A Killing Frost

by Seanan McGuire

  “I don’t suppose I can talk you out of that, can I?” she asked, her own smile fading. “Dean’s going to be spending the next week hunting kelpies along the coast—they’ve been breeding faster without the Selkies there to keep their numbers down, and until things stabilize, they’re a problem. He really needs a little quality time with his guy.”

  “Sadly, no, you can’t. Dean’s parents decided to remind me of some of the finer points of pureblood marriage law, and now I need to take Quentin on a quest neither of us is going to enjoy.”

  “Can’t it wait a few hours?”

  I wanted to say yes, and that was the problem. Karen’s dream aside, Tybalt was already worried about me trying to delay our wedding on purpose. If I allowed an actual barrier to us getting married to exist until I felt like it was the right time to tear it down, he was never going to forgive me. Oh, he might say he would. He might even think he would. But I know rejection, and I’d seen the pain in his expression. This would eat at him if I didn’t do everything I could, as quickly as I could, to make it better.

  Besides, the very vague outline of a plan that I was formulating was absolutely terrifying, and terrifying things don’t get easier when I put them off until tomorrow. “I’m sorry, but no.”

  Marcia frowned. May stepped forward, shrugging broadly.

  “Dean knew what he was doing when he got involved with a squire in active training,” she said. “If Quentin’s knight calls, he has to answer. That’s the deal. Just like if there’s something wrong in Goldengreen, Dean has to handle it no matter how inconvenient the timing is. It’s lousy, but it’s the way things work. Where are they?”

  “Follow me,” said Marcia, and sighed as she turned and walked down the hall. May and I followed. It wouldn’t have made sense to do anything else.

  Marcia led us to a door that had appeared after I gave up the knowe, adding further credence to my belief that knowes are alive. It had recognized Dean’s need for a private way to spend time with his parents, and it had provided what everyone now referred to as “the receiving room.” She opened the door, revealing a stone staircase winding down into a cavernous, well-lit room. Gently glowing abalone shells were set into the sides of the stairwell.

  “They’re on the beach,” she said. “I really wish you wouldn’t do this.”

  “Your objection is noted,” I replied, and stepped past her, starting down the stairs.

  Marcia and I usually get along pretty well, but she’s protective of Dean, and for good reason; he needs someone to be protective of him. His parents love him. They also spend most of their time in the Undersea, where they can’t intervene if anything goes wrong, and Merrow don’t believe in coddling their children. Dean’s half-Daoine Sidhe. He could do with a little coddling.

  The stairs grew damp underfoot as we descended, but never became slippery. Magic has its uses. When we came around the last curve of the stairway we beheld the receiving room itself, large enough to have qualified as a ballroom if it had had a dance floor, half the floor covered by a redwood deck that wouldn’t have looked out of place behind a fancy restaurant, the other half covered in unstained white sand, sloping gently downward until it reached the water. Dean had his own private cove down here, blocked from the sea by a wall of unyielding black stone. When Dianda and Patrick wanted to visit without it becoming a big diplomatic to-do, they could just swim under the wall and have easy, discreet access to their son.

  It was a perfect arrangement, and so far as I knew, the knowe had taken care of everything without any outside input. It had recognized a need and filled it, which implied a level of awareness and interest that was surprising even to me. For the people who thought I was weird for believing knowes were people, it was probably mind-blowing.

  Then again, many purebloods still can’t accept that changelings are people. Asking them to believe it of the place where they keep all their stuff is probably a step too far.

  Quentin and Dean sat side by side at the edge of the redwood deck, facing the water, hands clasped and Quentin’s head resting on Dean’s shoulder. It was a lovely scene. For the first time, I asked myself whether Quentin was going to be angrier at me interrupting him than he would at being left behind.

  It didn’t matter. He was my squire, and Karen had seen him with me on this quest. His training meant it was my responsibility to bring him along whenever I decided to do something potentially fatal. Doubly so if leaving him behind could mean failure. And if that was selfishness, sometimes it’s okay to be selfish. Selfish keeps the lights on.

