Roadside Magic

by Lilith Saintcrow

  The door’s vanished. God. Jesus Christ, God forgive me.

  What have I done?

  HOME TO VISIT

  44

  Stairs. She climbed, and climbed, occasionally passing slits in the tower’s wall, just wide enough to peer out and take a sip of fresh air. All in all, it was dank, and cobwebbed, and slightly musty, but not so bad.

  A Half in Summer wouldn’t starve. She might grow attenuated, true, and solitary confinement could waste one away. It was, Robin thought, hacking and spitting again, nice to have nobody to worry about. No need to guard her expression, or keep her thoughts hidden. She’d never lived alone—first there was Mama, and then Daddy Snowe and Daisy, and then Court. Summerhome was always bustling, and the rhythm of Court life didn’t permit much solitude.

  This might not be so bad. Unless the whole thing was stairs. She was heartily tired of stairs. What else was there to do but go up?

  Once the shusweed wore off, she could use her voice. There was little the song couldn’t destroy. Summer had to have known that and accounted for as much, so Robin would have to be careful. She would have to—

  The end came as a surprise. The last stair gave onto a small antechamber, and there was a wooden door, just slightly open. Rich golden light outlined it, made a wedge on the dusty floor. Possibly electric—but it couldn’t be; this was Summer.

  Whatever’s in there is likely to be nasty.

  It startled her into a harsh wheeze that might have been a laugh if she hadn’t been numbed by shusweed. Nothing mattered in the slightest anymore. Everything Robin made the mistake of caring for withered. She was poison, and at least here in the tower she couldn’t harm anyone else.

  Summer had probably done her a favor.

  Another wheeze. Robin wiped at her cheeks, surprised to find she was not weeping. Even the anger was gone, cold ashes.

  She approached the door, cautiously, step by step. Her calves burned, though her shoes were just as light as ever. If I never see another stair again, it’ll be too soon. She peered around it, squinting against the brightness.

  A small round room, prosaic and wood-floored. There was a fire burning in a granite hearth, and the light was multiplied by the shining walls. Small chips of glass, perhaps? The dancing flames illuminated those sparkling tiles, and Robin stepped forward, dimly aware the door was swinging open on its own. Everything behind her receded, and when she glanced back, the stairs and the platform were gone. Instead, a solid sheet of mirror watched her, water-clear, showing a Robin repeated into infinity.

  Bedraggled in torn black velvet, her hair tangle-tumbled and her cheeks chapped, her mouth half ajar as if she were moontouched or halfwit, her pupils pinpricks and . . .

  Oh God. God. No.

  Behind her, a misty shape. It solidified, and Robin stared. It’s not possible. Not possible. Just glamour. It’s not real.

  It was a redheaded woman older than Robin’s apparent age, her features a softer, blurred copy of Robin’s own. She wore sensible shoes, a neatly hemmed blue dress, and she was covered with bright mortal blood. Tiny stars of safety glass winked in her hair, longer than Robin’s and with less curl. Some of her teeth had been knocked out.

  Of course, Daisy had died in a car accident. Puck had pixie-led her car, and . . .

  “Robin,” the Daisy-phantom said, lisping a little as her tongue brushed against where teeth should be with soft sliding noises. “It’s so good to see you.”

  More gossamer shapes began to solidify. Robin backed up, frantic, her hands stretched behind her, searching for the surface of the mirror, to put her back against it. The gleaming tiles had grown together seamlessly; there was no corner to retreat to.

  Nothing, just cool air, no matter how quickly she moved. Her own horrified expression, repeated over and over, and there was Mama wasted away by the cancer, leaning on an IV pole, her stentorious machine-assisted breathing a death-knight’s bellows. A young golden-blond boy, his skin studded and scarred with amber slivers, reaching toward her with fingers that dropped heavy, resinous, tinkling shards. “Robin-mama!” he piped. “You’ve come back!”

  She could only make harsh cawing sounds. The shusweed was wearing off, but too slowly.

  A darker shadow loomed behind her. She whirled, and the short mortal man with slicked-back gingery hair smiled, a looped leather belt cracking as he jerked his fists apart. “Now look at this,” he said, and it was Daddy Snowe’s sneering, booming voice, so deep for such a little man. He wore his workboots, and they clopped on the faded linoleum as he stalked toward her. “Look who’s come home to visit.”

