The Winter Long
Page 45
I looked at her bleakly, trying to make those words make sense within the context of the world. The sea didn’t care. Tybalt, Quentin, and I fell out of the sky, and now only I was here, and the sea didn’t care. I turned my eyes toward the gunmetal-gray waves of the roiling Pacific. Once again, the water had taken everything away from me. Because the sea didn’t care.
“Why did we fall?” There was no life in my voice; it was a dead thing that fell between us like an accusation. That seemed somehow exactly correct.
“Because the wards of Goldengreen have closed,” Dianda said. She rose, scales falling away, and moved to stand beside me, putting her hand on my shoulder. I didn’t shrug it off. It would have been too much work. “Dean and most of his court are still inside, but all the doors are shut, and all the entrances are locked.”
“How do you know?”
“Mary. She started screaming, and said that if we wanted to save Dean, we needed to get to Goldengreen before the doors froze shut.” Grief rolled across Dianda’s face like a wave, there and gone in moments. “We weren’t fast enough. That’s good for you, though, since I wouldn’t have found you if we hadn’t been beating at the underwater doors.”
Mary was a Roane woman attached to Dianda’s court. She had the gift of prophecy, even if she didn’t always make sense—like most soothsayers, she spoke in riddles and metaphors more often than she did in simple, declarative sentences. The last time our paths had crossed, she’d foretold Connor’s death. My eyes stung with salt that had nothing to do with the sea. I blinked the tears away, grasping instead for the burning ember of rage that was starting to burn in my chest.
“Who locked the doors?” I asked.
“Not Dean,” said Dianda. “No matter who he swears his loyalties to these days, he would never, never seal the wards against his mother.”
Her logic made sense. Dean had always been a dutiful son, and even if he kicked absolutely everyone else out of his knowe, he would have left a door open for Dianda. The rage was growing brighter in my chest, becoming a fire that warmed me even as it left ashes in its wake. “We came here because someone gave me a warning about danger at Goldengreen. I guess we needed to be faster, too.”
“You think so?” Dianda’s voice was frozen. I glanced at her. She glared at me. “You knew my son was in danger, and you didn’t come sooner?”
“I didn’t know anything, Dianda. We left the minute we figured out what the warning meant, and while we stand down here arguing about it, no one’s getting in there to find out what’s going on.” I turned to face the cliff that stood between us and the mortal museum that housed the entrance to the knowe, so very high above us. “Do you have anyone who can get me up that cliff?”
“We’re the Undersea. We don’t fly.”
“Right. Make yourself useful, then, and get back in the water. Find my boys.” Anger has always made my illusions come easier. I grabbed a handful of fog out of the air and twisted it into a human disguise, draping it over myself as I said, “I’m going to go find out what the hell is going on in Goldengreen.”
“October, if they’ve been in the water this whole time, they’re not—”
“Find them.”
The Undersea prizes strength above all else. Dianda had been fighting to hold her Duchy since the day she received it. She looked at me and didn’t argue. “All right,” she said. “But what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to remind the knowe that I had a valid claim to it once, and I didn’t abuse it,” I said. “And then I’m going to go inside. Whether the knowe likes it or not.”
“Take me with you.”
“If the wards are sealed, I don’t think I can talk it into letting two people inside. Find my boys. I’ll find your son.” I didn’t wait for her to reply. I just turned and stalked across the sand, walking through the bands of concealing fog until I reached the base of the cliff. It wasn’t quite sheer, and generations of San Francisco beachgoers had been able to find their way down. I walked along the rocky wall until I found a series of shallow steps someone had taken the time to hew out of the stone. That was as close as I was going to get to an engraved invitation. I brushed a little more of the sand off myself, and started to climb.
It was a cold enough, foggy enough day that even the exertion of climbing wasn’t drying me off. My wet clothes got heavier and harder to carry with every step I took. I didn’t take any of them off. The most logical thing to lose would have been my leather jacket, and that was never going to happen. So I climbed, wet and cold and furious, pulling myself hand over hand where the steps became too shallow to be anything more than suggestions, until finally—after what felt like an eternity—the slope turned gentler, and the last ten yards became almost reasonable. I straightened as I walked up the last few steps, and then I was standing on level ground, with scrub brush and sticker-plants tugging at my calves and ankles. I turned. The San Francisco Art Museum was about two hundred yards away, sitting serene on the edge of the cliff I’d just climbed.
I paused, turning again, this time to look at the water. There were no signs of Dianda and her people—or of my boys. If Tybalt and Quentin were out there, I couldn’t see them.
Maybe I was never going to see them again.
The thought was chilling, even in comparison to the cold seawater soaking through my clothes. I forced it away as hard as I could, trying to bury it beneath the layers of my exhaustion and my determination to get into the sealed knowe. We fell because someone had locked the wards. That meant that everything which came after our fall—everything I wasn’t going to let myself think about—was that person’s fault. The more I focused on that, the easier it became to shut away the things I didn’t want to be true. Someone had done this to us. Someone was to blame. And whoever it was, they were going to regret messing with my family.
I stalked across the stubby field behind the museum until I came to the ramshackle frame of an old storage shed. It had probably been intended as a place where tools and garden supplies could be kept away from the refined eyes of museum patrons, but the landscapers hadn’t used it in decades. Some of them even said it was haunted. Yet somehow it remained, even as they kept their rakes and weed killer in safe, well-lit closets. It should have been torn down as an eyesore. The same spells that birthed the rumor of its haunting kept that from ever happening.
