Page 20 of A Killing Frost

“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 dosomething.”

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

“Yeah, you’ll 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 REASONABLEamount 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. Mayput 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.

Getting into most knowes requires completing some sort of trial. Maybe it’s an obstacle course, or climbing the tallest tree in the world, or resisting the whispering terror of a field full of enchanted grass. When Sylvester established the entrance to Shadowed Hills, he wanted to be sure no mortals would wander into his entry hall by mistake, and he set up one of the more complicated patterns I’d encountered.

We climbed the highest hill in the park, winding up on a summit from which we could see most of the city, then crawled on our hands and knees under a cluster of spiky hawthorn bushes that hasn’t been cut back since the first time I visited the knowe. After so many years of unchecked growth, they should have dominated the landscape, but somehow, they still occupied roughly the same amount of space they always had. Magic is funny that way. Getting back to our feet, we all ran six times counterclockwise around a tall oak tree. It was like watching the world’s weirdest aerobics class in progress, and I hated every second of it.

For someone who dislikes exercise as much as I do, you’d think I would have found myself a nice desk job instead of going into the hero business, but no.

When we were done, I glanced at Quentin and May. Both gestured for me to go on. I turned to a large old stump and rapped my knuckles against the wood, producing a hollow booming sound that carried much too far and echoed much too long.

There was a burnt-out oak tree nearby, victim of a lightning strike sometime in the deep past. It was still struggling to put out new leaves, having refused to die even when all the odds said it should have. I had a lot of affection for that tree. I stepped back, waiting for the echoes of my knock to fade away.

Slowly and then all at once, the outline of a door appeared in the seamed bark and char of the oak. In what felt like the blink of an eye, something impossible had happened. And then the impossible swung open, revealing a dark-haired man in the blue-and-yellow livery of Shadowed Hills standing in a corona of buttery lamplight.

He blinked at the sight of us, hand dropping away from the doorknob before he asked, in a faintly baffled tone, “October...?”

“Hey, Etienne,” I said, and took a step toward the door. “Can we come in?”

“I...” He paused. “I honestly don’t know the answer. You haven’t been banned from the knowe, so far as I’m aware.” He was being polite there; as Sylvester’s seneschal, Etienne wouldabsolutelyknow if I’d been formally banished, “but I know you were encouraged to stay away.”

“I’ve missed you, too,” I said dryly.

His face softened, and he stepped over the threshold into the mortal world, grimacing a little at the moment of transition. It doesn’t hit purebloods as hard as it hits changelings, but itdoeshit them. “October,” he said. “Do you think it doesn’t ache, knowing you can’t come home? Chelsea speaks of the warmth and comfort of your house as if she were talking about the halls of Caer Sidi. I’m jealous of my own daughter, that she gets to keep your company while I must keep my distance. Our hearths are colder for your absence.”

It’s not just Tybalt: all the older purebloods have a tendency to become uncomfortably flowery when they get emotional. Hearing it from Etienne, normally the most rule-abiding and straitlaced of Sylvester’s knights, was still surprisingly moving. “You’re an ass,” I said, and stepped forward to meet him.

He closed his arms around me, the cedar smoke and lime scent of his magic enveloping me, and I breathed in deeply, enjoying the familiarity of the scent, if not the moment itself. Etienne was never a hugger before he was able to bring his human lover, Bridget Ames, home with him to Shadowed Hills and take her for his wife. Having Bridget, and more, Chelsea, around had done wonders to relax him when it came to things like showing affection to the people he cared about. I had only been a little surprised when I realized that list included me.

He let me go, stepping back again, and said, “Of course, you realize I can’t let you in.”

He might be more relaxed about hugging, but he certainly wasn’t more relaxed about rules. I blinked at him.

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