Page 70 of A Killing Frost

“I would already have apologized for that if October had been in her right mind and willing to listen,” said Simon abashedly.

“Always an excuse with you,” said the teenager. She snapped her fingers, and I couldn’t move, not to shove Simon again, not even to back deeper into the corner. “I know you can’t believe me right now, but this was your idea,” she said, eyes on me. “You thought you had the answer to breaking this curse so your fucked-up branch of the family can stop passing it around like some sort of unwanted vase. Now stay here. I have to keep a promise.” She turned, heading for the door.

“What promise?” demanded Tybalt. There was an inexplicable note of panic in his voice.

“I told your lady fair that I’d unlock a door,” she said, and stepped into the hall, leaving me immobile and surrounded by people I either didn’t know or didn’t like.

“I hate it when she slings magic around like it’s nothing,” grumbled the younger Daoine Sidhe. He walked toward me, pausing to bend and gingerly retrieve a silver knife from the floor. It looked sharp. It also looked well-used; there were flecks of blood dried on the hilt, and streaks of something much fresher on the blade. “I’ll just, um, hold this for you, for now,” he said. “I promise I’ll give it back when you’re ready.”

“You can’t give itbackwhen it’s notmine,” I snarled. At least I could talk. I tried to move my little finger, but even that was apparently forbidden. “I don’t know who you are or what you want, butthe sea witch isn’t anyone to mess around with, kid. She’s not your friend, and she’s not going to grant your heart’s desire just because you helped her hurt me.”

“Ignore her,” said the alchemist. “I know it’s hard when someone you love starts saying things like that, but she’s not herself right now. Literally.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “Lily would never have spoken so highly of you if you had been like this.”

“You know Lily?” I calmed a little. Lily has always had excellent taste in people. If this man was someone she knew, then he probably wasn’t working with Simon, the sea witch, or King Asshole over there, who was looking at me like I’d just killed his puppy. Assuming he’d have a puppy, or that he wouldn’t kill it himself.

“IknewLily,” he said, and turned back to his chemistry set. “She took me in when I came to the Mists. I didn’t have a place, and she was willing to give me one, even though I offered her nothing but another alchemist with an irregular education. All the noble households—even your beloved Shadowed Hills—needed to know I’d be useful before they’d offer me more than the barest requirements of hospitality. But Lily loved you. Lily said you were worth more than the nobles around you. Please don’t prove her wrong.”

I blinked at him. He was talking about Lily in the past tense. But that didn’t make any sense. Lily was in the Tea Gardens. Lily would always be in the Tea Gardens. There’s virtually nothing in Faerie that can kill an Undine.

No one said anything. Silence fell, broken only by the pounding of my heart and the sound of Tybalt’s inexplicably labored breathing. He was still looking at me like I represented some great, heartbreaking betrayal, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why.

The teenager stepped back into the room. She nodded when she saw I was still in the corner where she’d left me. “Good,” she said. “I was half afraid you’d remember enough to break free, and not enough to know that you didn’t want to.” She stepped to the side, looking expectantly back the way she’d come. “Not long now.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, unless they’d brought me here to be fed to some great and terrible beast. I tensed as much as I could through the spell binding me, prepared to scream my head off if that was the only option I had.

Something moved in the hall. It seemed too small to be anything really dangerous, which was ridiculous.Pixiescan be dangerous when there are enough of them, and they’re basically the size of Barbie dolls. The orange woman clapped a hand over her mouth. “Awake, then?” she asked, in an accent I couldn’t place.

The teenager nodded. “Awake, and already out of bed when I came to unlock the door. Something has him all stirred up.” She glanced at me, black eyes unknowable.

I still couldn’t move. A man—a human man, by all appearances, with brown hair, tawny brown skin, and brown eyes—appeared in the doorway, looking wildly around the room. He was wearing sweatpants and a white tank top, and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in weeks. Not quite long enough to grow a full beard, long enough to look incredibly scruffy. His feet were bare, and they sank into the carpet as he stumbled toward me, not quite walking steadily.

The teenager snapped her fingers, and the spell holding me in place collapsed. All the tension I’d been gathering was released at once, and I fell forward, landing on my knees in the carpet. I barely missed knocking over the candle. The man kept staggering toward me. I scrambled to get back to my feet before he reached me.

I didn’t quite make it. He stopped in front of me, chest heaving, and reached down with one hand to gently cup my chin, tugging as he guided me the rest of the way upright. “Jenny?” he asked, in a voice filled with wondering awe. “MyJenny? You came for me? Youfoundme, who should have been unfindable?” His eyes flicked to my ears, and he paused.

When he spoke again, he sounded older, and sadder. “No. Not my girl. The child, perhaps. She was so sure it would be a boy, but you look just like your mother. Almandine, that was the name we settled upon. Are you my Almandine?”

The teenager laughed, a little wildly, and when she spoke, she sounded dazed, like she was watching something impossible. “I knew it. I alwaysknewmy father wouldn’t have approved of naming his newest daughter after a trout dish.”

“My name is October,” I said, staring at the man. “How do you know my mother? But her name isn’t ‘Almandine,’ it’s ‘Amandine.’”

“Oh, Jenny, you always were fond of shortcuts,” said the man. “Forbidden places, forbidden flowers—forbidden hearts. My girl never saw a rose she didn’t think was ripe for plucking.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know you.”

“How do you not know me?” asked the man. “You were the one who brought me home.”

The world shattered then, and fell down around me in prismatic, candy-colored shards, and everything was different, and everything was exactly the same.

TWENTY

OFFICER THORNTON—WHO HAD NEVERreally been Officer Thornton; that man had never existed in the way humans think about existence, had never walked the world as an independent, mortal being, although he’d laughed and breathed and lived a life that was as much an illusion as the ones I sometimes wore—looked at me with patience and an infinitely kind acceptance, like he was waiting for me to catch up with his place in the story. It was suddenly hard to breathe. I pressed a hand to my chest, trying to stop my heart from beating too fast and breaking free.

The candleflame was roaring now, so tall that it crested my shoulder, still lambent blue.

From the other side of the not-so-human human man, the Luidaeg watched me warily, eyes black from side to side, the way they were when she was having trouble keeping her composure. I still wasn’t sure what all the little changes in her appearance meant, but I had a fairly decent grasp of her eyes at this point.

“Feeling better?” she asked, voice low.

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