The Winter Long
Page 91
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Live and learn, I guess. “I need you to use this key and open me a road,” I said, thrusting it toward her. “I think your Rose Road can get me there, if you follow the map.”
Luna blinked, her pink eyebrows rising toward her hairline. “Opening roads is difficult,” she said. “I’ve done it for you before, but never without cost. Why would I do this for you now? I owe you nothing.”
“You owe me nothing but your life,” I corrected harshly. “When I saved you from the salt poisoning—you remember the assassination attempt that your daughter thought was a good idea—I didn’t ask for any reward, because Sylvester is my liege and it was the right thing to do. Well, that assumed that everyone was playing fair. Turns out no one here was playing fair but me. I saved your life, Luna Torquill, and more, I killed your father. I set you free. Now open this door for me, or I will make you sorry that you even considered refusing my request.”
She looked at me for a moment with those strange, pollen-colored eyes, and in that moment I could almost see the Luna who had loved me, once, before things got so complicated between us. Then she extended one bone-white hand and said, “Give me the key.”
I straightened, walking away from Jin’s murmuring and Tybalt’s silence. Every step I took left another bloody smear on the ballroom floor, and that seemed somehow exactly right. I held the key out in front of me; Luna took it, turning it over in her hand.
“This belonged to my grandmother,” she said.
“Which one?” I asked.
Luna’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing for some reason. Then, with no further fanfare, she shoved the key into the air between us. The bottom half vanished, like it had been placed in a lock I couldn’t see.
“My debts are paid,” she said, and turned the key sharply to the left, pulling at the same time.
What opened wasn’t exactly a door, but it wasn’t exactly a portal either: it was a hole in the world. Through it, I could see darkness. Not blackness—blackness would have implied an absence—but darkness, green, wet, living darkness, where things could slither unseen by the eye and unknown by the heart.
“You asked for this,” said Luna. “Now go.”
I held out my hand.
She narrowed her eyes as she pulled the key out of the air and slapped it into my open palm. “I hope this is everything you think it’s going to be, because it has cost you more than you can know.”
“If you mean I’m no longer in your good graces, Your Grace, I’ve known that for a while.” I pocketed the key. “Love you can spend like currency isn’t really love. Take care of him, Jin.” I glanced back over my shoulder to Jin and Tybalt. “I’ll be back soon.”
There was no way of knowing what the air would be like on the other side of the not-a-door still hanging open in the air. I took a deep breath, shoving the key into my pocket, and jumped through into darkness.
TWENTY-TWO
MY FALL WAS shorter than I expected; I’d only been dropping through space for what felt like a few seconds when my feet hit the spongy ground and I fell, rolling out of control until I slammed up against what felt like a stone retaining wall. The impact knocked the wind out of me, something that even my accelerated healing couldn’t prevent. Wheezing, I used the wall to pull myself back to my feet and peered into the dark, trying to see what was around me.
At first, I couldn’t see anything. Then, as I blinked and strained, the darkness seemed to pull back, growing lighter and lighter until it had achieved a sort of midnight quality, still unlit, but somehow bright enough to let me see. There was no color in the world. I would have needed to be less human to rate color, given the circumstances.
The forest around me was overgrown, the trees fat with sap and dripping with moss, creeping vines, and thorn briars of a type I’d never seen before. Some of them had spines more than two inches long, making them look less like plants and more like torture devices waiting to be used. The air—and there was air, breathable and ripe with the smell of the growing world—was hot and humid. For the first time, I found myself glad not to be wearing my leather jacket. It would have been unbearable, and I would have been afraid to take it off. I had the feeling that when things were lost in this forest, they tended to stay that way.
For a moment, I held perfectly still, breathing in deep and trying to filter through the myriad scents of this unfamiliar place, looking for the familiar smells of marsh and ocean breeze, of snow and roses. Evening had no way of knowing that I’d followed them here. The Luidaeg had been counting on it. They wouldn’t be hiding themselves from me.
Standing frozen in a place I didn’t know, where I had previously been instructed not to slow down my car for any reason, was not the easiest thing that I’ve ever done. I breathed in even deeper than before, trying to ignore the fact that I could be eaten at any moment. This place used to belong to the Luidaeg’s sister. The Luidaeg was a fabulous monster and, unlike most of Titania’s children, she at least tried to play fair. She wouldn’t have left me the key if it was just going to get me eaten.
I hoped.
It helped that we were in a place that wasn’t the sea, and that was definitely not in the middle of its own private winter. The native scents of the land around me were hot and green and growing. Life scents, decay scents, but not sea scents or snow scents. So when the smell of roses addressed my nose through the tangled perfume of the land, I knew I was on to something. My eyes snapped open, and I turned, sniffing as I tried to determine the direction the smell was coming from.
West. I don’t know how I knew which way was west, but I did—I just knew—and Evening’s magic was coming from the west.
“Hold on, Luidaeg,” I murmured, and broke into a run.
Running through an unfamiliar forest filled with thorns is half an exercise in masochism, and half an obstacle course from the deepest reaches of Hell. I kept one arm up to block my face, letting it take the brunt of anything sharp that dangled overhead, and kept the other arm out in front of me, fingers spread to find the trunks of surrounding trees before I ran straight into them. The smell of snow and roses urged me onward, ebbing and surging with the force of whatever spells she was casting, but always there, a thin ribbon of poisoned sweetness to urge me onward into the dark.
Unfortunately for me, no amount of positioning my hands to reduce my potential danger could level out the ground under my feet. I was running down what I had taken for a slight incline when everything dropped out from beneath me, and I was plummeting like a rock. I had time to squeak my surprise and wrap my arms around my face. Then I hit the tree line, and developed a whole new set of problems to worry about—like how to keep myself from getting hung up in the high branches, forcing me to fall even further after I recovered.
