The Winter Long (30 page)

“Because it's the fastest way, and because no one can find us here, or stop us, or keep us out,” said the Luidaeg. The smell of her magic surged again, filling the car until there was no space for anything else. “Let my frozen bitch of a sister hunt as long as she likes. She'll never be able to find the doors to this place, much less pry them open.”

“Is it safe?”

The Luidaeg didn't answer me. She just laughed. That was somehow more unnerving than anything she could have said. I tightened my grip on the wheel and turned on the headlights, illuminating the rocky, hard-pressed dirt in front of us. Eyes peered out of the brush to either side of the road, shining in the reflected halogen glare. That didn't help. I didn't know what kind of creatures could or would exist in a place like this, and I was pretty sure that finding out would involve a lot of blood on my part.

“There's a left coming up ahead,” said the Luidaeg. “Take it, and for my mother's sake, don't slow down.”

“Oh, that's not helping,” I muttered, and focused harder on the road, trying to spot the break in the trees. Even watching for it we nearly overshot our goal before I could haul on the wheel and send us rattling down a second, even narrower trail. Thick ropes of thorns overhung this stretch of road, scraping against the roof and slapping the windshield as we drove.

“If we slow down, we could get stuck,” said the Luidaeg, who either didn't know that she wasn't helping or—more likely—didn't care. “This isn't a place that's used to people anymore. We're a curiosity here. Something that can be kept and used as it chooses.”

“Not making me feel any better about the situation!” I yelped, as I swerved to dodge a particularly hefty-looking branch.

“Wasn't trying to,” said the Luidaeg. She dipped her hand into her pocket, pulling out a key that gleamed in the dimly-lit cabin with a faint rosy sheen, like it was an independent source of light. I glanced at it for only an instant, but an instant was long enough to tell me what I was looking at. It was silver, shaped from a single ingot and then inlaid with copper, bronze, and gold, until the rings of ivy and roses carved from its substance seemed to take on life of their own, chasing each other around and around the key's head and handle. They tangled like real vines, like living things, almost obscuring the shape of the key in their riotous overgrowth. But the key knew what it was. It had always known.

It had known on the day when I had taken it from the rose goblin that would become mine, the one that had been entrusted with the key's keeping by one of Evening's servants. The Luidaeg had claimed the key from me almost as soon as she had seen it. I'd traded her a game of questions for the prize, and I'd never really expected to see it again. I'd never really wanted to.

“Luidaeg . . .”

“Trust me,” she said—and the worst part of it was, I did trust her. She was the sea witch. She was the monster under our collective beds. And it didn't matter, because I trusted her, and I always would. She had earned it time and time again, even when she had no reason to.

She held the key up, its rosy light growing in strength. I could only see it out of the corner of my eye, and that was more than enough; I had the distinct feeling that if I looked any closer it would blind me, that it wasn't a thing intended to be seen by anyone but the Firstborn. Its glow grew stronger, shading from pink into red, until the car was filled with a bloody brilliance that made my eyes burn. I squinted, fighting to see the road. I didn't want to lose control of the vehicle. Not here, not now.

“Mother, if you can hear me, I've been very good,” said the Luidaeg. “I haven't killed anyone who didn't deserve it, not even my sister, who should probably have been killed a hundred times over by now. I haven't stolen any hearts or broken any vows, and I'm only calling on you now because I need you more than I've ever needed you before. Mother, I am your oldest living child. I am your eternity made flesh. Now please, hark to me, heed me here, and open the door before we die a horrible and lingering death in the darkness.”

The smell of her magic surged again, this time underscored by roses like I had never smelled before—not the cold, snowy roses of Evening or the perfect hothouse roses of Luna; not even the bloody-thorned roses of my mother's magic, which used to define my entire world. These were wild roses, untouched by any gardener's shears and untamed by any horticulturist's design. They grew where they wanted, thrived where they chose, and would never be anything but their own truest selves, unable to conform to anything else. They were the roses that had grown at the beginning of the world, and the roses that would grow at the end of it. There were a hundred other scents beneath the roses, loam and fresh-turned earth and the sweet decay that leads to new growth, but I knew that what I would remember was the roses. They would stay with me, because . . . because . . .

