The Winter Long

TEN

THE HALLWAY WAS dark, although I couldn’t have said whether the lights were off or broken. The Luidaeg’s illusions were back at full strength, cloaking everything with filth and decay. I wanted to take that as a good sign—most people can’t maintain illusions when they’re dead—but this was the Luidaeg, and all bets were off. Maybe the clean, well-organized apartment she lived in was actually a horrible, rotting shell that she’d transfigured into something more livable, and now the transformation was falling apart. I didn’t know. The Luidaeg had never told me, and suddenly my lack of information felt like it could be the thing that got one or both of us seriously hurt.

The smell of blood was stronger now that we were inside, although it was still weak enough that I couldn’t be sure we were going in the right direction. I wasn’t even sure whether it belonged to the Luidaeg. I breathed in deeper, trying to confirm, and almost gagged on the smell of rotting wood and decaying fabric. No more deep breaths for me.

The carpet made nasty sucking sounds as we picked our way through the debris, making a silent approach impossible. Even Tybalt couldn’t move without making noise. That would normally have been a little reassuring, since I find Cait Sidhe stealth slightly unsettling under most circumstances. At the moment, I wished there were something I could do to muffle our steps. Anything that might have given us an advantage.

But there was nothing. We walked down the hallway to the living room, where the moonlight filtering in through the grime-smeared windows illuminated a level of chaos that was unusual even for the Luidaeg. Her coffee table had been smashed down the middle, reduced to a pile of splinters, and two moldering cushions from the couch were split open. Muddy stuffing and rotten feathers were scattered around the room. Cockroaches skittered around the edges of the walls, disturbed by our motion.

I stopped, motioning for Tybalt to do the same, and closed my eyes as I broke my promise to myself and took a deep breath of the cloying, fetid air. I was looking for the source of the blood I’d been smelling since the street, and maybe traces of a bloodline that didn’t belong to one of us. I was hoping for something that might lead us to whoever had done this, or maybe an early warning before someone dropped an illusion and attacked.

What I wasn’t expecting was the way the blood slapped me across the face, so strong that it nearly knocked me off my feet. I gasped before I could stop myself, stumbling backward as my eyes snapped open. Tybalt was there to catch me by the shoulders, steadying me and keeping me from landing on my ass on the Luidaeg’s floor.

“What is it?” he whispered, lips close to my ear.

“Blood,” I managed.

“So you’ve said,” he said. “What—”

But I had already turned my attention back to the room, swinging my head back and forth like a bloodhound seeking a scent until finally I found it and plunged forward, heedless of the trash and obstacles littering the floor. Let Tybalt watch my back; I needed to find the source of that blood. I needed to know if the Luidaeg was okay.

The smell of blood led me to the shredded couch, which was flipped over to create a smaller bubble of hidden space within the greater room. The Luidaeg was behind it, lying on the floor in a crumpled heap. Two more split cushions had fallen to cover her, mostly hiding her body under a veil of poly-foam blend stuffing. I threw them aside, almost grateful for the brief reek of mold that accompanied the motion. At least it was something to obscure the smell of blood, if only for an instant. The Luidaeg didn’t move.

The Luidaeg wasn’t okay.

“October?” asked Tybalt from behind me.

“Here!” I dropped to my knees on the carpet. The squelching noise my landing made had nothing to do with seawater. There was blood everywhere in this terrible little corner of the room, soaking into everything it touched. Grabbing the Luidaeg’s head, I turned it until she was facing me. “Luidaeg? Can you hear me?”

My eyes had adjusted enough to the dark that I had no trouble seeing the long streak of half-dried blood running down the side of her face, dipping inward at the corner of her mouth before tracing the line of her neck and vanishing under the collar of her blood-soaked sweatshirt. A bruise had blossomed under her left eye like some sort of terrible flower, all bitter yellows and deep purples. More blood was matted into her hair, turning her normally wavy curls into a jagged mass of spikes and snarls.

“Oh, root and branch . . .” I whispered, feeling under her jaw for a pulse. She looked so much smaller than I had always believed her to be, her natural illusions withering and fading away. The Luidaeg had seen legacies born, seen empires rise and kingdoms fall. She was older than anyone else I had ever met, even Blind Michael. Along with her sisters, she had once been the terror of bog and fen, a mother of nightmares and a sister to screams.

