Page 48 of A Killing Frost

There was a clatter as Cassandra dropped the dish she’d been holding for Walther and turned to stare at me. She knew as well as anyone who the Luidaeg’s mother was. I waved for her to stay quiet, trying my best to focus on the phone.

In a low, dangerous voice, the Luidaeg said, “You asked my mother?”

“Yes.”

“And did she answer you?”

“I think she did. The roses on the Rose Road changed. They got darker and older-looking, and the next opening we found led to exactly where we needed to be. And I smelled something familiar, roses, like the last time you asked her to help us.”

“Oh, you smelled roses on the Rose Road? You should be very proud of yourself.” Her tone was sarcastic. Her words were, of necessity, sincere.

“I am. But Walther’s going to be busy for a while, and I need May awake before I have to tell Jazz she’s been elf-shot. I can take BART into the city if you want, but I’d rather not; it would take such a long time.”

She sighed heavily. “Hang up.”

“What?”

“Hang up. I’ll send someone to get you as soon as I can.” Her end of the line went dead, and I lowered the phone, staring at it blankly.

Well. Oak and ash, but this was getting complicated.

THIRTEEN

“TOBY, YOU WANT TO TELLus what you meant by ‘Simon knows who Quentin is’?” asked Walther, still bent over May. “I ask purely out of curiosity and intellectual interest, and not because I’m afraid you’ve led a homicidal, mass-murdering monster to my door.”

“We don’t actually know that Simon killed anyone in Evening’s name,” I protested. “We know Oleander did, and we know he was sheltering her, but that doesn’t mean he held the knife.” It was a pale distinction, and I felt bad even uttering it. It still mattered.

If Simon committed a single murder himself, he could be held responsible under Oberon’s Law, if anyone could prove he did it—something that’s rendered functionally inevitable by blood magic, since only the Firstborn can change what blood remembers. I wasn’t happy with the man, but he’d been starting to atone when the Luidaeg’s spell had undone all of his progress. I didn’t want him to die before I could really get to know him as himself, and not as Evening’s puppet.

“Well, he may have committed one entirely on his own,” said Walther grimly. I shifted my attention to him, blinking. He looked back at me, stone-faced and serious. “I’ve never seen elf-shot this strong, and it’s interfering with May’s ability to breathe. It’s a miracle she isn’t dead already.”

“We don’t think shecandie,” I said. “Fetches are indestructibleuntil their targets die, and then they fade away on the spot. Now that we’re not tethered to each other the way we were in the beginning, the thing that kills her can’t happen.”

“I bet she can still suffer brain damage if she’s deprived of oxygen for long enough.”

I wasn’t actually sure of that, but it wasn’t something I wanted to gamble with. “Can you make the counteragent?”

“It would be easier if I had an uncontaminated sample of the original elf-shot, but I can do it using what I already have as a base.” Walther removed his glasses, setting them to one side as he allowed his human disguise to dissolve into a thin mist and the scent of ice and yarrow. His eyes somehow managed to get even bluer without the illusion to blunt them.

Cassandra sighed. “Date night’s over, huh?”

“Date night’s over,” he confirmed.

“So you’re officially dating now?” I asked. “Cass, did you tell your parents?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Did you tell your mother before you started hooking up with the local King of Cats? I’m eighteen. I don’t live at home anymore. I don’t have to tell them what I’m doing unless I’m planning to drop out of school—and even then, technically, I don’thaveto tell them, I just know it’s going to get back to them, and I’d rather control the way they find out something that life-changing. Yeah, we’re going out. Officially, or as officially as we can when he’s faculty and I’m a student.”

“She’s not in any of my classes; I have no power over her or influence over her grades,” said Walther hurriedly, like he was reassuring me about a whole series of infractions I hadn’t even gotten around to imagining yet.

I shook my head. “I don’t actually care. It’s just weird to think of Cass as old enough to date—and you’re like, more than a century old. Isn’t she a little on the young side for you?”

“The War of Silences was barely a hundred years ago,” he protested. “I was a child when it happened—I would never have been able to escape the Kingdom if I’d been recognized as an adult member of the royal family. The age difference between you and Tybalt is much more extreme.”

That was something I hadn’t considered in my initial response to the idea of Cassandra dating. I blinked again, then shrugged.“You’re right. It’s none of my business, and as long as you’re both happy, that’s all that matters.”

“That, and not telling my mom,” said Cassandra.

“Why does that matter so much to you?” asked Walther.

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