, waiting for the chance to strike. Oh, he is going to pay for what he’s done to me and mine, October. On the root and the branch, I promise you that.”

I glanced to Tybalt, who looked as alarmed as I felt. He stepped away from the tower, and the door swung shut behind him, leaving the four of us standing in my mother’s garden, where the white petals from the blossoming trees were falling like so much unfrozen snow.





SIX


WE TRUDGED SILENTLY through the meadow between Mom’s land and Sylvester’s. Even when we stepped back into the snow, Quentin remained by my side, not running off to make snowballs or enjoy the weather. The quiet lasted until we were standing on the lawn of Shadowed Hills, with the doors waiting to welcome us into warmth and presumptive safety. Tybalt, Quentin, and I stopped. Sylvester took a few more steps before turning to face the rest of us.

“October—” he began.

I raised a hand, cutting him off. “Who would he run to? If he isn’t here with my mother, where would he think he could go for aid?” He wouldn’t be hiding with the changeling underground, of that I was certain: places like the one that had raised me were too far beneath him, even in his hour of need.

Sylvester frowned slowly, looking confused. “Are you that angry with me?”

“Right now? Yes. You’ve been keeping secrets from me. Things I needed to know.” Like maybe before he’d sent me running after Simon, before I’d been turned into a fish and left stranded in a watery jail for fourteen years. “I love you. I always will. But right now, I’m pretty pissed at you. So can you just answer the question, please?”

“Simon was . . . not well when he was last here,” said Sylvester, picking his words with care. “He was separated from your mother. Luna disliked having him in our halls. He wandered the Kingdom, taking hospitality where he could find it.”

“Did he go to January?” I asked.

Sylvester shook his head. “No. Tamed Lightning had not been founded yet, and as a titled, unlanded Count, Duchess Riordan saw him as a threat. Perhaps if he’d been willing to formally divorce your mother—but that would have required taking steps neither wanted taken.”

I blinked, frowning. Fae marriages are complicated things, filled with rules about inheritance and succession that I never bothered learning. But fae divorces are simple. Unless there are children involved, all the couple needs to do is announce that they’re no longer married. “Why didn’t they want to get a divorce?”

“I don’t see how this relates to where he would be if not here or at your mother’s tower.”

I bared my teeth. “Humor me,” I half-snarled. “Why didn’t they want to get a divorce?”

“Because that would mean admitting there was no hope for them. It may be hard for you to believe, but there was a time when we were all so much younger than we are now. My brother loved your mother as he’s loved very few. He wasn’t willing to give up on her. And maybe I’m a sentimental old fool, but I always took it as a good sign that your mother wasn’t willing to give up on him, either.”

There was something he wasn’t telling me. I’ve had a lot of practice at being lied to, and I know how to recognize the signs. I narrowed my eyes. “What else?”

“What?”