Page 73 of A Killing Frost

She didn’t lift her head from her father’s shoulder as she replied with a sullen, “What is it?”

“We need to restore everyone who’s still transformed in Goldengreen, and Simon can’t break the spell without drinking more of your sister’s blood, which will make it easier for her to influence him again. We just got him back. I think Patrick will kill me if I let her mess this up.”

“You just got him back? He’s been running around playing at evil for what, a handful of years? I’ve been missing my father forfive centuries. You can give me an hour.”

“I... right.” I had no idea what Oberon’s return would mean for Faerie. I didn’t think any of us did. But he was back, and that meant things were going to change. There was no way to avoid that anymore.

Everything was going to change.

TWENTY-ONE

MY CAR WAS PARKEDin the alley outside. I looked at it wearily before deciding I didn’t want to know how it had come to be here. None of the options I could think of were particularly appealing, save for maybe “Bridget drove it here, and then Etienne opened a portal to take them both home.” My keys were in the engine, protected by the soap bubble shield of a ward that burst with the faintest scent of salt as I approached. The Luidaeg had been looking out for me, as she so often did.

“I’ll take Walther back to campus,” said Danny gruffly, careful to stand far enough back as to not place himself between me and Tybalt.

“I appreciate that, Danny,” I said, biting my tongue before I could tack on a “thank you.”

“I’ll get back to work waking May,” said Walther. The edges of the sky were starting to burn with the approach of dawn. He looked at them and grimaced. “So much for date night. I’m going to have to make this up to Cassie.”

“I’ll buy your next pizza,” I said.

He smiled, lopsidedly. “Aw, you know she loves you, but she’ll really appreciate someone else picking up the tab.”

“Doesn’t Arden pay her?”

“Sure she does, and Berkeley pays me, but wow, that girl can put away a slice. We go through alotof pizza. And alchemical supplies and physics textbooks aren’t cheap, either.” He grimaced.“Sometimes I think Faerie adopting human ideas of currency and capitalism was a bad idea.”

“Only sometimes?”

“Most of the time Iknowit was a bad idea.” He stepped over and hugged me. “Welcome back. I know you had a plan, but that was terrifying, and if you ever do it again, I’m going to kick whatever your boyfriend leaves of your ass. Got it?”

“Got it.” I looked past him to Danny. “Can you hang around campus until May’s awake and then give her a ride home?”

“I was already planning on it,” he said.

“I’ll put a pot of coffee on.” Danny won’t let me pay him for driving, citing a favor I did for his sister almost twenty years ago as a debt that he’s still trying to pay off. I don’t actually remember what I did for her that was so impressive, but at this point, if anyone’s in debt, it’s me. Coffee was the least that I could do.

Danny smiled, expression as rough-hewn as the rest of him, and lumbered toward his car. Walther followed, shoulders stooped, exhaustion showing in every line of his body. He’d had a hard day.

I turned back to my remaining companions. Tybalt was still holding himself farther back than was his norm, unable to forgive me for the risk I’d taken. Quentin was balancing things out by standing closer than he usually would, like he was afraid I’d vanish if he took his eyes off me for a second. Simon was in the middle, weary and wary and too thin by half. I wanted to pause long enough to get the man to a warm bed and a square meal, but I was afraid we didn’t have the time.

“The Luidaeg will break the spell on the rest of the people in Goldengreen once she’s done welcoming her father,” I said. “Dean’s already back to normal, which means you shouldn’t be intoomuch trouble when his parents find out.”

“He’s still in trouble with me,” muttered Quentin.

“You ate too much chowder,” said Simon. It was the first time he’d directly addressed my squire since recovering his way home. Quentin and I both blinked at him. “Even after it started making you feel sick, you kept eating it. Why?”

Quentin didn’t answer. Simon frowned.

“Why?” he repeated.

“You put me under a compulsion spell,” snapped Quentin. “I couldn’t stop. Even when I knew I shouldn’t eat any more, evenwhen it made me feel bad, I couldn’t stop, because you wouldn’t let me!”

“And that’s why I hurt all of you,” said Simon. He looked from Quentin to me, to Tybalt. “I don’t claim to have no responsibility in what happened. When my former patroness offered power in exchange for service, I took it because my child was missing, and I was half-mad with the fear that I’d never see her again if I waited to find a better way. Power corrupts, and it ate away at me, making worse and worse choices seem like they were reasonable ones, but the fact remains that the first decision was my own, made when my mind was clouded by nothing more than grief.”

“Much as it pains me to say this, you may be wrong,” said Tybalt. Simon and I both turned to him. He looked at Simon, shutting me out entirely. “You were Daoine Sidhe standing in the presence of your Firstborn. Anything she said or suggested would have seemed reasonable, whether or not you had good reason to resist her. Even that first choice may not have been yours to make.”

“I want to accept that,” said Simon. “I want to be blameless. I want to lay all the horrible things I did and said and allowed at someone else’s feet. But to do that would be to admit I have no honor of my own, because some of those choicesweremine. I’ve watched August and October fight their Firstborn for as long as they’ve been alive. Can I really claim a grace I would refuse to my own daughters? Either I made my choices, or Amandine has always allowed our girls to rebel. And she would never have risked August in that way.”

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