The Winter Long

“The first part.”


“I didn’t realize we’d be living in a fairy tale this week?”

“That’s it. Shit. Oak and ash and shit and damn and we are so screwed. So screwed.” The Luidaeg always referring to her in the present tense; the way that she, and a bunch of other people, had called her “the Winterrose,” rather than using her given name. It all pointed to a conclusion that I had never actually drawn, in part because it was impossible.

“Toby?” said Quentin, sounding uncertain.

“Just give me a minute here, okay? I can figure this out.” I fumbled in my pocket until I found the damp rectangle of my phone, only realizing when my fingers touched the plastic that it might have been killed by its encounter with the Pacific Ocean. Still . . . “Quentin, when April modified these for us, did she make them waterproof?”

“I think so,” he said. “I know she said she was making yours extra-durable, since she’s, you know, met you.”

“Works for me.” I pulled up Li Qin’s number, hit “connect,” and raised the phone to my ear, waiting anxiously as it rang.

Finally, just as I was about to give up, Li Qin answered with a genial, “Hello?”

“Li, it’s Toby. Also, wow, you should tell April her work is top-notch, because I’m calling you from the Court of Cats, which means she managed to design a phone that can connect through like, three completely different layers of reality, and that’s after being dunked in the Pacific Ocean. Can you call Mags over at the Library and ask her to call me, please? And maybe convince her to give me her phone number? This thing where I have to call you to get to her is getting old.”

“Yes, but you’d never call me if you didn’t need me to reach the Library, so cutting myself out of the loop isn’t in my best interests,” said Li Qin, sounding bemused. “Are you all right? You sound worried.”

I couldn’t quite prevent a burst of jagged laughter from escaping my lips. “Oh, man, Li, you have no idea how loaded a question that is. I will explain everything later, assuming we live, but right now, I have to ask Mags something. It’s super-important. Please, can you get her to call me?”

“I’ll do my best,” said Li Qin. The line beeped as she hung up. I lowered my phone, turning to face my bewildered companions.

“I think I know what’s going on,” I said carefully. “I mean, the pieces have been there for a while now—maybe even since the beginning, with the Luidaeg refusing to actually say that Evening was dead. But I don’t want to tell you what it is until I’m sure.”

“Because you don’t trust us?” asked Raj, looking affronted.

“No,” I said. “Because I’m terrified.”

My phone rang.

I stared at it like I had never seen it before. Once I answered the phone and asked my question, everything was going to change. Or maybe that was the wrong way of looking at things. Once I answered the phone and asked my question, everything was going to be revealed for what it had been all along. And Oberon forgive me, but I genuinely did not want to see.

I answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Er, October? Li Qin called and said that you wanted to speak with me. Is everything all right?” Mags sounded faintly puzzled, but I was coming to accept that as the Librarian’s primary method of dealing with the world around her. Even when she knew exactly what was going on, she sometimes seemed like she didn’t have a clue.

“Not really,” I said. “I have to ask you a question, and I need you to be really, really certain of your answer. It’s sort of ‘everything depends on this’-level important.”

“Oh. Well.” Now Mags sounded flustered rather than puzzled. “I can certainly try.”

“Okay. Remember when I was having my little goblin fruit problem, and we asked to look at the book about the creation of the hope chests?”