Page 16 of A Killing Frost

May looks like me, but she’s old enough that she finds Tybalt’s occasionally archaic manners and patterns of speech charming, not confusing. She dimpled at him, miming a shallow curtsy, before asking, “What do you think of the blue? It’s a new brand of dye that’s supposed to be more resistant to being stripped out by saltwater.”

“It’s lovely,” he said. “Are you planning a trip to the beach?”

“No. I live with Toby, and blood and saltwater are basically the same thing.” May shrugged. “She plans for her clothing; I plan for my hair.”

“Indeed,” said Tybalt, with a flicker of amusement. He turned his attention on me. “Do you have everything you need?”

“We’re going to head over to Goldengreen and get Quentin, and then we’re on the road,” I said. “We’re heading for Shadowed Hills first. After that, we go wherever the trail takes us. I promise to call if there’s anything you can do to help.”

“Or if you find yourself in danger of a type you cannot navigate on your own.”

“Oh, come on,” I protested. “I call for help when I need it! I’ve gotten so much better about that over the last few years. I hardly wind up ambushed and alone at all these days.”

May slung a companionable arm around my shoulders, beaming at Tybalt. “Trust the lady, kitty. You’re about to be stuck with her forever, and she’s a lot more stabby than you are.”

“I do trust her,” said Tybalt, and sighed, stepping forward and brushing his fingers against my cheeks, leaving them lingering there, barely touching me. “I trust her to be wild and impulsive and bold and self-destructive when it means someone else mightbe saved. I trust her to be the month she was named for, cold and kind by turns, endlessly storming, so that nothing can stand in her path but risk being blown away. I trust her to beOctober, and what I’ve learned, what’s done nothing to stop my heart being given to her care, is that to be October is to be constantly in the path of destruction and not always to have the sense to step aside. I’m uncomfortable not because I don’t trust her, but because I trust her too well.”

“I love you, too, you ridiculous man,” I said, turning to kiss the palm of his hand. Then I stepped away, out of reach. “We’ll be back as soon as we can. Feed the cats, please.”

Tybalt actually laughed at that. He was still laughing when we stepped out of the kitchen and into the cool darkness of the San Francisco evening. It’s never truly dark here, not the way it is in Muir Woods, or even in Pleasant Hill, where Shadowed Hills is anchored. The glow of the city lights forbids true darkness from slipping past its defenses, turning the world into eternal twilight.

Is it any wonder that the fae flock toward human cities, even with their iron and their dangers, when they turn the mortal world into such a lovely reflection of our forever twilit Summerlands? I unlocked the car, checking the backseat for intruders before sliding behind the wheel. May did the same on the passenger side.

“You know, anyone who watches the two of us get into a car has got to think our parents did a number on us,” she commented.

“Didn’t they?” I asked, jamming the key into the ignition and snagging a handful of shadows from the air, working them between my fingers like bread dough, until they turned stiff and crumbly. “Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, which was clearly suicide, since the man was a goddamn egg.”

My magic rose and crashed down in a wave of cut grass and copper, leaving us unchanged. May raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t-look-here?” she asked.

I nodded. “Better to hide the car than the passengers. Means I don’t have to recast when we pick up Quentin.”

“Smart. Try not to have an accident.”

“I always try not to have an accident, and I’ll thankyounot to lecture me about driving safety.” May doesn’t drive, mostly because she remembers learning how, but doesn’t have the muscle memory necessary to turn any of her memories into reality. Her few attempts to reconcile the two have ended... poorly.

Everyone is safer if May stays off the streets.

I pulled onto the street, paying closer attention than usual to the cars cutting through our residential neighborhood. With the don’t-look-here on the car, no one would pay much attention to us. We weren’t truly invisible—no one was going to casually drive into us, either—but we were hard to see, disinteresting and obscure. That was how we needed things to be.

Goldengreen used to be held by Eira Rosynhwyr, back when she was pretending to be Evening Winterrose, the intimidating but ordinary Daoine Sidhe. She lost control with her “death,” and didn’t take it back when she revealed she’d been alive and hiding the whole time, like the terrible person she was. As one of San Francisco’s original nobles, she had established her own holdings solidly within the city, and it wasn’t a far drive from my apartment to the San Francisco Art Museum, the low, modern building that served as the mortal side of the knowe. There were no charity events going on tonight; the parking lot was empty, save for the cars belonging to the night watchman and the janitorial staff. At this point, there was no way they didn’t think the place was haunted or something, with as long as they’d been surrounded by the fae.

Oh, well. It’s not like anyone was tormenting them on purpose. Goldengreen was mine for a while, before I passed it on to Dean, and as I parked the car and got out, breathing in the salty, eucalyptus-scented air, I couldn’t help feeling a little like I was coming home. I’d passed the knowe on voluntarily and as quickly as I could; I wasn’t ready for the responsibility when I’d been handed it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t miss the place sometimes.

I don’t miss the title that came with it. If there was one thing I didn’t need, it was to be called “Countess.”

May got out of the car, shooting me a look of wordless understanding, and together we started across the parking lot, swerving to avoid the front as we approached and tromping into the weeds and brush growing around the back, tangling around an old maintenance shed that had never been used by the human maintenance crew in all the years I’d been visiting the knowe. It was flanked by two massive oak trees that shouldn’t have been able to thrive so near the edge of the cliff. The fact that they were was a testament to the woman who had planted them, damn her eyes.

Strange whispers rose out of the grass as we approached the shed, accompanied by rustling in the nearby bushes. Under normalcircumstances, the warding spells intended to keep the unwary from stumbling into the knowe would have long since faded or been replaced by Dean’s own defenses, but these were the work of a Firstborn, and they were lingering.

I reached the shed before May did, and reached for the doorknob, grimacing as a bolt of static lanced through my palm to warn me off. Pain is never going to be my favorite thing. The door swung smoothly open, silent despite the rust caking its hinges.

“Still better than jumping off a cliff,” I said, and stepped into the dark inside. May followed close behind me, pulling the door shut with a soft click.

FIVE

THE QUALITY OF AIRchanged the instant the door closed, turning sweeter, cleaner, untouched by pollutants. The room seemed to spin, a dizzying dip and whirl like a carnival ride on the edge of breaking down, and the darkness disappeared, replaced by a dimly lit hallway lined with small tables and bookshelves, the walls softened by hanging tapestries.

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