Page 11 of A Killing Frost

She’d failed, and in the process, she’d managed to get so lost that she couldn’t find her way back on her own. Without Oberon to redeem her way home, she couldn’t recognize the landmarks of her own heart, and her father’s face might as well have belonged to a stranger. And Simon—poor, sweet, overly devoted Simon—had exchanged his own way home for hers, so she could be reunited with our mother while he took his turn wandering lost through a world turned suddenly strange and unforgiving.

Stripping away Simon’s way home had also taken everything he’d done to break free of Eira Rosynhwyr—also and sometimes better known as Evening Winterrose, Firstborn of the Daoine Sidhe. She’d been the one to convince Simon he could find his daughter if only he’d allow himself to be tempted into more and more acts of unnecessary cruelty. I wasn’t going to call him my favorite person, but the Simon Torquill I’d glimpsed without her influence had been a kind, thoughtful man who protected pixies for the sake of his friends and doted on his wife. He’d been doing his best to survive in a world that didn’t always consider kindness a virtue.

And if I wanted to get him back, I might have to find Oberon himself. No big.

I reached for my water glass, only aware that my hand had started shaking when the contents sloshed over the lip and onto my fingers. Tybalt was looking at me with open despair in his eyes. I forced a smile.

“Hey,” I said. “It’s okay. Like I said, the Luidaeg already told me I had to do this. It’s not news.”

“Yes, but you were meant to do it with me beside you, to keep yousafe,” said Tybalt. “Not on your own. Not leaving me behind.”

“I don’t think I could do this on my own if I wanted to,” I said. “There’s no way May and Quentin would let me, even if Karen hadn’t seen them in her dream. The only reason Raj won’t insist on coming anyway is that he’s stuck here, learning how to be Kingfor after we get married. No matter what else happens, I won’t be doing this alone.”

Tybalt didn’t look as reassured as I’d hoped he would. If anything, he looked even more miserable, slouching in his seat and reaching for a pretzel roll, which he began ripping into smaller and smaller pieces, until they were barely large enough to be considered crumbs. He let them fall onto his bread plate, watching his own hands as he worked.

Finally, I leaned across the table and put my hand over his, stopping him before he could mutilate the poor bread any further.

“Stop,” I said. He raised his head and looked at me, eyes wide and wounded. His pupils had expanded again, drowning his irises in darkness. He had never been more handsome. This was the man I was going to marry. This was the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with, and raise my children alongside, whenever we decided it was safe enough for us to risk having them.

More importantly, this was the man who’d learned to open up to me when he was confused or frightened or lost, telling me what was in his heart and trusting me to tell him what was in mine. I had never had that kind of relationship before. I’d loved Gillian’s father enough that I’d been prepared to leave Faerie behind for his sake, loved him enough that I’d found the strength to walk away from the only Home I’d ever really known, but we’d nevertalked. Not the way Tybalt and I did.

If we had, he might not have been so quick to have me declared dead and replace me with another woman when I disappeared.

“That bread didn’t do anything to you except for tempting you with its deliciousness,” I said gently, and removed the remains of the roll from his hand, dropping it back into the breadbasket with a soft thump. “Look at me, okay? Just at me.”

Tybalt swallowed hard, eyes still locked on mine. He gave the very slightest of nods.

“Remember when you hated me?”

“October, be fair. I neverhatedyou. I thought you were a distraction to my adopted niece, who needed to devote herself more cleanly to the Court, and I believed your mother had been fairer with you than she ever was.” He swallowed again, folding his fingers around mine. “I thought there was no possible way she could have left you ignorant of your family history, and that you racedthrough our world like a wrecking ball because you didn’t care, not because you didn’t know.”

“Okay, so remember when you thought the worst of me and never bothered to ask me so I could tell you what was really going on?” The door opened again as Jason returned and approached the Lordens, who were blessedly staying at their own table. Tybalt flinched, starting to turn. “No, don’t look at them. Eyes on me, kitty-cat, until I’m done talking at you.”

“I... my apologies,” he said, voice gone thick and tight with a combination of fear and amusement that I recognized more clearly than I wanted to. “I will do as my lady bids me.”

“Awesome.” I squeezed his hand. “And remember how we got to know each other better, and you learned you’d been wrong about me, and I learned I’d been wrong about you? It took a long, long time, didn’t it? Longer than it would have if we weren’t two of the stubbornest people in Faerie. We had to figure out so many of the places where we were standing on the wrong assumptions before we could even start moving toward each other.”

“I remember,” said Tybalt softly.

“And do you remember how many times it could have all gone wrong? How many times we should have missed each other? Hell, how many times I could have died before my magic got strong enough to make that virtually impossible?”

From the way his hand clamped down on mine, he remembered all too well. “I do,” he said, voice suddenly stiff.

The way he was crushing my fingers hurt, but it wasn’t going to do any lasting damage. He would have needed to start chopping pieces off of me for that, and even involuntary amputation didn’t guarantee he could do anything I couldn’t recover from. In the last few years, I’d bounced back from breaking every bone in my body, having a knife jammed through my heart, and having an actual chunk of my physical spine yanked out of my body. Jin, Sylvester’s resident Ellyllon healer, had been unnervingly delighted about that last incident, making a house call after Quentin told her about it, so she could verify for herself that the missing bone had grown back. Pain is pain, even if I know it’s going to be fleeting. I still didn’t try to pull away.

“We both lived,” I said. “We both lived, and you told me you loved me, and I was smart enough to get out of my own way andtell you I loved you back. We’ve navigated so much already, what’s one little quest that you can’t help me with? We’ve got forever, you and me. We’re going to be together, and we’re going to meet our kids, and they’re going to be amazing. There’s no way they could be anything else.”

“And your mother will never be anywhere near them,” said Tybalt.

“Not ever, not once,” I agreed. His grip on my hand began to loosen. “They’ll grow up surrounded by Torquills and Cait Sidhe and my weird collection of teenagers, and they’ll think of Raj and Quentin and Chelsea and Dean and Karen and all the others as siblings. Which means, much as we might both want to right now, that you can’t gut Patrick Lorden. He’s going to be an uncle to our children, and he didn’t make the laws.”

“No, but he was happy to make sure you couldn’t claim ignorance of them,” said Tybalt bitterly. “I hope you won’t think less of me for holding that against him, because I’m going to. My forgiveness will take time and effort on both our parts.”

I nodded. “I understand, and I love you, unforgiving as you are.”

One corner of his mouth quirked upward in the beginnings of a smile. “I’m a cat,” he said. “Being unforgiving is a part of my job description.”

“Well, then, Mr. Cat, I hope you’re not too dedicated to your work.” I reclaimed my hand. “I like it when you forgive me.”

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