Silverblind (Ironskin)

by Tina Connolly

  There was a reason she was letting her fey side free. And that was to disguise herself as a boy, so she could get that field work position. So she could pursue her goals, so she could help the poor and sick in the city. As her stepmother, Jane, was always saying: those in power had an interest in keeping things that way. That’s why Jane was marching with the nurses trying to unionize, though the regular insults of “mannishness” were being hurled at them, as they were with most of the causes Jane joined. Her aunt Helen, too, worked for social justice, but for her own reasons and in her own way. Helen was much more empathetic than Jane or Dorie, apt to pick up a new cause because she had met some poor single mother facing it. And then, her method was to use her social and political connections to make changes at the top. Jane was always there in the trenches, fighting. Dorie despaired, sometimes, at the thought of living up to either one of them. She believed in their work, but she could not imagine putting herself out there so … openly.

  Her brains. Her skills. And in secret. It was all very well for Helen and Jane to boldly put their faces and names on the line. But Dorie had something to hide.

  And if she had to be a boy to do it, so be it.

  In the moonlight she stretched out her hand.

  What would a boy’s hand look like?

  She did not have any male friends—no truly close friends at all beyond Jack. She had had a few casual female friends at their boarding school, of course. Stella was the closest of those, but … Hard to have close friendships when you had an impossible secret. There was her cousin Tam, of course. But she hadn’t seen him for seven years, not since the day she locked away half of herself. No matter. She did not want to look like a fifteen-year-old boy.

  The moonlight picked out one of Jack’s figure studies and Dorie jumped up. Of course. Not these, though—these were recent. Not good to look even remotely like someone she could run into in the next day. She went to her roommate’s bedroom, where figure studies from her time in Varee were pinned to the wall—thanked her stars that Jack was not into modern art, but instead split her time between cartooning and beautifully rendered studies of people. She examined the latter until she found a largish pen-and-ink of a nondescript boy, fine-boned and thin. She studied it, thinking, there it is then. You lengthen the fingers, thicken the wrists …

  In the moonlight her right hand reshaped itself until it had a more manly heft. As Dorie, her nails stayed long and perfectly manicured no matter how she bit and broke them; now she forcibly shortened them back to the finger. She looked at that hand, memorizing it, and then she set about to do the other.

  It was hard, keeping the right hand changed while focusing on the left. She had done this years ago, but it was a tricky mental game, and she had not practiced in nearly a decade. She remembered from experience that if she practiced one particular look, it would begin to get easier to stay in the form without suddenly bursting out. But she did not remember how long it took to get that ease, and she could already feel the mental effort of holding one hand steady while she did the next, like a juggler twirling plates.

  Dorie finished the left hand and looked at them both. Once complete, it was not much more difficult to hold two hands than one. She could recognize the pattern for both, reversed, sitting lightly in her mind. She held on to it as she stripped down to do the arms, the legs. Every inch—yes, every inch—until she came to the face. She stopped and looked in Jack’s cracked mirror as she did that, sharpening the cheekbones, changing the shape of her nose and the thrust of her brow. In an odd way it was like sculpting, like her father used to do, except now she was the clay. She made her face less symmetrical than it usually was, a little rougher. She normally didn’t tan, or burn, but she darkened her skin a shade now to look more outdoorsy. Chopped off her hair and colored it black. She had tried physically cutting her ringlets before, but when they had grown back overnight she had given up on the idea. She had not thought to simply transform them, back long ago when she had had the power. Of course, it was going to take an effort. She could tell. Every nerve strung alive with the balancing act as she looked at the boy in the mirror. Like a string of dominoes—if she let anything flip back to girl it would start a ripple effect; it would all fall down.

  Carefully Dorie walked around the room, feeling her new center of gravity, keeping all her limbs intact. She felt as though she were a thin membrane holding back an ocean. She walked around until she was looking at the mirror again. Was that a boy who people would trust? Who the lab would accept? Was that a boy who could do things?

  A cynical laugh slipped out into the moonlit bedroom. She was a boy—that was enough. They would actually look at her references. They would believe her when she said she could climb trees. They wouldn’t tell her she couldn’t risk her pretty eyes in the field.

