Page 23 of A Killing Frost

Of course she was beautiful. The Daoine Sidhe always are. Titania would have tolerated nothing less.

“Rayseline,” said May, with all the fondness of a woman who remembered the girl in the glass being born, remembered holding her when she was a baby, remembered thinking she was going to grow up to do incredible things. Well, she’d done that. They hadn’t been good things, but kidnapping my daughter, killing Oleander de Merelands, and nearly assassinating her own mother made for a pretty incredible list, all things considered.

“She’s still asleep?” said Quentin, in a bewildered tone. “But Queen Windermere made the elf-shot cure available after the tribunal said it was okay to use it. I thought...”

“You mean you never asked?” I turned to him. “You’ve been coming here every week for lessons, and you never saw her, and you never asked?”

“I didn’t want to upset anyone,” he said. “I thought she might be having trouble adjusting. I knew you’d pulled the Blodynbryd out of her. I guess I just couldn’t imagine Luna allowing her to stay asleep any longer than she had to.”

I could understand his confusion. It still reminded me that Quentin was a pureblood—a famously incurious lot. They don’t like to dig below the surface of things, preferring the comfort of the obvious and the known. If Raysel wasn’t there, of course he’d assumed there was a reason and left it alone. It took changelings like me and oddities like May to ask the questions that keep Faerie changing. The purebloods would be happy, by and large, to let it stay the same forever. It’s safer for them that way.

“No,” I said, and took a step toward the coffin. “They didn’t wake her up.”

There was a rustle and a faint creaking noise, and then Sylvester was saying, “We couldn’t risk it with Simon at large.”

I whirled around, eyes wide, and beheld my liege for the first time in a year.

He was a handsome man, Daoine Sidhe like his daughter, with the same fox fur-colored hair and golden eyes. He didn’t have the build of a laborer, slim and easy in his linen shirt and simple trousers, a look of profound weariness on his face. He looked at me, weariness growing tinged with sorrow as he met my eyes, and in that moment, all I could think was how sorry I was that I’d ever been the one to hurt him. It didn’t matter that in many ways he’d hurt me first—that’s not math that puts anything good into the world. I’m allowed to protect my heart. I’m also allowed to grieve when I don’t protect the hearts of the people around me.

Sylvester looked, for a moment, like he was going to move toward me, like maybe we were on the verge of reuniting. Then he tucked his hands into his pockets and turned his face away, suddenly fascinated by one of the roses growing nearby, and the flicker of hope I hadn’t even been aware was growing guttered out and died in my chest.

“If he were safely asleep, as he should be, we’d have woken her by now,” he said, tone dull, almost lifeless. “You promised to speak at her trial, or did you forget?”

“I promised to speak at her trial, and the Luidaeg has agreed not to demand she be held accountable for the Selkie woman she murdered,” I said. “On account of how she was under Oleander’s influence at the time.”

“Oleander... yes. She’s still the problem, even now that she’s gone to the night-haunts. With Simon out there doing as he pleases, he could appear and demand satisfaction for his lover’s death bymy daughter’s hands. Raysel’s life could be forfeit to pay for killing thatmonster.” He turned back toward me, and his eyes were suddenly candle-bright with rage, less golden than lambent. I swallowed the urge to step away.

My humanity is thin and faded these days, but part of me remembers what it is to be terrified of the gentry, to know that my place is so far below the least of the purebloods that looking at them can make it difficult to breathe. For Sylvester to be so angry that his magic was leaking into his physical form was viscerally terrifying in a way I had trouble articulating. I fought back the fear and stood my ground.

“I don’t think he could, actually,” I said, in as level a tone as I could manage. “He traded his way home for August’s, so she could go back to her mother. For a moment, for his daughter, he was a hero, and I’m sorry you didn’t get to see him like that. But losing his way home means he can’t recognize anyone who matters to him. He wouldn’t know you if you were standing in front of him.” At least, that was how it had worked for August, and I had to hope it was how it would work for Simon. He’d still recognized me, after all. He’d just forgotten how much work he’d done to make amends and thought that it was his job to destroy me. There was a decent possibility he didn’t even remember Oleander was dead. This spell—if I could even call it that, it was a magical working so far above a simple spell that it might as well have been a sun compared to a candle—was a brutal one.