But that was so long ago. Her brothers and sisters had been hunted and killed by Titania’s jealous children, or by descendants of Oberon looking for an easy path to becoming heroes. Her fens had dwindled until she was nothing but a dockside squatter, and still she’d been remembered. She’d become a monster to her parents’ surviving children, and she’d made the role her own. She was too old and too much a part of our heritage to die.

She couldn’t do that to me.

“Is there a pulse?”

Tybalt’s voice snapped me out of my brief reverie. I searched her throat again, pressing my shivering fingers into the soft skin of her neck, and shook my head. “There’s no pulse.”

If she wasn’t gone, then she was going, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

No. The thought crossed my mind, followed instantly by a chilling resolve that wound through me like the Shadow Roads, freezing everything it touched. Maybe it was true that most people couldn’t do anything about it, but I was Amandine’s daughter. I was among the first of the Dóchas Sidhe. And this was not going to happen on my watch.

“Help me move her,” I said, shoving my knife back into my belt and sliding my hands under her arms before I started to stand. Every shift of my position brought another of her wounds into view. There was so much blood.

Tybalt moved immediately around to lift her feet, asking, “Where are we going?”

“Her room. Even if it’s trashed, the bed’s big enough that we should be able to find a flat space to lay her out on, and I’m going to need room to maneuver.”

“October . . .” He frowned at me, expression speculative, even as he began backing across the living room toward the hall. He knew me and my limitations better than almost anyone else, and he wasn’t going to make me walk backward across a dark, cluttered room. “Are you preparing to do something utterly foolish, or simply stupid?”

“Remember that time I raised the dead?” In the basement at Tamed Lightning, just me and my knife and the body of Alex Olsen, who’d had information that I needed. I hadn’t even known what I was back then; I’d thought I was just another Daoine Sidhe, one with an unusually high tendency to wind up bleeding all over the damn place.

Tybalt’s eyes narrowed. “I recall something that might fit that description,” he said. “I recall, for example, that I did not speak to you for quite some time afterward, since you had done something that should have been impossible.”

“We know it’s not impossible. Not for me.”

“October—”

“I have to try!” I wasn’t intending to shout. I did it anyway. My voice seemed to echo in the small, dark space of the hall. Tybalt looked at me, his eyes opening wide in surprise. I looked back at him, trying to make him see how desperate I was. “If there’s anything I can do . . . she’s been threatening to kill me since the day we met, and she’s been saving me the whole time. I can be with you because of her. I’m here because of her. I have to try.”

“I would never have asked you not to try,” he said quietly. “I only need you to tell me what I can do to help you.”

I smiled a little. “Just hold me up when my legs give out.”

“My dear, that is something I will always be here to do.”

We carried her through the junk-clogged hall to her bedroom door. It took some shuffling, but we managed to transfer her entirely into Tybalt’s arms. The Luidaeg had never been larger than a human teenager. He held her easily, and I was grateful for her long, blood-matted hair, which hid her face from me.

The door to her room swung open as soon as I touched it, and the light of a thousand candles flooded out into the hall, seeming to chase away the clutter and the grime with its touch. Inside, the walls were lined with saltwater tanks rich with exotic fish and stranger creatures, things that were never meant to thrive in the oceans of this world. The pearl-eyed sea dragon she kept in the largest tank reared back when it saw us framed in the doorway, me with my bloodstained clothes, Tybalt with the Luidaeg in his arms.

I held up my hand. “Don’t freak out,” I said. “We’re not the ones who hurt her. I just want to help.”

The dragon glared at me, but it didn’t break the glass of its tank and come rampaging out into the room, so I was willing to call that a victory, however small. I gestured for Tybalt to put the Luidaeg down on the wide expanse of her four-poster bed. Its frame was ornately carved with mermaids and seaweed, and it reminded me of the furniture Arden had kept with her during her exile from her own Kingdom. It’s funny the things the mind throws up to protect itself from panic. Trivia suddenly matters more than anything else in the world.

