Page 37 of A Killing Frost

“I know,” said Quentin.

He did, too: blood magic is what makes that scent easy to pick out and decode. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that not everyone can tell who cast a spell by the way it smells, and that the stronger someone’s talent for blood magic is, the more information they’ll be able to get from a single sniff. I’d always been told that I was ordinary trending toward weak. Anything I could do couldn’t possibly be special.

Or if it was special, my mother was a filthy liar. That had seemed like the impossible answer when I was a kid, so of course it had turned out to be the true one. As a Daoine Sidhe, Quentin could smell magic almost as well as I could, but he didn’t have the built-in database of scents that would allow him to recognize even things he’d never encountered before and couldn’t possibly know. I rubbed at my face with one hand.

“Everyone’s magic has a distinct smell, and it’s at least partially influenced by who their parents were,” I said. “I wish I’d met Simon and Sylvester’s parents, because between the two of them they have two kinds of flower, one fruit, and one elemental scent. It doesn’t make sense. Most of the Daoine Sidhe I’ve known have had something floral about their magic. Simon doesn’t. He never did. Do you follow?”

“Like my magic smells like steel and heather,” said Quentin. “My mom’s smells like fresh-cooled steel and dried hay, and my dad’s smells like heather—there’s a lot of different kinds of heather—and celandine poppies. So Mom doesn’t have a flower, but I got the metal from her.”

“Right.” Maida Sollys had been born a changeling, with only one fae parent. I was willing to bet that her human parent was somehow where the metal had entered her magic, which was why Quentin could inherit the scent of something that could do himserious harm. “Well, the magic of the woman we’re walking towards smells like roses.”

“Right,” said Quentin, puzzled.

“And so does my mother’s. And Acacia’s children literally bond to roses so tightly that they can be killed by hurting those roses.”

“But they’re all descended from Titania, so maybe they got the roses from her,” said Quentin. “The Luidaeg’s magic doesn’t smell like roses.”

“Mom isn’t a daughter of Titania,” I said. “She’s all Oberon’s. And Amphitrite’s magic doesn’t smell like roses. But Maeve’s does.”

“This is fascinating, but could the magical theory class wait until I’m not leaking?” asked May. “I ask because I feel like we could potentially hurry this the fuck up.”

“Language,” I said, in my primmest tone. “I’m asking important questions about the nature of Faerie here, and we’re still walking.”

“We swear on the rose and the thorn when something’s really important,” said Quentin. “Maybe we do that because both Queens had roses in their magic...?”

“It would explain a lot,” I said thoughtfully. “But Mom isn’t descended from either of the Queens. She’s descended from Oberon and a human woman.” Janet’s name was another one I didn’t want to invoke when we were this far off the beaten path. It seemed like a good way to get hurt.

The mingled scents of snow and roses were getting stronger, managing to coexist without becoming contradictory. I rubbed my nose, trying to dull the scent. It didn’t help. If anything, it made things worse.

Then we stepped through a break in the trees, and there she was. Eira Rosynhwyr. Evening Winterrose. No matter what we called her, she was beautiful, and she was deadly.

And she was asleep.

She was stretched atop a bier of brambles, their vines looped and tangled together until they were as snarled as a ball of yarn, impossible to pick or pull apart. Their thorns were longer and sharper than any I’d ever seen, some as long as my index finger. All of them pointed outward, away from her, protecting her from any threats that presented themselves. Not that I was sure anything in this mist-shrouded realm was capable of threatening her. Nothing but us, anyway.

She was beautiful as always, with skin as white as snow, hair asblack as the roses that led us here, and lips as red as the blood magic she’d passed to her descendants. Some people believe mortal fairy tales were inspired by actual encounters with the fae, and if they’re right, we can blame all those endless Snow White reimaginings on Evening, who started the whole messy monochrome myth. She was wearing a crushed velvet gown only a few shades darker than her lips, with red roses in her hair. She hadn’t been wearing that the last time we’d been here. She hadn’t been stretched out on a bier, either. I was willing to believe the briars could have arranged themselves that way to make her comfortable, but I didn’t believe they were capable of changing her clothes.

“I know you’re there,” I said, raising my voice as I turned in a slow circle. “You can come out now.”

“Why, October, I thought you’d never ask,” said Simon, stepping out from behind a nearby tree.

He was holding a short recurve bow in his hands, an arrow already notched and pointed, not toward me or May, but directly at the center of Quentin’s chest.

Well, shit.

TEN

SUPERFICIALLY, SIMON TORQUILL LOOKSexactly like his twin brother, Sylvester. Once you take the time to really look at them, they don’t look anything alike at all.

Simon carried himself more stiffly, like he remembered and cared about the etiquette lessons Sylvester had abandoned decades ago. His shirt was frayed at the cuffs and collar, and his trousers fit too loosely. He’d clearly lost weight since the last time he’d been able to see a tailor, but as he had a belt, I knew we weren’t going to be saved by a well-timed pratfall. There was no softness in his expression. He looked at us like we were vermin, worthy of notice only in that he had to notice us in order to destroy us.

That was wrong. Everything about this was wrong. Sylvester rejecting me was wrong; Simon forgetting how much work he’d done to begin making amends with me was wrong. It was wrong, and I hated it.

“If you’d do me the immense favor of stepping away from my lady, I might see fit to do you the immense favor of not putting an arrow through the brat,” he said. “I mixed the elf-shot myself, and the ingredients available in this forest are more potent than the ones to be found in the Summerlands. I’m not entirely sure what they would do to someone of average magical strength. It might be a two-hundred–year slumber, instead of the normal one. Or it might be instant death. Won’t it be fun to find out?”

“Whoa, whoa, let’s not be hasty here,” I said, putting up my hands and backing away from Evening’s bier as quickly as I dared.May did the same, more slowly, due to her injuries. “We’re not here to mess with your lady. We’re here because we were looking for you, and this is where the Rose Road led us when we asked it to take us to you.”

“I can’t find Oleander,” he said, a brief, pensive look crossing his face. “I went to the apartment I bought for her, but she wasn’t there. There was no sign that she’d been there for years. It doesn’t make any sense. She always tells me before she goes on a long journey. She says it’s to make sure I don’t forget her.”

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