  I trotted the rest of the way down the stairs, not making any effort to muffle my footsteps, and hit the floor as hard as I could, letting my heels thump down on the wood. Quentin raised his head as both of them turned. There was a moment of shared confusion on their faces, melting into resignation on Dean’s and surprise on Quentin’s.

  “Toby!” he exclaimed, letting go of Dean’s hand and scrambling to his feet. “I thought you and Tybalt were having date night tonight!”

  “Okay, seriously, did he tell literally everyone else that I had dinner plans without even bothering to ask me about it?”

  “Yes,” said Quentin and Dean, in unison.

  I wrinkled my nose. “Don’t do that, it’s creepy. Also, get your things. We have a quest, courtesy of pureblood law and somebody’s parents hearing where I was having dinner tonight.”

  Dean had the good grace to look chagrined. Quentin, on the other hand, looked confused, looking from me to his boyfriend before asking, “Dean? What’s she talking about?”

  “I, um, told Dad he couldn’t come over tonight because I knew you’d be free,” said Dean. “I didn’t want anyone interrupting our date. He asked how I knew, and so I . . .” He trailed off, looking even more embarrassed.

  “So you set him up to go and interrupt mine,” I concluded.

  Dean nodded. “I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t a secret from anyone but you, and it’s not like my parents are enemies of yours. I didn’t think they’d bother you. Did they bother you? Do I need to call them and yell?”

  Thanks to April, the cyber-Dryad daughter of the Countess of Tamed Lightning, phone service in the Summerlands and Undersea has gotten much more extensive and reliable over the past few years. I sighed.

  “No,” I said. “But maybe in the future, don’t volunteer where I’m going to be unless it’s been announced in public, not told to you in private? Your parents aren’t my enemies, but a lot of people are.”

  That was putting it mildly. I seem to collect enemies the way May collects gaudy necklaces these days, and some of them are pretty damn dangerous.

  Dean nodded again, more vigorously this time. “Of course. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’re getting punished the same way I did: with the interruption of your evening.” Quentin was watching me worriedly. I shifted my attention to him. “How much do you know about pureblood marriage laws?”

  “Enough that if I weren’t going to inherit the throne someday and need a legitimate heir, I’d never be willing to get married,” he said. “They seem simple until you start looking into them, and then you find all these little snares and pit traps of tradition buried in the middle of the cake. It’s awful.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if Eira had something to do with creating a lot of those ‘traditions,’” I said. “Apparently, not only can I never divorce without the permission of my children, I can’t actually get married unless I at least attempt to invite my parents. Both my parents.”

  “Um, wasn’t your father human?” asked Quentin. “Isn’t he . . .” He trailed off awkwardly. He’s more comfortable with the concept of death than most purebloods his age, but he’s still functionally immortal. Unless something comes along and kills him, he’s never going to die.

  “He’s dead,” I said bluntly. Both Quentin and Dean winced. “He died a long time a
go. I leave roses on his grave every Christmas. But because legally, in Faerie, Simon Torquill is my father, if I don’t invite him to my wedding, he can claim offense against me—or someone else can do it on his behalf.”

  “Who would do that?” asked Dean, horrified.

  “Who wouldn’t? Eira, if he ever manages to find her and wake her up. Luna, just because she can. Hell, my own mother might decide to get pissed on behalf of the husband she never told me about. Or August might. And the last thing this household needs right now is someone making a valid claim of offense against us.”

  Quentin put a hand over his face. Dean, who had grown up in the Undersea, looked confused.

  “If someone gets offended at you, can’t you just fight and then apologize?” he asked.

  “That’s not how it works here,” I said. “Marcia would have told you if you were ever at risk of doing something that would allow somebody to actually claim offense against you, but because most of the fae on the land aren’t big on frontal assaults—”

  “Present company excepted,” said May, while Quentin hid a laugh in his hand.