  Robin blundered away. The screams stopped in her throat, her heart racing; she tripped and fell headlong. It was the floor of the trailer in Seneida again, staring at the gleaming lino under the dinette table as Daddy Snowe’s boots thudded behind her. She’d washed every inch of the floor, but he always found a streak, and when he did—

  “Home at last,” they chorused, and little tinkling bits of amber and glass fell as Daisy and Sean crowded close. “You’re back, Robin. Back where you belong.”

  Daddy Snowe’s belt cracked again, leather snapping against itself.

  HUNGER FORGOTTEN

  45

  There was the fire-ground, where he could not walk for long, and she told him to leave her. Hunt and hide, she said, and her word was law . . . but still, he lingered. It was not right. He smelled danger, and treachery, and could not express it. The sun sank, and he slunk about the edges of the fire-ground.

  Then they came, dangerous ones he had fought off before, reeking of spice-ice and cinders, with their hounds very like him but so cold, so cold. The ground shook, and Pepperbuckle curled into a holly-bush against the stone wall, trembling, his flanks dark with sweat. Her last despairing cry tore through him, and an invisible cord stretched almost to the snapping point.

  When the moon rose he burst from the holly, its leaves combing his fine coat, and pierced a fine gossamer Veil. Instinct turned him topsy-turvy; he spilled into a balmy evening full of dangerous, delightful scents. Nose to the ground, the hound ran, coursing along Summer’s green hills, following a maddening, faint, flaring trail—for his mistress-mother was elsewhere, in a realm he could not enter, though he could step through the gossamer into others lying just a few degrees off, fanned atop one another, rubbing through and echoing, shifting in dreamy succession. The darker ones, with their cinders and bone-white flashes, the crimson touches, he stayed well away from—but if she had gone there, he would follow.

  A long time passed as he ran, hoping to catch a scent, following that tenuous cord. Through sunshine and dusk, time shifting as the sideways realms did, stepping through mortal shadows to avoid larger beasts that might slow him, resting often under bushes or tucked in safe, dozy hollows . . .

  Suddenly, the cord-chord was plucked. It resounded all through him, and Pepperbuckle halted, head upflung, lips skinning back from sharp ivory teeth, damp nose lifted and flaring, his fine tail—dragging for quite some time now—perking, then twitching, then wagging furiously.

  He turned, needle-north, and the wind that reached him smelled of salt and stone, and a faint breath of her.

  The hound danced for joy, his padded feet kicking up fragrant dry leaves. He set off, any shadow of weariness or hunger forgotten. In the distance a spur of stone rose from the cliffs, glowing dull-white except for the top, where a diamond of bloody light bloomed.

  Pepperbuckle ran.

  SCORN

  46

  Stepping over the border into a Summer afternoon was a hideous jolt, and the scar along his side burned. Jeremiah had to halt to breathe, but Puck did not leave him behind. Instead, the boy-sidhe crouched, his ear-tips perked through the frayed silken mat of brown hair, his leathers creaking just a little too much. This shaded dell, tucked some distance away from one of the bone-white paths, was ringed by fragrant, secretive-whispering cedars.

  Puck drove his slim brown fingers into the loam, mu
ttering a word or two of chantment. He whistled, and pixies appeared, their tiny flittering glows bleached by daylight. Jeremiah’s breath came back, the dwarven draught burning like a coal in his stomach. He leaned against one of the cedars, glad a dryad wasn’t peering out of the bark. The entire sisterhood of this ring were probably out a-marketing—cedar-nymphs were naturally gregarious, fragrant beings.

  The pixies chimed around Puck, excited little voices babbling in a mix of languages. They picked words up everywhere and forgot them just as quickly, interlacing them with chantment-tongue. The Fatherless simply listened, head cocked, clutching the soft, forgiving loam.

  Finally, he straightened. “Come, Glass-gallow.” He brushed his hands together, as if ridding them of stain, and the pixies scattered, winking out or hiding under cedar boughs. “We have an appointment to keep.”

  “With Robin?” Something was different, but fogged by poison and exhaustion he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. What he wouldn’t give to be at home in his trailer, curled up in bed, hopefully with a sleeping warmth beside him—Robin in his arms, and her quiet breathing mixing with his.