Luna blinked, her pink eyebrows rising toward her hairline. “Opening roads is difficult,” she said. “I’ve done it for you before, but never without cost. Why would I do this for you now? I owe you nothing.”
“You owe me nothing but your life,” I corrected harshly. “When I saved you from the salt poisoning—you remember the assassination attempt that your daughter thought was a good idea—I didn’t ask for any reward, because Sylvester is my liege and it was the right thing to do. Well, that assumed that everyone was playing fair. Turns out no one here was playing fair but me. I saved your life, Luna Torquill, and more, I killed your father. I set you free. Now open this door for me, or I will make you sorry that you even considered refusing my request.”
She looked at me for a moment with those strange, pollen-colored eyes, and in that moment I could almost see the Luna who had loved me, once, before things got so complicated between us. Then she extended one bone-white hand and said, “Give me the key.”
I straightened, walking away from Jin’s murmuring and Tybalt’s silence. Every step I took left another bloody smear on the ballroom floor, and that seemed somehow exactly right. I held the key out in front of me; Luna took it, turning it over in her hand.
“This belonged to my grandmother,” she said.
“Which one?” I asked.
Luna’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing for some reason. Then, with no further fanfare, she shoved the key into the air between us. The bottom half vanished, like it had been placed in a lock I couldn’t see.
“My debts are paid,” she said, and turned the key sharply to the left, pulling at the same time.
What opened wasn’t exactly a door, but it wasn’t exactly a portal either: it was a hole in the world. Through it, I could see darkness. Not blackness—blackness would have implied an absence—but darkness, green, wet, living darkness, where things could slither unseen by the eye and unknown by the heart.
“You asked for this,” said Luna. “Now go.”
I held out my hand.
She narrowed her eyes as she pulled the key out of the air and slapped it into my open palm. “I hope this is everything you think it’s going to be, because it has cost you more than you can know.”
“If you mean I’m no longer in your good graces, Your Grace, I’ve known that for a while.” I pocketed the key. “Love you can spend like currency isn’t really love. Take care of him, Jin.” I glanced back over my shoulder to Jin and Tybalt. “I’ll be back soon.”
There was no way of knowing what the air would be like on the other side of the not-a-door still hanging open in the air. I took a deep breath, shoving the key into my pocket, and jumped through into darkness.
TWENTY-TWO
MY FALL WAS shorter than I expected; I’d only been dropping through space for what felt like a few seconds when my feet hit the spongy ground and I fell, rolling out of control until I slammed up against what felt like a stone retaining wall. The impact knocked the wind out of me, something that even my accelerated healing couldn’t prevent. Wheezing, I used the wall to pull myself back to my feet and peered into the dark, trying to see what was around me.
At first, I couldn’t see anything. Then, as I blinked and strained, the darkness seemed to pull back, growing lighter and lighter until it had achieved a sort of midnight quality, still unlit, but somehow bright enough to let me see. There was no color in the world. I would have needed to be less human to rate color, given the circumstances.
The forest around me was overgrown, the trees fat with sap and dripping with moss, creeping vines, and thorn briars of a type I’d never seen before. Some of them had spines more than two inches long, making them look less like plants and more like torture devices waiting to be used. The air—and there was air, breathable and ripe with the smell of the growing world—was hot and humid. For the first time, I found myself glad not to be wearing my leather jacket. It would have been unbearable, and I would have been afraid to take it off. I had the feeling that when things were lost in this forest, they tended to stay that way.
For a moment, I held perfectly still, breathing in deep and trying to filter through the myriad scents of this unfamiliar place, looking for the familiar smells of marsh and ocean breeze, of snow and roses. Evening had no way of knowing that I’d followed them here. The Luidaeg had been counting on it. They wouldn’t be hiding themselves from me.
Standing frozen in a place I didn’t know, where I had previously been instructed not to slow down my car for any reason, was not the easiest thing that I’ve ever done. I breathed in even deeper than before, trying to ignore the fact that I could be eaten at any moment. This place used to belong to the Luidaeg’s sister. The Luidaeg was a fabulous monster and, unlike most of Titania’s children, she at least tried to play fair. She wouldn’t have left me the key if it was just going to get me eaten.
I hoped.
It helped that we were in a place that wasn’t the sea, and that was definitely not in the middle of its own private winter. The native scents of the land around me were hot and green and growing. Life scents, decay scents, but not sea scents or snow scents. So when the smell of roses addressed my nose through the tangled perfume of the land, I knew I was on to something. My eyes snapped open, and I turned, sniffing as I tried to determine the direction the smell was coming from.
West. I don’t know how I knew which way was west, but I did—I just knew—and Evening’s magic was coming from the west.
“Hold on, Luidaeg,” I murmured, and broke into a run.
Running through an unfamiliar forest filled with thorns is half an exercise in masochism, and half an obstacle course from the deepest reaches of Hell. I kept one arm up to block my face, letting it take the brunt of anything sharp that dangled overhead, and kept the other arm out in front of me, fingers spread to find the trunks of surrounding trees before I ran straight into them. The smell of snow and roses urged me onward, ebbing and surging with the force of whatever spells she was casting, but always there, a thin ribbon of poisoned sweetness to urge me onward into the dark.
Unfortunately for me, no amount of positioning my hands to reduce my potential danger could level out the ground under my feet. I was running down what I had taken for a slight incline when everything dropped out from beneath me, and I was plummeting like a rock. I had time to squeak my surprise and wrap my arms around my face. Then I hit the tree line, and developed a whole new set of problems to worry about—like how to keep myself from getting hung up in the high branches, forcing me to fall even further after I recovered.