The Luidaeg’s head lolled like a dead thing’s as Tybalt maneuvered her onto the mattress, setting a pillow under her neck to support it. He stepped back, glancing at me, and for a moment I could see the naked terror in his eyes, the fear he’d been hiding under bravado and efficiency. I managed another small smile, forcing it until the corners of his mouth relaxed, just a little.

“I won’t do anything I haven’t done before,” I said.

“That’s what I am afraid of,” he replied.

Talk was just putting off the inevitable. I drew my knife for the second time before gingerly lifting her right arm and turning it until the underside of her wrist faced the ceiling. I winced. A deep cut had split her flesh, opening it to reveal the pale ice-blue of her bones. It ran parallel to the vein. That explained the blood. Someone had been trying to bleed her out, and they might well have succeeded.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: blood magic is based on a potent combination of instinct and need. The two feed and inform each other, shifting their balance as the situation demands. Need something that the blood can give you badly enough, and there’s a very good chance that you can have it . . . if you’re willing to pay the price. If you’re willing to bleed for it.

There was a time when I would have taken care in injuring myself. That time was long past. I slashed my knife hard across my own wrist, hard enough that a few drops of blood spattered the Luidaeg’s cheek, standing out against what was already there only because they were fresh and red, not brown and dried. The smell of cut grass and copper rose around me, bloody and aching, as my magic responded to the wound. I took a deep breath, gritting my teeth against the pain. No matter how fast I heal, pain will always hurt. I guess that’s a good thing. It keeps me from getting more careless than I already am.

Gingerly, I placed my knife on the bed next to the Luidaeg’s unmoving body, trying to remember what I’d done to resurrect Alex Olsen. It hadn’t been that long ago. It felt like a lifetime. Blood ran down my arm and covered my fingers, dripping onto the duvet and leaving little red spots everywhere it hit. The wound itched, already healing, but it was too late; I had what I needed.

I raised my hand and caressed the Luidaeg’s cheek, wiping away the old blood in a veil of the new. My magic rose around me, cresting and filling the room with the smell of potential. It was up to me to sail this ship safely through the storm and into whatever port I could find, no matter what. I pressed my hand flat over the Luidaeg’s heart, leaving a bloody handprint behind. Her skin was so cold it felt almost like it burned.

“Oak and ash and rowan and thorn are mine,” I chanted, bringing my wrist to my mouth. “Salt and wind and witch-willow flame are mine.” I licked what blood I could from the rapidly healing cut, and when that wasn’t enough, I bit, cutting my own flesh with the jagged ivory edges of my teeth. It hurt as badly as anything I had ever done to myself, and that was exactly right, because this should hurt, this should cost. If it didn’t, I would be lost.

This time, I got a solid mouthful of blood before the bleeding slowed too much to be useful. I swallowed, and it froze all the way down.

“Blood is blood and power is power,” I said. “By the root and the branch and the tree, by our Lord and Ladies, live.” I paused, and added more softly, “For Maeve’s sake, live. What are mothers with no daughters left to live for?”

Nothing happened. My magic hung heavy in the room, the smell of it almost strong enough to be overpowering. “Live!” I commanded, and grabbed my knife. No time for chewing now; the ritual, if you could call it that, was too far along. I slashed the inside of my wrist open, cutting too hard and too deep for safety, and filled my mouth with my own blood. Then, before I could think better of what I was doing, I leaned forward and clamped my lips over the Luidaeg’s, forcing my blood through them until some of it was forced down her throat by simple gravity.

The magic snapped solid with a painful flash, the blood suddenly rushing out of my mouth, and off of my body, like it was being pulled into a whirlwind. I could feel the heavy stickiness being pulled from my hands and arms, leaving them clean. I tried to pull away, and the Luidaeg’s arms closed around me with impossible strength, holding me fast.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t pull away; I couldn’t breathe. So I bit her, and the cold strength of her blood filled my mouth, strangely devoid of memories. I swallowed it anyway, trying to use it to break free. It didn’t work. Black spots were beginning to swim in front of my eyes as I struggled ineffectually against her hold. I could hear Tybalt shouting something in the distance, but he was too far away to help me; only the ghosts of his hands could reach me where I was, scrabbling uselessly at the edges of the world. I shouldn’t still have been bleeding, but I was, and the Luidaeg was somehow taking it all.