  That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Pay attention, Jeremiah.

  “Why do you inquire so, Glass-my-gallow?”

  Because we’re in Summer, and it looks like you’re receiving word from little pixie spies. He shrugged, but whatever he would have said was lost under the merry clopping of bell-chiming hooves.

  Jeremiah peered out through the cedars. Beside him, Goodfellow crowded, smelling of leather, crushed sap—and old dried blood. Had he been wounded recently?

  Something’s off with him. Have to think about it.

  Summer knights, four of them, gathered around a palanquin roped between two bridge-trolls, one of the few Unseelie clans that could stand direct sunlight. Still, the trolls looked miserable, and their silvery chain-collars steamed.

  The palanquin itself, of black wood and silver chasings, bore fluttering pennons on high, flexible rods. A stylized fist, silver-embroidered on black silk, grasped fruitlessly at the breeze.

  Gallow let out a soft breath. “An envoy.” From Unwinter, no less.

  “Seeking parlay, no doubt. He keeps thinking she will listen to reason.” Puck’s giggle was just as high and carefree as Summer’s ever was. “I could tell him differently, but would he credit it?”

  “Summer has the Ragged,” Jeremiah guessed. His head was clearing, but not nearly quickly enough.

  “She does indeed.” A snarl drifted across Puck’s face. It wasn’t like the Fatherless to take such an interest in a female, let alone a female sidhe. He’d extended himself mightily for Robin, and forced her into breaking Summer’s borders to boot.

  It changed the game somewhat, to think he would have to balance the Fatherless against Unwinter and Summer both. The very idea made Gallow even more tired. Four vials, not even a week’s worth of leeway before he’d be right back where he started, hallucinating all his failures and dying of fever. “Then let’s go.”

  “Rushing blindly in, Armormaster?”

  “If you’ve a better idea, Goodfellow, I will bide to hear it.”

  “No, indeed. Let us begone, then.”

  Summerhome throbbed with gaiety. Nymphs trip-skipped through the halls, brughnies scurrying behind them to gather up dropped ribbons and pearl-drops of crystallized salt or dew-pearl. No fullblood highborn ladies, though—at this hour, they would be retired to soft shaded bowers, dressing for the evening’s merriment. More brughnies monkeyed on the walls, shaking the dust out of tapestries, coaxing fresh green woodbine into twining under the sconces. The kitchens would be a steaming inferno by now, no doubt Summer would feast the envoy royally.

  Still, it wasn’t the same. There was an edge to the laughter, and the knights on guard duty did not so much as smile at the sidhe girls and their fluttering draperies. No cloud-dog gebriels cavorted over Summerhome’s towers, and the torch-lighting hobs did not jest or sing. Music did roil and runnel through the halls, but it was not the joyous drumbeat that could force a mortal heart to match its pace. Instead, skirling pipes throbbed on the edge of dissonance, seeking to sound happy, perhaps, but without any true joy. The knights on duty did not smile at all, in fact, their mouths cruel lines under full helm and armor.

  None glanced at Jeremiah or Puck, which was even odder. They were not challenged, which led to a very unpleasant conclusion: Puck, at least, was expected.

  I have four vials. Four days of grace. Not enough.

  Instead of striking for the great hall, where any revel would be held, Puck turned to the far edge of the rotunda, and the Red Door opened like a flower.

  The chamber beyond, reserved for weightier affairs than dances and fetes, was robed with Summer’s green, from fir to sage, holly to sedge. Brambles grew up the walls, tangling over the sconces; fireflies and small floating bits of chantment-glittering thistledown filled the hall with soft light. Unwinter’s parlay—a tall, severe-faced highborn fullblood in black, with the clenched-fist sigil patterned over his cloak and his ebony armor flowing with him—had just dropped to one knee before Summer and was rising.

  She stood, in a heavy green mantle, straight and proud. Thornvines crawled up the robe’s back, forming a high frame above her golden head and a torc around her white, white throat. Bright veins of pale gold moved fluidly along the vine-cables, winking into gemlike brilliance at the points. Dwarven work, metal married to wood, and her hair was looped and coaxed through the vines, the whole fantastical architecture twinkling with pixieglow and fireflies drunk on the chantment she exuded.