Because no one could smell Maeve's magic and forget it.

It took everything I had not to turn and gape at the key that had somehow torn a hole in everything I thought I knew about our world, calling forth the magic of our missing Queen. Instead, I watched the road as beside me the Luidaeg murmured, “Thank you, Mother,” and raised the key to her lips.

As soon as they touched the metal, it exploded into light like I had never seen. The road, the trees, everything went away except for that glaring brilliance, which managed to be white and red at the same time, like it was bleeding as it purified. I slammed my foot down on the brake, fighting to keep control of the car as we reduced speed more quickly than the laws of physics would advise. The Luidaeg didn't want me to stop. I was not willing to drive blind into a landscape I didn't know.

I couldn't force my eyes to stay open. When everything went from white to black, I realized I had shut them at some point to block out that horrible brightness. They were still closed when the Luidaeg put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Hey. October. Open your eyes, I put the key away.”

She couldn't lie to me—I knew that—but I still cracked my right eye open with caution, in case some of the light had managed to linger. Natural light can't do that, but that's the trouble with magic: it does what it wants, and screw the laws of nature.

The cab was reassuringly dim, and the world outside the window was visible, painted in late afternoon shades of green and brown and gold. I opened both eyes and blinked, twisting in my seat as I realized that we were at Paso Nogal Park, the spot where Shadowed Hills was anchored to the mortal world. We were parked in the main lot, assuming you used the term very generously, since the car was sitting slantwise across three spaces. I blinked twice, and then took my foot off the brake as I carefully navigated us into a more proper parking place and turned off the engine.

The Luidaeg was quiet while I parked the car, possibly because she recognized that my battered nerves couldn't take much more. Finally, once I was sure my heart wasn't going to burst out of my chest, I twisted in my seat and asked, “Did we just drive from San Francisco to Pleasant Hill in less than ten minutes?”

“I told you, shortcut,” she said, sounding pleased with herself. “Let's go ruin my sister's day, shall we?”

“In a second.” I undid my seat belt and slid out of the car, feeling better as soon as my feet hit solid ground. Maybe this was how Tybalt felt every time he had to take a ride. I'd have to apologize to him for not being as understanding as I could have been. Speaking of Tybalt . . . “I don't want to go anywhere before Tybalt shows up. He'd freak out if we weren't waiting for him when he arrived.”

“You
do
have a remarkable talent for getting yourself injured when your allies let you out of their sight,” said the Luidaeg.

I shrugged. “I heal fast.”

“Most of the time.”

I didn't have an answer for that one.

Standing still felt obscurely like failing. Evening was a big enough threat that we should never have been allowed to stop long enough to take a breath, much less stand around a parking lot waiting for my boyfriend to show up. There was a time when I wouldn't have been able to take that pause. The need to be moving, to
act
, would have sent me running into the knowe, even if I knew that I was running into certain danger. “I guess I'm growing up,” I muttered.

“No, but you're maturing, and that's more than I hoped for when we met,” said the Luidaeg. I glanced at her, blinking. The bones of her face had shifted during the drive, going from what I thought of as her Annie-face to the one that I was more accustomed to. They were very similar; she could have been her own sister. They weren't quite identical. She met my eyes with a small shrug and said, “It's true. I don't lie to you, remember?”

“It took me a while to get used to that,” I said. “How much danger are we walking into?”

“I honestly don't know.” The Luidaeg shook her head. “She should still believe that she's killed me, which is an advantage for us: having me walk in will throw her off balance, at least a little bit, and that can't help but benefit us. At the same time, if she holds the knowe completely, she may be willing to do a little heavy lifting.”

She didn't need to explain her meaning. “I'll fight her.”