“Why did we fall?” There was no life in my voice; it was a dead thing that fell between us like an accusation. That seemed somehow exactly correct.
“Because the wards of Goldengreen have closed,” Dianda said. She rose, scales falling away, and moved to stand beside me, putting her hand on my shoulder. I didn’t shrug it off. It would have been too much work. “Dean and most of his court are still inside, but all the doors are shut, and all the entrances are locked.”
“How do you know?”
“Mary. She started screaming, and said that if we wanted to save Dean, we needed to get to Goldengreen before the doors froze shut.” Grief rolled across Dianda’s face like a wave, there and gone in moments. “We weren’t fast enough. That’s good for you, though, since I wouldn’t have found you if we hadn’t been beating at the underwater doors.”
Mary was a Roane woman attached to Dianda’s court. She had the gift of prophecy, even if she didn’t always make sense—like most soothsayers, she spoke in riddles and metaphors more often than she did in simple, declarative sentences. The last time our paths had crossed, she’d foretold Connor’s death. My eyes stung with salt that had nothing to do with the sea. I blinked the tears away, grasping instead for the burning ember of rage that was starting to burn in my chest.
“Who locked the doors?” I asked.
“Not Dean,” said Dianda. “No matter who he swears his loyalties to these days, he would never, never seal the wards against his mother.”
Her logic made sense. Dean had always been a dutiful son, and even if he kicked absolutely everyone else out of his knowe, he would have left a door open for Dianda. The rage was growing brighter in my chest, becoming a fire that warmed me even as it left ashes in its wake. “We came here because someone gave me a warning about danger at Goldengreen. I guess we needed to be faster, too.”
“You think so?” Dianda’s voice was frozen. I glanced at her. She glared at me. “You knew my son was in danger, and you didn’t come sooner?”
“I didn’t know anything, Dianda. We left the minute we figured out what the warning meant, and while we stand down here arguing about it, no one’s getting in there to find out what’s going on.” I turned to face the cliff that stood between us and the mortal museum that housed the entrance to the knowe, so very high above us. “Do you have anyone who can get me up that cliff?”
“We’re the Undersea. We don’t fly.”
“Right. Make yourself useful, then, and get back in the water. Find my boys.” Anger has always made my illusions come easier. I grabbed a handful of fog out of the air and twisted it into a human disguise, draping it over myself as I said, “I’m going to go find out what the hell is going on in Goldengreen.”
“October, if they’ve been in the water this whole time, they’re not—”
“Find them.”
The Undersea prizes strength above all else. Dianda had been fighting to hold her Duchy since the day she received it. She looked at me and didn’t argue. “All right,” she said. “But what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to remind the knowe that I had a valid claim to it once, and I didn’t abuse it,” I said. “And then I’m going to go inside. Whether the knowe likes it or not.”
“Take me with you.”
“If the wards are sealed, I don’t think I can talk it into letting two people inside. Find my boys. I’ll find your son.” I didn’t wait for her to reply. I just turned and stalked across the sand, walking through the bands of concealing fog until I reached the base of the cliff. It wasn’t quite sheer, and generations of San Francisco beachgoers had been able to find their way down. I walked along the rocky wall until I found a series of shallow steps someone had taken the time to hew out of the stone. That was as close as I was going to get to an engraved invitation. I brushed a little more of the sand off myself, and started to climb.
It was a cold enough, foggy enough day that even the exertion of climbing wasn’t drying me off. My wet clothes got heavier and harder to carry with every step I took. I didn’t take any of them off. The most logical thing to lose would have been my leather jacket, and that was never going to happen. So I climbed, wet and cold and furious, pulling myself hand over hand where the steps became too shallow to be anything more than suggestions, until finally—after what felt like an eternity—the slope turned gentler, and the last ten yards became almost reasonable. I straightened as I walked up the last few steps, and then I was standing on level ground, with scrub brush and sticker-plants tugging at my calves and ankles. I turned. The San Francisco Art Museum was about two hundred yards away, sitting serene on the edge of the cliff I’d just climbed.
I paused, turning again, this time to look at the water. There were no signs of Dianda and her people—or of my boys. If Tybalt and Quentin were out there, I couldn’t see them.
Maybe I was never going to see them again.
The thought was chilling, even in comparison to the cold seawater soaking through my clothes. I forced it away as hard as I could, trying to bury it beneath the layers of my exhaustion and my determination to get into the sealed knowe. We fell because someone had locked the wards. That meant that everything which came after our fall—everything I wasn’t going to let myself think about—was that person’s fault. The more I focused on that, the easier it became to shut away the things I didn’t want to be true. Someone had done this to us. Someone was to blame. And whoever it was, they were going to regret messing with my family.
I stalked across the stubby field behind the museum until I came to the ramshackle frame of an old storage shed. It had probably been intended as a place where tools and garden supplies could be kept away from the refined eyes of museum patrons, but the landscapers hadn’t used it in decades. Some of them even said it was haunted. Yet somehow it remained, even as they kept their rakes and weed killer in safe, well-lit closets. It should have been torn down as an eyesore. The same spells that birthed the rumor of its haunting kept that from ever happening.