  Summer knights ranged along either side of the chamber, and on the second step of the dais, just where the Armormaster would stand, Broghan Trollsbane met Gallow’s gaze. Black of eye and hair, his veins a faint blue map under flour-pale skin, he wore the glass badge on his breast, and Jeremiah could have laughed. Broghan, as Armormaster? He was dangerous, certainly, but only if you were clumsy.

  Which I am now. Arrogant to think he was anything near his prime.

  Still, the lance could be cold iron. That gave him an edge against any fullborn.

  The Queen of Seelie’s smile widened. A cloying of spice and burnt-leaf smoke rode heavy between the pillars marching down the chamber, each one twined with brambles. Harvest-incense, far too soon in the season for it, but who would tell her that?

  The Jewel at her forehead flashed once, settled back into a low dull-green glow. “Fatherless.” Summer’s tone, dulcet honey, pulled on every nerve-string. The knights ranged along the pillars tensed, Broghan the Black almost swayed, and the envoy, his long, aquiline face with its gloss of sidhe beauty turning into a mask of disdain as his elegant, gloved, six-fingered hand twitched for a gem-chased swordhilt. The violet tree-ring dapples of lightshielding chantment on every inch of visible skin turned a darker shade, perhaps because the Unwinter knight recognized him.

  “Gallow,” he said, the consonants sharp as knives. “He is ours.”

  Summer’s laugh, low velvet, stroked along the floor, curled around each man. “Cease your yapping, Unwinter hound.”

  “I have brought him.” Puck folded his arms. “I went to no little trouble to do so, oh Seelie’s jewel.”

  “What is trouble, to one such as you? You shall find your maiden in a white tower, enjoying the finest of hospitality.” Summer clasped her own white, six-fingered hands, their tenderness threaded in veins of that same pale gold. It was an oddly bleached metal, and Gallow realized why.

  She was wearing melted barrow-wight gold, and Unwinter’s parlay would no doubt note it as well.

  Puck bowed slightly and grinned. “Then I take my leave.”

  He’s going after Robin. Gallow turned to follow, but the hiss of metal drawn from scabbard halted them both. The marks stung his arms, writhing, and he glanced back to find Unwinter’s envoy had drawn. So had Broghan the Black, and the two faced each other while Summer’s entire face lit with predatory glee.

  “Why, what is this?”
she said, very softly. “Do you offer me violence in my own hall, Cailas Redthorn? Yes, I remember you of old. You were a merry lord, once, and fell when the mood struck you.”

  “You harbor one who is under the hunt, Eakkanthe of Summer.” The Unseelie knight let out a chill, disdainful little laugh as a gasp went through the assembly. To use Summer’s name so was something only a fullblood highborn would dare. “Your treachery threatens to extinguish all of Danu’s children, and I am come to treat with Gallow, not with you.”

  “To treat with . . .” Her eyes narrowed, and Jeremiah backed up a step, two, as Puck stepped aside, perhaps recognizing that something deadly was about to occur. “To treat with him? I am Summer!” The gold-clasped vines shifted, slithering against her mantle, and she took a single step toward the edge of the dais.

  “You are weakened,” the Unseelie pointed out. “And he, lady of Seelie, is who my lord sent me to pass words with, and demand a price from.”

  Okay, Jeremiah. Think fast. Time to throw a pair of bone dice, and see where their rattle landed. “He wants the Horn.” He smoked with sickness and mortal sweat, dirt, ditchwater, and even his armor could not hide the tremor in his hands. He drew the medallion from beneath his chestplate, pushing aside Robin’s locket to do so.

  The Horn’s round othershape glinted, a cold breath exhaling through the room, and several Seelie knights took a step back, recognizing what it was under its seeming. He dropped it back against his chest, patted his armor over the thing’s chill-burn, denying the lance its freedom with a gutclenching effort.

  Heavy silence greeted the revelation. The Unseelie’s blade was crystalline silver—a glassmaster, then. Quick, and deadly. He would be dangerous even if Jeremiah were well-rested and healthy. Gallow took a deep breath. “What is he prepared to offer, Cailas Redthorn?”

  “The . . .” Summer’s face lit with predatory glee. “Oh, my Gallow, best of Armormasters, you never disappoint.”