The Winter Long
Page 63

“There’s a drying rack,” said Bridget. “Now, what’s so important that it’s brought you here to visit us for the first time since we moved in? Not that we were ready for company, but we’d have been happy to have you regardless.”
“I honestly don’t know where to begin explaining things,” I said reluctantly. “I mean, I can explain, but so much of it is rooted in the history of this Kingdom and what happened before I met you—I guess the short version is that there’s a woman here in the knowe who’s supposed to be dead. I investigated her murder. I nearly died because she cursed me so that I’d be forced to find the person who killed her.” Except that she’d never actually said that. She’d said I had to find the ones who “did this” to her. I’d done that. I’d found Devin, and while I hadn’t been able to bring him to justice, vengeance has always served Faerie well enough, when necessary.
I’d fulfilled the terms of Evening’s curse, and it was my fault that I’d always assumed I’d been solving her murder, not investigating a robbery.
“Dead woman, huh? Does that happen often?” Bridget looked to Etienne for confirmation. Apparently, she had learned to trust him to tell her the truth. Given that their relationship had been built on lies—most specifically the lie that he was human—this was a good thing. “Do I need to worry about dead folks popping up and asking me to do things for them?”
“For the most part, no,” he said. “October is arguing that Evening was never dead at all. I feel we still need to confirm that the woman now holding Duke Torquill’s attention is actually the Countess Evening Winterrose, and not someone pretending at her name and station.”
“I tasted her magic, Etienne,” I said wearily. “Just trust me on this one, okay? You can copy someone’s face and body, but if they use magic around me, I’ll know that they’re not really who they say they are.”
“Forgive me for being less confident than you are,” he said, standing up a little straighter as he pulled his dignity around himself. “I do not share your particular skills.”
“Don’t put yourself back in the box, darling, it’s not good for you,” said Bridget, pausing to kiss Etienne’s cheek before handing me the socks and sweater. “I can’t say I’ll take her word over yours, but you’ve already admitted she has skills you lack. Maybe that means you should listen to her.”
“I dislike the dead returning to life,” said Etienne, his shoulders slumping again. “It’s untidy and inappropriate.”
“And that’s Etienne in a nutshell,” I said blithely. “Anything inappropriate should cease immediately, because otherwise it might disrupt the natural order in the course of killing us all.”
Chelsea smothered a smile behind her hand. Raj simply watched, expression neutral. He was getting better at the Cait Sidhe trick of hiding his feelings behind a mask of vague disinterest.
“You say that as if it’s a bad thing,” said Etienne.
I was saved from needing to reply by Quentin running into the room. He was faintly out of breath as he said, “The Duchess will see you, but she’ll only see you, and she wants to see you now.” Tybalt ran into the room a few steps behind him, not as out of breath, but definitely more annoyed. Then again, Tybalt had less reason to be forgiving of the Torquills than Quentin did, and he knew how complicated my relationship with Luna really was.
“Let me change and I’ll be ready,” I said, holding up my dry clothes. I turned to Bridget. “Is there a place I can change without doing it in front of everybody?”
Most of Faerie lacks a nudity taboo, but I was raised human for several years, and sometimes it’s nice not to strip in a room full of people. Luckily for me, Bridget understood my reluctance; she nodded and said, “Right this way,” before starting toward one of the doors out of the kitchen.
“Be right back,” I said, and followed her.
We walked down a short hallway to a half-open door. Bridget pushed it the rest of the way open, motioning for me to go inside. “You can change here,” she said. “Bring your wet clothes out with you, and I’ll get them on the rack to dry.”
“Okay,” I said. I closed the door behind myself, leaving Bridget in the hall.
The room contained a large, perfectly made bed, a wardrobe, a desk loaded to the point that I worried about its structural integrity, and several bookshelves that made the desk look empty. More books were stacked on the bedside table. The one on the top of the pile was called A Field Guide to the Little People. I blinked, unsure whether I should be insulted or amused. This was clearly Etienne and Bridget’s room; she couldn’t be blamed for her reading material. Most of it was probably for class, and it was a good thing if she was teaching her students some things that weren’t quite true. The last thing we needed was a bunch of overenthusiastic human college students showing up and asking to meet the local Fairy Queen.
It only took a few minutes to swap my wet shirt and jacket for the dry sweater, remove my wet shoes and socks, and wipe my feet dry enough to let me pull the new socks on. Putting my wet shoes back on over them sort of canceled most of the benefit, but I’d take whatever I could get at this stage in the game.
Bridget was gone when I emerged back into the hall; instead, Quentin was waiting for me, his hands shoved down into his pockets and a distressed look on his face. “What is it?” I asked.
“I don’t like you going to see the Duchess by yourself,” he said.
“Neither does Tybalt, I bet, so why are you the one telling me this?”
He shrugged. “Because he doesn’t like the Torquills much these days—not like he used to—and he thought you’d be a little bit more likely to listen if it was coming from me.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How much more likely are we talking here?”
Quentin raised his hand, holding his thumb and forefinger about half an inch apart.
“That may be a small exaggeration,” I said, and started walking back down the hall to the kitchen. “I am going to go and talk to Luna because with Mom being . . . well, Mom, and the Luidaeg out of commission, Luna is the person most likely to be able to tell me more about Evening. Assuming she is who I think she is.”
“And what if she is?” demanded Quentin. There was an anguished note in his voice that actually made me stop and blink at him. He shook his head, repeating, “What if she is? What if she’s the mother of my kind, October? Do you honestly think I can stand against her? That I can side with you against the Firstborn of my entire race?”