Page 1 of A Killing Frost

ONE

October 11th, 2014

The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,

And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely

His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,

And then he falls, as I do.

—William Shakespeare,Henry VIII.

“WE’RE GOING TO HAVEto discuss dresses eventually, October,” said May, holding up a bridal magazine and waving it at me like a weapon. “Something pretty. Something lacy. Something—and this is the part I can’t stress enough—that you’re actuallywilling to wear.”

“It doesn’t matter what I wear to the wedding, we both know it’s going to be completely covered in blood before we reach ‘I do,’” I said scornfully. “Do purebloods evensay,‘I do’?” Having never been to a pureblood wedding before, I was woefully uninformed about their customs. Thanks to my mother, my wedding knowledge is much more romantic comedy than formal fairy tale.

My sister—technically my retired Fetch, but that’s not a relationship that’s easy to explain, and she’s family either way—rolled her eyes. “Of course not,” she said. “That’s a Christian thing, which means it’s a human thing. Purebloods don’t do Christian wedding vows.”

“Got it,” I said, even though I didn’t. I didn’t “got” any of this.

May snorted before pushing her hair, currently streaked in electric blue, out of her eyes and dropping the magazine onto the pilethat had come to dominate our coffee table. “Liar,” she said. Like most of our furniture, the table had originally come from Community Thrift, and like every other flat surface in our house, it had been immediately covered in a thick layer of junk mail, books, and generalized clutter. We’re not tidy people.

It doesn’t help that we have a constant stream of teenagers flowing in and out of the house, which is huge by San Francisco standards. We have a dedicated living roomanda dining room, and four bedrooms, most of which are in use on any given afternoon. Tybalt and I share one, despite his occasional protests that it’s inappropriate for us to cohabitate before the wedding; May and her live-in girlfriend Jazz, share a second, which is far enough down the hall from mine that we can all pretend to be untouched paragons of virtue.

The third bedroom belongs to my squire, Quentin, and will until the day his parents call him home to Toronto to take up his place as Crown Prince of the Westlands, which is what Faerie calls North America. We steal human words with gleeful abandon, but we don’t like to use their names for things when we have any other choice in the matter. We’re sort of like the French that way.

The fourth bedroom is currently a guest room and plays host to a rotating cast of people with nowhere better to spend the day. Usually, it’s either Quentin’s boyfriend Dean, who prefers to sleep alone, my friend Etienne’s daughter Chelsea, or my friend Stacy’s middle daughter Karen. Like I said, a constant stream of teenagers. Tybalt’s nephew Raj is in Quentin’s room what seems like three nights out of five, and I continue to hold out hope that my own daughter Gillian will eventually decide she’s tired of hating me and take her turn at using up all the hot water. I like having a full house. It feels safer than the alternative.

Although that might be an artifact of my childhood. When I was alone with my mother in her tower, that was always when things got bad. When I was with Uncle Sylvester and my friends in Shadowed Hills, I was safe, and fed, and cared for. For me, home never happened in the building where it was supposed to live. I guess that’s why I’m so determined to keep my doors open, and to keep the kids who tumble through my life as safe as I can. I want to be the kind of friend to them that my uncle was to me, back before he became my liege, back before I understood what we really were to one another.

Growing up doesn’t mean getting over everything that happened to us as children. It just means calcifying it and never letting go.

May grabbed another bridal magazine, flipping it open to a picture of a bride who was wearing so much lace and beadwork that it was a miracle she could stand under her own power. Wait. Maybe she wasn’t standing. Maybe the dress was doing it for her. It certainly looked stiff enough.

“How about this one?” she asked.

“If you want to open a bakery, I won’t stop you, but I’m not walking down the aisle looking like somebody’s grandmother’s prize meringue,” I said.

May wrinkled her nose. “You’re no fun at all.”

“If you want a dress with its own zip code,youget married.”

To my surprise, she sighed heavily, turned the page in her magazine, and said, “I want to. Jazz isn’t sure.”

I blinked. “Why isn’t she sure? You’re amazing. Any girl would be lucky to marry you.”

“Try telling her that,” said May. She put the magazine down on the table and stood, stretching. “I think I’m done with this for the afternoon. I’m going to go bake some cookies.”

“That’s your answer to everything.”

“Better than your answer to everything.” She made an exaggerated stabbing gesture. “There’s a reason I don’t go through as many pairs of jeans as you do.”

“Brat.”

“Proud of it.” May cracked a smile, although it lacked her usual intensity. “I’d bake your wedding cake if you hadn’t promised the job to Kerry when you were six.”

“She’ll do an amazing job, and you know it.”

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