The Winter Long
Page 10
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“I never wanted you to hate me, October. Far from it. I wanted to be . . . I wanted to be a part of your life, but I was never given the chance. That’s why I did what I did. That’s why I saved you.”
Wait, what?
He must have seen the question in my eyes. Simon sighed, and said, “Forgive me. I didn’t think about what fourteen years would do to your mortal life, because I never had a mortal life to lose. I honestly didn’t think you’d remain enchanted so long, either. Amandine’s work went deeper than I realized. But you won yourself free, in the end, and—” He stopped, mouth working wordlessly, like something was preventing whatever he wanted to say from getting through. The smell of smoke grew stronger.
For a second, it felt like the bonds holding me suspended in the air were slipping. I tried to move, and they snapped tight again. Simon raised a chiding finger.
“Please don’t fight. I don’t want either of us getting hurt.” He shook his head. “It seems my geas is still intact, despite its not having been renewed in years. I cannot speak the name of my employer. Let me say, instead, that I was paid to do what I did. I was promised something I could not resist, and I was instructed to steal my brother’s wife and child. They were to be returned as soon as . . . my employer’s . . . goals had been met. I didn’t know those goals included your death. I swear, on the root and the branch, I didn’t know. Even if I’d been willing to kill you, I wouldn’t have been able to meet your mother’s eyes after I had slain her child.”
He reached for my face, hesitating for only an instant before completing the motion. His fingertips caressed my cheek, and the spell that held me wouldn’t even allow me to shudder.
Simon looked at me, eyes pleading, and said, “I transformed you to save you, and then I ran. I had no way of knowing I’d be branded a traitor by the one who had set all these things in motion or that, in my absence, Luna and Rayseline would remain captive. I swear. On your mother’s name, on my sister’s grave, I swear it.”
It was strange, but I almost believed him. He sounded so earnest, and so sad . . . and that did nothing to change the fact that I was held suspended in a stasis spell in my own kitchen, and that I couldn’t stop him from touching me.
He took a deep breath. “October—” he began. He never had the opportunity to finish.
“Hey, fucko!” Jasmine’s shout was loud enough to wake the dead. It would almost certainly wake anyone else in the house who was still asleep. I guess there’s something to be said for having someone naturally diurnal around. She charged into the kitchen and into my field of vision, my old friend the aluminum baseball bat clutched firmly in her hands. She had it raised like she was going to hit a home run, using Simon’s skull as the ball.
Simon turned toward her, raking the fingers of his free hand through the air. The smell of smoke and rotting oranges rose around him in an instant, thick and cloying. Jazz made a sound that was half human, half challenging raven, and swung her bat. Simon swept his hand down, pointing at her, and said a word that was less language and more the sound of water on rocks.
Jazz screamed as she fell. I could live to be older than Oberon himself, and I would never be able to forget that sound.
The echoes of Jazz’s scream were still ringing in my ears when Simon turned back to me, eyes blazing with a strange combination of fury and sorrow. “I didn’t want it to happen like this,” he said, and followed the statement with another of those horrible, misshapen words. The smell of rotting oranges grew stronger, all but obscuring the smell of smoke.
I don’t know what I did. I don’t think I could have done it if I’d understood what needed to be done; I wouldn’t have known where to begin. But I was angry, and I was scared, and when he flung his spell at me, I reacted on instinct alone. The stasis spell was an inconvenience, and so I pushed it aside as I snatched the shape of his magic out of the air and flung it back at him as hard as I could.
The spell burned my hands, and I fell as soon as the stasis broke, hitting the kitchen floor in a heap. Somehow, that didn’t matter. Simon screamed, a shrill, agonized sound, and turned, running for the hall. There was something wrong with the way he was moving, but that wasn’t my concern; not right here, not right now. All my attention was reserved for Jazz, who was crumpled in a heap on the floor, her hands webbed together and covered in shining scales, her face mercifully concealed by her hair.
She wasn’t breathing.
“Oh, sweet Maeve, no.” I scrambled to her side and rolled her onto her back, trying not to look at the twisted outline of what had been her face. The raw pink slashes of newly formed gills scarred her neck, lying flat and unmoving against the skin. I didn’t know where to start looking for a pulse, and so I didn’t bother to try; I just braced my hands on her chest and shoved downward, calling on what little I remembered of CPR as I tried to force her to respond. “Come on, Jazz, come on! You’re not allowed to die on me!”
She didn’t respond. I heard the front door slam. I kept doing chest compressions; I couldn’t think of anything else to do. There was a scuffing sound from the direction of the hall. I turned, hands still moving, to see May standing frozen in the kitchen doorway.
“Toby . . . ?” she said.
“Simon was here I thought it was Sylvester but it was Simon and he put me in a stasis spell only Jazz came in and he hit her I don’t know what he hit her with I think it was a transformation spell I broke the stasis but I wasn’t fast enough and now she won’t wake up!” The words tumbled out in a rush, undisciplined and wild.
May stared at me for a split-second. Then, pulling herself together with an almost visible force of will, she walked over to kneel by Jasmine’s side, sliding her hands beneath mine and taking over the chest compressions before I could tell her not to. “You said you broke Simon’s spell. How did you do that?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” It had just happened, too fast for me to really pay attention to anything beyond survival. “I just reacted. He was throwing another spell at me, and I knew I couldn’t let it hit me. I wouldn’t be able to help Jazz if he knocked me out or turned me into something.”
“Instinct is a wonderful thing. It doesn’t care about the lies our parents told us, or the ones we tell ourselves.” May kept working. Her voice was unbearably calm; she sounded like an undertaker’s assistant preparing for the biggest job of her career. “We don’t have much time. Close your eyes, and listen to me.”