  I glared at both of them. “—we have to settle things in a different way. If someone insults you enough that you can claim offense, you can basically ask them for anything within their power to give. Seven years of servitude, or their mother’s favorite necklace, or the head of their favorite hunting dog. Anything other than murder is on the table.”

  Dean looked horrified, as well he should. It was a pretty horrific concept. “That’s barbaric!” he said.

  “You’re not wrong,” I said. “That’s one of the reasons it never occurred to me that there was any way my wedding invitations could put me in that position. But with Simon in the wind and some of his people still around, it’s a valid concern.”

  “And that’s why my parents interrupted your date?”

  “Yup. They assumed, quite rightly, that I wouldn’t have considered my relationship to Simon when Tybalt and I were making our plans. Tybalt had considered it, and wasn’t telling me, so I’d be able to use ignorance as a defense. Now Patrick and Dianda know that I know, I need to do something about it.”

  Quentin’s smile died, replaced by a look of quiet horror. “You’re going looking for Simon,” he said.

  “Got it in one.”

  “But he’s—you can’t—this is a bad idea!”

  “Yes, he is, yes, I can, yes, it is,” I said. “Get your coat, if you’ve got one. We’re heading for Shadowed Hills.” I could tell him about Karen’s dream later. I didn’t need to make this more confusing than it already was.

  “Not the Luidaeg?”

  He sounded honestly puzzled, which was enough to make me pause and look at him. The Luidaeg is many things—my aunt, the sea witch, a close family friend—but when I was his age, only one of them mattered. Monster. Most of Faerie considers her the sort of thing you use to threaten children into good behavior. “Do your chores or the Luidaeg will come and carry you away.” “Listen to your mother or the Luidaeg will turn your heart to wood inside your chest and you’ll never love anyone ever again.” None of those threats are true, of course. The Luidaeg can be cruel, but only to people who deserve it, and never, never to children.

  She used to say she didn’t like kids, because it was part of how she coped with losing her own. The Roane were killed because of Eira, and the Luidaeg spent centuries watching others wear the flayed skins of her babies, until I was able to help her make things at least partially right. Not entirely. Nothing would ever give her sons and daughters and grandchildren back to her. But there were Roane in the world again, and she could no longer say she didn’t like kids without her geasa rising up and stopping the words in her throat. It was something.

  Most Daoine Sidhe would have wet themselves before willingly going to the Luidaeg, or would have done it only because there was something they wanted so much they were willing to pay anything, risk anything for the chance to have it. Quentin was disappointed not to be going to her.

  “I broke you,” I muttered, before saying more loudly, “No, not the Luidaeg. I don’t want her to feel like she has to offer me something, and I’m not willing to give her what Simon did. This is not a chain letter I have any interest in signing. I need him home, alive, and himself, which she might prevent. So we’re going to Shadowed Hills, to talk to Luna.”

  Quentin’s look of confusion deepened, now tempered by disbelief. “Why would you want to do that?” he demanded.

  “Luna can open the Rose Roads, and once they’re open, Spike can navigate them.” I pulled the key from my pocket, holding it up so he could see the braided strands of metal that formed its head. “Before, we used this to make the Rose Roads take us to where Eira was. I need to go there again.”

  Quentin put a hand over his face. Even May was gaping at me. She hadn’t heard this part of the plan. “Okay,” he said. “As your squire, your friend, and your future King, I have to ask, why are we trying to go to the place where Eira is sleeping? She’s the worst. Like, there are a lot of awful people running around, and I think most of them want you dead, but Eira is the actual worst of a bad lot. And she’s my Firstborn, so I’m allowed to say that.”

  “And I should have thought of this earlier, but why aren’t we going to Portland and asking Ceres if she can open the Rose Roads for us, since she doesn’t, y’know, hate you?” asked May. “She’s Blodynbryd, too, remember? She should have access. It would get us on the same Road.”