“Would you take the risk if it were your child?” he demanded. “Would you do anything you thought might even have a chance of endangering Gillian’s life?”

It was suddenly a lot easier to stand up to his anger without flinching. “If we’re bringing Gillian into this, now’s when I remind you thatyourdaughter kidnapped and nearly killed mine,” I said coolly. “I had to rip Faerie from my own child’s veins to save her life—and that didn’tsaveit, did it? Because it made her mortal, and what’s mortal dies. Rayseline condemned my child to death when she stole her to get back at you, and I never held that against you. I never said ‘oh, your family isn’t worth taking risks for anymore because they got my family hurt.’ I know you were a hero, Sylvester. I’m a hero now, too. When did you forget what that means?”

I glared at him until he turned his face away again, lookingdown at his feet rather than facing the implacable force of my anger.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice soft. “But my family... I’ve lost so much these last few years. My wife is changed beyond recognition. I fear she no longer knows what it means to love me. My daughter sleeps in a glass casket, and I can’t wake her because my brother chose a monster over his own flesh and blood.”

“I think the first monster he chose was my mother,” I said, matching his tone. “I don’t have any illusions about my own family. I’m sorry you keep losing your illusions about yours. But, Sylvester, I need help, and it’s not my fault Rayseline was broken. All I’ve ever done is try to help her put herself back together.”

He turned his attention toward the glass coffin. “I don’t even recognize her anymore,” he said. “She looks so much like...” His voice tapered off.

I didn’t need to hear the name. The calendar I’m a part of began, as far as I know, with Sylvester’s sister, September. Her half-Tylwyth Teg daughter, January, is a friend of mine, but September was dead long before I was born. There weren’t any other redheaded Daoine Sidhe women lying around to be reflected in the reshaped bones of Raysel’s face.

“She looks like her father,” I said. “But she’s still Rayseline Torquill, daughter of Sylvester and Luna, even if her blood isn’t mixed anymore, and she’s still going to have all her problems and all her sorrows when she wakes up. You’re her father. It’s on you to help her adjust to what her life looks like now. I’ll do my best to make sure she gets to have that life, that she isn’t sentenced back to sleep or worse, but honestly, that’s going to be an afternoon, and I have the ear of the High King. He’ll probably listen to me.”

Behind me, Quentin snorted softly. I ignored him. I wasn’t making any promises his father would be compelled to keep, and if I wanted Sylvester’s help, this was what had to happen.

“October...” Sylvester rubbed his face with one broad hand. I remembered when those hands used to braid my hair, or boost me up onto his shoulders, back in the days when I’d been young enough for that not to seem strange, when I’d been his surrogate daughter, and not the near-stranger I’d become.

Oak and ash, I missed him. I missed him like I missed the rest of the family I’d once believed would be mine forever, back whenI’d thought my mother loved and wanted me, that Cliff and I would stay together, that Gillian would grow up safe and cradled in the circle of my arms. I missed him like I missed the innocence I hadn’t appreciated until it was gone. I kept my hands by my sides and stayed where I was, not allowing myself to move toward him. He hadn’t earned that from me yet.

Sometimes family means being willing to be the one who buries the hatchet and takes the first step. Sometimes family means they’ve already buried the hatchet, in your back.

“Oberon’s departure was fresh in the memory of those who’d known him when I was born,” said Sylvester, voice soft and dull. “My parents truly believed he would return any day, that they would see him come again. I was raised believing he’d merely stepped away, that he was still watching over us from some remove, out of sight but never out of mind.”

I blinked. That didn’t seem relevant. I glanced over my shoulder to May, who shook her head, a baffled expression on her face. At least she didn’t get it either.

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