Wait, what?
He must have seen the question in my eyes. Simon sighed, and said, “Forgive me. I didn’t think about what fourteen years would do to your mortal life, because I never had a mortal life to lose. I honestly didn’t think you’d remain enchanted so long, either. Amandine’s work went deeper than I realized. But you won yourself free, in the end, and—” He stopped, mouth working wordlessly, like something was preventing whatever he wanted to say from getting through. The smell of smoke grew stronger.
For a second, it felt like the bonds holding me suspended in the air were slipping. I tried to move, and they snapped tight again. Simon raised a chiding finger.
“Please don’t fight. I don’t want either of us getting hurt.” He shook his head. “It seems my geas is still intact, despite its not having been renewed in years. I cannot speak the name of my employer. Let me say, instead, that I was paid to do what I did. I was promised something I could not resist, and I was instructed to steal my brother’s wife and child. They were to be returned as soon as . . . my employer’s . . . goals had been met. I didn’t know those goals included your death. I swear, on the root and the branch, I didn’t know. Even if I’d been willing to kill you, I wouldn’t have been able to meet your mother’s eyes after I had slain her child.”
He reached for my face, hesitating for only an instant before completing the motion. His fingertips caressed my cheek, and the spell that held me wouldn’t even allow me to shudder.
Simon looked at me, eyes pleading, and said, “I transformed you to save you, and then I ran. I had no way of knowing I’d be branded a traitor by the one who had set all these things in motion or that, in my absence, Luna and Rayseline would remain captive. I swear. On your mother’s name, on my sister’s grave, I swear it.”
It was strange, but I almost believed him. He sounded so earnest, and so sad . . . and that did nothing to change the fact that I was held suspended in a stasis spell in my own kitchen, and that I couldn’t stop him from touching me.
He took a deep breath. “October—” he began. He never had the opportunity to finish.
“Hey, fucko!” Jasmine’s shout was loud enough to wake the dead. It would almost certainly wake anyone else in the house who was still asleep. I guess there’s something to be said for having someone naturally diurnal around. She charged into the kitchen and into my field of vision, my old friend the aluminum baseball bat clutched firmly in her hands. She had it raised like she was going to hit a home run, using Simon’s skull as the ball.
Simon turned toward her, raking the fingers of his free hand through the air. The smell of smoke and rotting oranges rose around him in an instant, thick and cloying. Jazz made a sound that was half human, half challenging raven, and swung her bat. Simon swept his hand down, pointing at her, and said a word that was less language and more the sound of water on rocks.
Jazz screamed as she fell. I could live to be older than Oberon himself, and I would never be able to forget that sound.
The echoes of Jazz’s scream were still ringing in my ears when Simon turned back to me, eyes blazing with a strange combination of fury and sorrow. “I didn’t want it to happen like this,” he said, and followed the statement with another of those horrible, misshapen words. The smell of rotting oranges grew stronger, all but obscuring the smell of smoke.
I don’t know what I did. I don’t think I could have done it if I’d understood what needed to be done; I wouldn’t have known where to begin. But I was angry, and I was scared, and when he flung his spell at me, I reacted on instinct alone. The stasis spell was an inconvenience, and so I pushed it aside as I snatched the shape of his magic out of the air and flung it back at him as hard as I could.
The spell burned my hands, and I fell as soon as the stasis broke, hitting the kitchen floor in a heap. Somehow, that didn’t matter. Simon screamed, a shrill, agonized sound, and turned, running for the hall. There was something wrong with the way he was moving, but that wasn’t my concern; not right here, not right now. All my attention was reserved for Jazz, who was crumpled in a heap on the floor, her hands webbed together and covered in shining scales, her face mercifully concealed by her hair.
She wasn’t breathing.
“Oh, sweet Maeve, no.” I scrambled to her side and rolled her onto her back, trying not to look at the twisted outline of what had been her face. The raw pink slashes of newly formed gills scarred her neck, lying flat and unmoving against the skin. I didn’t know where to start looking for a pulse, and so I didn’t bother to try; I just braced my hands on her chest and shoved downward, calling on what little I remembered of CPR as I tried to force her to respond. “Come on, Jazz, come on! You’re not allowed to die on me!”
She didn’t respond. I heard the front door slam. I kept doing chest compressions; I couldn’t think of anything else to do. There was a scuffing sound from the direction of the hall. I turned, hands still moving, to see May standing frozen in the kitchen doorway.
“Toby . . . ?” she said.
“Simon was here I thought it was Sylvester but it was Simon and he put me in a stasis spell only Jazz came in and he hit her I don’t know what he hit her with I think it was a transformation spell I broke the stasis but I wasn’t fast enough and now she won’t wake up!” The words tumbled out in a rush, undisciplined and wild.
May stared at me for a split-second. Then, pulling herself together with an almost visible force of will, she walked over to kneel by Jasmine’s side, sliding her hands beneath mine and taking over the chest compressions before I could tell her not to. “You said you broke Simon’s spell. How did you do that?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” It had just happened, too fast for me to really pay attention to anything beyond survival. “I just reacted. He was throwing another spell at me, and I knew I couldn’t let it hit me. I wouldn’t be able to help Jazz if he knocked me out or turned me into something.”
“Instinct is a wonderful thing. It doesn’t care about the lies our parents told us, or the ones we tell ourselves.” May kept working. Her voice was unbearably calm; she sounded like an undertaker’s assistant preparing for the biggest job of her career. “We don’t have much time. Close your eyes, and listen to me.”