  “I’m not sure how good the Rose Roads are at traversing actual distance, as opposed to moving through unoccupied spaces and emptiness,” I said. “Ceres might be easier to work with than Luna, but she could also open us a road we can’t survive.”

  “I would,” said May.

  “True, but we don’t know what happens to you if all the air runs out, or if you’re stabbed by too many poisoned thorns, or all sorts of other options. The only thing we know for sure about the Rose Roads is that this key,” I waved the key, “can be used to get from them to where the Luidaeg left Eira, and that they’re connected to the Blodynbryd. But roses are Titania’s thing as much as anything, so maybe they’re booby-trapped to hell and back, and we’ll only find out by getting started. Besides, we can’t go to Portland without Arden’s permission, and having her contact Siwan to confirm that we’re allowed to go to another Kingdom and that we’re not planning to overthrow the monarchy while we’re there would be way more complicated.” Also, there was the small but ever-present concern that this might be the time that Siwan said no.

  Having a reputation for king-breaking is sometimes more of a problem than I would have thought it could be.

  “Come on.” I gestured for Quentin to follow me as I turned back toward the stairs.

  “I don’t like this,” he said, before pausing to kiss Dean on the cheek. “I’ll call you after we all get through this alive, okay?”

  “Stop tempting fate,” said Dean, pushing him away. “You know I worry.”

  “I know you worry too much,” said Quentin. He apparently didn’t have a coat, since he didn’t grab anything before running after me. His cheeks were flushed, and he was grinning. I gave him a curious look.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s nice to have something to do, is all,” he said. “Things have been sort of slow recently.”

  “You realize you’re saying you’d prefer mortal danger to having time to go out with your boyfriend,” I said, disbelievingly.

  Quentin shrugged. “It sounds weird when you say it like that.”

  “It sounds weird no matter how you say it! What are you going to do when you have to go back to Toronto and become High King? Start the Hunger Games?”

  “Maybe,” said Quentin. “I’ll have to do something.”

  He sounded really unhappy about the idea. I paused, looking at him more seriously.

  “Yeah, you’l
l have to be a good and considerate King who actually governs us in a reasonable fashion and puts an end to the systemic abuse of changelings and fae with animal attributes,” I said.

  “I know,” he said, almost sullenly.

  “Come on. Let’s go risk our lives.” I put my hand on his shoulder, and with May and Spike at our heels, we made our way up the stairs and out of the knowe.

  SIX

  THERE WAS A REASONABLE amount of traffic on the streets. The Bay Area is almost never completely quiet. We have too many humans living here for that to happen. Even the ones who work in the glass towers of downtown like to go out at night. The ones who can’t get those jobs work the midnight shift at Safeway or 7-11 or mop floors for their so-called betters.

  But then, I’m a former grocery store clerk. Maybe I have opinions about social mobility and the nonsense that is class.

  We were near enough the Bay Bridge that, traffic notwithstanding, it wasn’t long before we were on our way across the water to Pleasant Hill, a comfortable bedroom community occupied by people who wanted good schools and big backyards and didn’t mind a little drive as a trade-off. It was about a forty-five–minute drive under normal circumstances. Thanks to my don’t-look-here spell allowing me to disregard some speed limits, we made it in just over half an hour, despite the traffic. That was the good part.

  The bad part was that my stomach sank and my knees went weak when I pulled into the parking lot of Paso Nogal Park. Technically, the place had been closed since sundown, but it wasn’t fear of the law that put the creeping sense of dread into my veins. It was being here.

  Shadowed Hills. My second home. My childhood refuge. Only now I was completely unsure of my welcome. What would be waiting for me when the door of the knowe opened?

  There was only one way to find out. I took a deep breath. May put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. I shot her a grateful look. Together, the three of us—and Spike—began trudging up the long dirt path that would take us deeper into the mortal side of the park.