The Winter Long

I blamed my years of uncertainty and confusion on my mother. She raised me to think I was Daoine Sidhe like Quentin and Sylvester, a blood-working descendant of Titania. The joke was on me. I was Dóchas Sidhe the whole time, only two generations removed from Oberon himself, and my skill set, while similar, didn’t follow the same rules.

Quentin started to snore for real. I grinned to myself and changed the radio station to 80s rock, letting the dulcet tones of Simple Minds fill the car as I hit the gas. Next stop, San Francisco.

Traffic was normally heavy at this hour of the morning, but we were saved by the season: everyone who could be off the road was off the road, using vacation time and sick days to stay home with their families or catch an early flight to Maui. I concentrated on the drive, and in what felt like no time at all, I was turning into the driveway of our two-story Victorian home.

Coming home to an actual house and not a rattrap of an apartment still felt like a gift every time it happened. Sylvester and Luna Torquill had been in the Bay Area for a long time, and they’d been investing in mortal-world real estate practically from day one. The house had originally been his. Technically it still was, since we’d never bothered to transfer the title, but in reality it was mine, and it would be mine for as long as I wanted it to be. It was home. I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted one until I had it.

“Wake up, sleepyheads,” I said, turning off the engine and releasing the blur spell at the same time. “I do door-to-door service, but I’m not carrying you to bed.”

Quentin mumbled something in sleepy French. I poked him in the arm.

“Wake up, go inside, and go to bed,” I commanded. “Come on, move it.”

“’M up.”

“You’re lying.” I twisted to look into the back, where May was yawning and unfastening her belt. “Are you going to be able to coax Jazz back to human form?”

“She’s pretty easy to coax. She doesn’t like to sleep as a raven in the bed,” said May, cradling her still-sleeping girlfriend. “I’m always afraid of rolling over and squishing her, so I won’t cuddle when she does that.”

“Firm but fair.” I jabbed Quentin again. “Up. Now.”

“I’m up.” He sat up, opening his eyes, and glowered at me petulantly before pushing open his door and shambling toward the house like something that had just crawled out of its grave. May followed at about the same pace, Jazz’s head resting on her shoulder. I swallowed a laugh, yawned, and got out of the car.

The cats and Spike, my resident rose goblin, met me at the door, complaining in their individual ways about being left alone, neglected and unfed. By the time I finished scooping food into their respective dishes—Purina for the felines, fertilizer for the animate rosebush—everyone else was gone, vanishing into their respective rooms for the next several hours.

“You’re on your own,” I informed the pets, and turned to head for the stairs.

Going up a flight of stairs in my dress was about as much fun as doing anything else in it had been. The downside of wearing real formal clothing to a ball, rather than spinning an illusion and calling it a night: I actually had to worry about taking care of the thing. Spider-silk is difficult to tear, stain, or even seriously wrinkle, but it needs to be treated properly if you want it to keep looking its best. I went into my room, closed the door, and began the unnecessarily complicated process of getting ready for bed.