Tuesday, June 10, 2025

The October Daye Reread: A Killing Frost

Welcome back, dear readers. Today we’re going to revisit the fourteenth novel in Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series: A Killing Frost. We are now in the midst of a real push to catch up to publication (after this there are four books to go), though I don’t think I’ll make it before September’s publication of Silver and Lead. *That’s* a book I’m absolutely excited to read.

Astute readers will note that I did slow down the pace of my re-read after last writing about The Unkindest Tide in December. That was my incredibly anticipated return of the Roane novel, which was a delight.

A Killing Frost is something different and I’ve been very open about spoilers throughout this re-read, in part because there are some truly groundbreaking events that occur over the course of the series and this book has perhaps the biggest. If you’ve been following along you probably know what’s coming but if not, I am going to spoil the hell out of this book and about the second biggest, as well as speculate on what will be the third biggest event of the series when it happens.

It’s all happening.

Let’s go.


Three books ago, The Brightest Fell, featured Toby’s to find and bring home her long lost sister, August - a sister so long lost that Toby didn’t know that she had one until fairly recently. The cost, because there is *always* a cost, was that of the even more recent redemption of Simon Torquill, August’s father.

See, August was lost more than one hundred years ago when *she* embarked on a quest to find and return Oberon to Faerie. Oberon, one of the Three, the father and co-creator of all of Faerie. He’s been lost for some five hundred years, clearly doesn’t want to be found, and the price of August’s failure was that she lost her way home. Home, in this instance, means the entire concept of home, of her family, of herself.

In the Brightest Fell, Toby had to bring August home but because August never found Oberon she had no concept of home and being whole, or even who her father was. To bring August truly home, Simon took on August’s debt. Simon lost everything that he regained, had no idea of anything other than his initial service of villainy but worse, this time he didn’t even know why.

I wrote about all of that and the tragedy of Simon Torquill, but that brings us back to A Killing Frost. It’s Simon’s turn. October is a Hero and that means big quests. Bringing Simon back to redemption is the quest du jour of A Killing Frost but it’s not that. August failed to find Oberon. Simon will never look, but Simon needs to find Oberon.

This is the book where Toby find Oberon.

It’s staggering, really.

There’s a quest.

That’s not what I want to talk about so much as I want to talk about Maeve. Maeve is one of the Three, one of the mothers of Faerie along with Titania. Because I’ve been spoiling stuff throughout the re-read we know that Titania has been under an incredibly powerful (cast by Oberon, natch) gaes and currently incarnated as Toby’s friend Stacy. More on this in a moment,as well in the entire book Be the Serpent.

But Maeve. We’re still speculating on Maeve because through eighteen novels so far published Maeve has not yet returned to Faerie. We know that she’s been missing since Janet and Tam Lin broke the Ride, which led to Titania’s banishment and Oberon’s abandonment (honestly, if this is all too mumbo jumbo for you, don’t worry about it, it matters and it absolutely doesn’t).

There have been hints of Maeve throughout the series and in The Unkindest Tide we’ve seen there is something deeply wrong with Marcia, an ostensibly changeling with only a tenuous tie to faerie and I think she’s Maeve.
“Hi,” I said brightly. “Maeve, right? I’m a friend of your daughter’s. Antigone, I mean. The eldest. A *good* friend. I helped her bring back the Roane. She’s not sad all the time anymore.”
So - on the road to find Oberon Toby gets stuck in an area with ties to Maeve and so Toby calls for Maeve’s help AND GETS IT. I’m not sure this can be overstated. Maeve doesn’t appear but her magic clearly aids Toby with what she needs to move forward. It’s another reminder that Maeve may be more aware and closer to the surface than anyone truly suspects, especially in comparison to how deeply Oberon and Titania are buried.
It’s not possible for roses to look amused, but these ones came remarkably close.
What I’m really curious about that, besides if I’m right about Marcia, is how much does Maeve know about what she is responding to. Does she know the specifics of what is going on and how her magic is being used or does it just respond to those who call upon her while in her spaces? How aware is Maeve of who she is?

This brings us to Titania because hey, I’ve already read this book and what I find most fascinating is the speculation. We’re two books away from everything blowing up and Titania returning like the villain she absolutely is.

There have been hints about Stacy over the course of the series, but here’s the big one:


“She’s always been weird about the idea of any of us dating,” she said. “She saw me holding hands with a Hob changeling I went to high school with once, and she lost it. Like, complete maternal meltdown. Way out of proportion with a little completely innocent hand holding. I never dated after that. Technically, I’d never dated before that.”
Something about that story didn’t add up. I’d never stopped to think about it before this, but it had never been my business.
This was all incredibly new information for Toby about her closest friend and she’s deeply suspicious. Unfortunately there’s not a lot of time for the suspicion to take hold, it’s really just foreshadowing for when stuff goes down in Be the Serpent. McGuire is laying down a hard piece of evidence right here.
“Titania’s fucking ass, is that *actually* fucking *Oberon*?” he asked, in a voice that managed to remain reverent, despite the mortal profanity.
The main event comes as Toby pulls everything together at the end. She figured out, or at least she’s staking her sense of identity on the idea that she is right, that Officer Thornton, a semi random character who got caught up in faerie, was actually Oberon who magicked himself into forgetting. Oberon was right there, in the Luidaeg’s house, for months now.
The Luidaeg bit her lip as she stepped toward him, black tears escaping from her eyes and running down her cheeks. They left tarry streaks behind, like she was crying off her mascara, but she was actually weeping the color out of her irises, leaving them driftglass green and clearer than I’d ever seen them.

“Daddy” she asked, in a voice that was barely bigger than a whisper. It shook on the second syllable, breaking.

It’s a heck of a moment that McGuire pulls off here. How do you write the return of what is functionally THE supreme being of the series, a character that is far more myth than reality and who is so far beyond any of the barely mortal fae that it can hardly be fathomed? It’s so very well done.


Random Notes and Random Quotes

**“It doesn’t matter what I wear to the wedding, we both know it’s going to be completely covered in blood before we reach “I do”.”

**“Language,” I said, in my primmest tone. “I’m asking important questions about the nature of Faerie here, and we’re still walking” - I love deep questions about the nature of Faerie

**I was never going to get a happy ending. Heroes never do.

**“I’m not sure I’d brag about being Titania’s favorite,” I said. “It seems like an honor with very few selling points.”

Evening scowled, red, red lips pursing in a moue of displeasure. “I’ll thank you to keep my mother’s name out of your mouth.”


Next up on the reread will be When Sorrows come, in which a wedding request actually occurs, Toby wears a magic wedding dress, we learn some fae political history, and Evening Winterrose is still the worst.

Open roads and kind fires, my friends. 

 

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