“It may not matter,” said the Luidaeg. “Oberon was her father. That gives her a blood connection to you, even if it's not a strong one. That, in conjunction with your oaths to Sylvester, and the blood binding you once created between yourself and her, means there's an opening that she can exploit.”

“Wait . . .” I frowned. “Luidaeg, your parents . . .”

“I am the oldest daughter of Oberon and Maeve,” she said. “Which makes me their first-born Firstborn, but that's confusing, so we don't usually put it that way.”

“And Evening is . . . ?”

“The oldest daughter of Oberon and Titania.”

There it was again: the subtle sense that I was missing something. Frown deepening, I asked, “Who are my mother's parents?”

Much to my surprise, the Luidaeg smiled like I had just asked the five hundred dollar question on an afternoon game show. She leaned forward and tapped my chin with her thumb as she said, “Oberon's her father, making her the youngest of my siblings, but her mother is not my mother, nor my father's other bride. Who her mother
is
I can't say, but if you go looking, you might find some interesting truths hidden under some equally interesting lies.”

“Can't, or won't?” I asked.

“Can't, can't, always can't,” said the Luidaeg. “You should know the difference between those two words by now, especially as you've started wearing gold in your hair.”

“I do, but—” The smell of pennyroyal drifted over on the wind. I stopped mid-sentence, turning to see Tybalt standing next to my car with a baffled expression on his face.

“How did you beat me here?” he asked, walking over to us. “I came as fast as I might, and expected to spend no small amount of time lurking in shadows, watching to see that the way was clear for your arrival.”

“You know us, we'll put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes,” I said airily. “Half the Bay Area in ten minutes is a piece of cake.”

“I see,” said Tybalt. He stopped next to me, offering a half bow to the Luidaeg. “I appreciate the fact that I left my lady with you and returned to find her neither bleeding nor running for her life. It's a charming change from what normally occurs when I turn my back.”

“Don't get too used to it,” I said. “We're all here now.”

“Yes,” said Tybalt. “I suppose we are.”

We started up the hill, the Luidaeg in the lead. Getting into Shadowed Hills from the mortal side of things usually requires a complicated series of actions, all of them designed to be virtually impossible to perform by accident. The Luidaeg ignored them completely. She just climbed straight toward the summit of the hill, never turning, never looking back. We mimicked her. The worst that would happen was we would need to go back down and start over, but I didn't think that was going to be a problem. The Firstborn have a way of shaping Faerie to fit their needs.

When we reached the burnt-out old oak tree at the top of the hill, the Luidaeg stopped, sighed, and snapped her fingers. The sound was louder than it should have been, gathering echoes as it bounced off the trees around us and finally returned, remade by distance and the acoustics of the park into the sound of a key turning in a lock. The door to Shadowed Hills appeared in the hollow of the oak, swinging slowly open in silent welcome. The Luidaeg lowered her hand and smirked.

“See? All you have to do is know how to talk to them.” With that she stepped through the open door and into the hall beyond. I followed her, and Tybalt followed me, both of us tensed against the potential for attack.

The hall was empty. The air still smelled of roses—the air in Shadowed Hills always smelled of roses—but the floral perfume was underscored by a hard, frozen note, like it had snowed recently inside the knowe. That would be Evening's doing. I could smell the traces of her magic everywhere, overlaid on the cleaner, less corrupt workings of Sylvester and his people.

The Luidaeg turned back to look at us, all traces of levity gone from her expression. Her eyes were solid black again, like the eyes of a shark. “From here, we must be careful,” she said. “Remember what she is. Remember what she can do.”

I didn't say anything. I just nodded once, tightly, and walked past her as I started toward the throne room where Luna and Sylvester received their guests. It seemed like the most likely place to find a power-hungry Firstborn who had instructed her children to go off and acquire glory in her name. The Luidaeg and Tybalt walked behind me, forming the other two points of our small triangle. Having them there made me feel a little better—I wasn't going into danger alone. Not this time.