The Winter Long by Seanan McGuire Page A

melted into resignation. “I’m sorry, October. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just . . . I didn’t think he’d really come back. Not like this. I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me for not being there?”
    â€œYou had no idea it was going to happen today,” I said, still shaky. My headache wasn’t helping. I heal so fast these days that I had become unaccustomed to lingering pain.
    Sylvester stepped through the gate, pulling it closed behind him. The glimpse of the darkened bedchamber I had seen when the door opened disappeared, replaced once more by the empty air. Without another word, he stepped forward and folded me into a hug. I made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a sob and simply let him hold me, enjoying the safety and comfort of his arms. I lost my mortal father when I was seven years old. Sylvester had been the closest thing I’d had ever since.
    â€œI am so sorry,” he said again, when he finally let me go. He started down the cobblestone path, and I followed, walking with him to the first of the marble benches. He sat down, motioning for me to sit beside him.
    I sat.
    â€œI knew he’d return one day. There’s too much for him in this Kingdom for him to stay away forever, and my brother has never been anything if not stubborn. Even when we were children, when his magic still smelled like smoke and mulled cider, he would have his way no matter what the cost.” Sylvester shook his head. Something like grief was lurking in his eyes. “He should never have come near you.”
    â€œHe said he transformed me to save me,” I said hesitantly. “I think there’s something wrong with him.”
    Sylvester’s laugh was thin and bitter. “Oh, I
know
there’s something wrong with him. There’s been something wrong with him for a very long time. But . . .” He hesitated.
    I frowned, eyeing him sidelong. “I don’t like the tone of that silence.”
    â€œYou have to understand, October, that time is different for the pureblooded.”
    â€œI know that.” I’d always known that. From my mother’s inability to remember that my birthday was something important to the sad way most purebloods looked at changelings, like the fact that we’d die someday meant we were as good as dead already.
    â€œYes, but . . .” Sylvester hesitated again before he said, “I admit, I’ve often wondered about the nature of what he did to you. Transforming you into a creature with a long lifespan, using a spell you could someday break yourself . . . I think he may be telling the truth, disturbing as it is to consider. He may have transformed you as he did because the alternative was killing you, and he didn’t want to be responsible for your death.”
    â€œWhy the hell not? He’d already kidnapped Luna and Rayseline. It’s not like he could have done anything to make you angrier.” And he’d
laughed
. I remembered that so clearly. Simon and Oleander, laughing while they watched me gasp and struggle to breathe the air that had become poisonous to my body. How could that have been an attempt to
save
me?
    â€œIt’s not my wrath that he was worried about. Not in that moment.” Sylvester looked at me sadly. “Did you come here alone?”
    â€œNo. Quentin and Tybalt are waiting in the hall.”
    â€œGood. That means you’ll have someone to rant at when I finish telling you what I’m about to tell you.”
    I blinked. “What are you talking about?”
    Sylvester paused for a moment before he continued. “Have you never wondered why the doors in Shadowed Hills are willing to acknowledge you as family, or why Luna could enter your mother’s tower uninvited, despite the wards Amandine has put in place over the years? I know you believe the knowes are alive, and I don’t think you’re wrong, but