There’s only so much blood a body can afford to lose, and the hammering pulse of my heart warned me that I was rapidly running out. Then, abruptly, the Luidaeg let me go, and I was shoved away, collapsing like a rag doll into Tybalt’s waiting arms.

“October?” He sounded closer now. That was a good thing, since he was holding me. I raised my head, and found him staring down at me. “What just happened?”

My headache, almost gone before, had blossomed anew like some perverse flower, spreading to fill my entire skull. I groaned as I forced myself to turn toward the bed, squinting against the candlelight. “I don’t know,” I said. “Hopefully, something good.” My vision cleared and I sighed, half from relief, and half from simple exhaustion.

The Luidaeg was sitting up.

Whatever force had cleaned up the blood that had been covering me had done the same for her; her clothing, while torn to the point of uselessness, was spotless, and her hair fell in its usual heavy curls, shining and unsnarled. She was staring in awe at her hands, looking at them like she’d never seen them before. Her wounds were gone. Even the bruise on her cheek had vanished.

“Hey,” I said, trying to pull away from Tybalt and stand on my own two feet. I stumbled, and he caught me, lending me the stability I needed. My head was pounding. I did my best to ignore it. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

The Luidaeg raised her head, focusing on me. Her eyes were a clear, simple driftglass green. “What did you do?” she asked.

“Do?” I echoed. There were still black spots dancing around the edges of my vision. I tried to shake them away. Bad move; shaking my head just made the black spots double while my headache throbbed.

“Do,” said the Luidaeg, holding her hands out to me like they were all the answer I could possibly need. There was a thin white line of scar tissue on her left arm, where the deepest of the cuts had been. I was willing to bet that, given time, even that would fade away.

“I . . . you weren’t responding, but I thought there was a chance you weren’t quite dead yet, and so I . . .”

“You brought me back.” There was no mistaking the quiet wonder in her tone. “I was dead.”

“Not quite.”

“Yeah, Toby, I was dead.” She shook her head. “I know what dead feels like. It’s cold there. It’s very cold. And I was dead.” She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering hard.

“I couldn’t let you go,” I said. It was a small statement, too awkward to encompass everything that it meant: I didn’t have the words to encompass everything that it meant. Then again, I had just brought her back from the dead, so she probably had some idea of what I was trying to say. “I just . . . I couldn’t let you be dead.”

“Thank you,” she said. She sagged backward on the bed. “I can’t . . . I didn’t stay dead long enough. The geas still holds.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I didn’t . . . I wanted you to be okay not because you could help, but because you’re my friend. I couldn’t just let you die.”

“There are people who won’t be very happy with you for this.” The Luidaeg closed her eyes. “You have to hide me. I can’t stay where I am.”

“Okay, Luidaeg. Just rest, okay?” I was saying “okay” so much that the word was losing all meaning. Maybe that was more accurate than I liked to think. It felt like the world was never really going to be “okay” again.

The Luidaeg sighed. “I can’t tell you what’s coming, Toby, even though I want to. But I can tell you one thing that might help.”

“What is it?” I pulled away from Tybalt, moving to stand closer to her. Everything still smelled like my blood. That helped, a little, even if it wasn’t enough to chase the black spots entirely away.

“Your mother,” said the Luidaeg. “She told you to beware the Lady of the Lake, but to be more afraid of Morgane. Do you remember?”

I blinked. “I do, but I don’t remember telling you.”

“Your lover was a Selkie; he told me quite a bit, after he died,” said the Luidaeg. “My name . . . my name is Antigone. But there was a time when they called me Viviane. When everything was swords, and stones, and so simple . . . your mother feared the wrong woman. I think I’m going to sleep now. I’ll trust you to survive what’s coming.”

“Wait—what?”

Tybalt’s hand closed on my shoulder. “‘Viviane’ was one of the names for the Lady of the Lake,” he said.

I stared at the Luidaeg. “You cannot drop this on me and go to sleep. Luidaeg? Luidaeg!”

She didn’t wake up.