  There was a funny sense of rightness to her new face. It wasn’t that she wanted to be a boy, but she had never felt right in the blond doll shape given her—the face that was unlike anyone she was related to. The face that never showed anything she did, good or bad—no sun, no scars, no laugh lines. This boy had character to his face. This boy looked like her family.

  She had given him a thatch of wild black hair like her father’s. A quirky, amused smile like her uncle Rook’s—so what if they weren’t technically related. Her nose—his nose had a very slight bump, as if he had been in a fistfight as a teenager. (She had.) It was too difficult to change her eyes, so they were still large and blue, but she shrunk the heavy lashes on them. She remembered how she had fallen from a tree when she was eight and in the woods with the fey, and not thought to turn blue herself on the way down. She had gashed her shin and broken her leg. The fey had mocked her, laughing, and showed her how to phase out and fix it herself. She had unthinkingly left the scar on her shin that day, but the next morning when she woke up her skin was clean and unblemished.

  She put the scar back in now. Drew it from her knee, halfway down her shin, a long diagonal line. Her uncle’s amused smile crept over her lips as she looked at her leg in the mirror.

  She thought about modifying the face still more to look like her father, but then she thought better of it. Better to have her heritage be unidentifiable, so she could make it up. She would need a name, though.…

  The door opened and Jack stumbled in, fumbling for a light. Her voice drifted out in song as she came closer. “Singing cockles and mussels alive, alive-oh—oh. Oh. Who are you? No. No!” She came and put her hands on Dorie’s shoulders, laughing hysterically. “And I thought you were just going to cut your hair. It is you, isn’t it? You’re Dorie, aren’t you? Else there is a very naked boy standing in my bedroom, looking like the cat who swallowed the canary. Who are you?”

  Dorie’s lips curved in her uncle’s wry grin. “Dorian,” she said.

  * * *

  Dorian Eliot rapped on the massive double doors the next morning, heart in mouth. She had thought she wouldn’t have much girl to eradicate—but there were more things than she realized. More than just crossing her legs at the knee instead of the ankle. Or not crossing them at all and slouching down, taking up two seats on the trolley. Men did not care so much whether they took more than their fair share of something. They did not automatically stay on the edge of the sidewalk so others could pass. Dorie had spent the last seven years trying to blend in with what other human girls did. She was surprised to find how many of those things were specifically girl and not just human. Now she was going to have to unlearn all of those, because if you did any of those weakening maneuvers as a man, you became an obvious target.

  It was still early, but it was going to be another scorcher. She was glad when a butler in tails motioned her into the cool drawing room. The interior was every bit as gaudy as the showy exterior had suggested. The house was not overly large, but what it lacked for in size it made up in peacockery. It was covered within an inch of its life with wood paneling, tapestries, oil paintings, gilt leaf woodwork.… The oil paintings and tapestries were divided neatl
y into two subjects: exotic animals and barely dressed girls. Her newly returned fey senses were overwhelmed by the scents: tobacco and sandalwood and cloves. It was a heady, dizzy feeling. She curled her lip at the excess. Malcolm hadn’t even been obnoxious in person yet and already she wanted to pick up all his possessions in a whirlwind and send them out onto the street. Just one of those tapestries could feed a family of four for several months.

  Out of habit, she scoped the room for anything edible, but all she found was a bowl of three lonely hard candies on an end table, next to a thick book wrapped in protective leather binding, tooled in gold. She took two of the candies anyway, then flicked open the book to a random page. “It is out of fashion for learned men to believe in basilisks. The only skeleton extant is dismissed as an overgrown wyvern. But in the small towns nestled in the mountains, the legend of the basilisk is very much real.…”

  A squawk behind her and she jumped, letting the book fall closed as she turned around. A large purple and scarlet parrot sat on a golden stand in the corner, its brilliant feathers blending into the riot of color in the room. “Pretty girl,” it said. “Pretty girl.”

  Dorie’s skin crawled. “Hush,” she said. She walked closer, studying its cocked head, its inquisitive eyes.

  “Feed me? Pretty girl.”

  A noise from the doorway made her turn. A man who could only be Malcolm Stilby stood there. He was quite average looking—a bit thin and pasty—yawning in a splendiferous lounging robe embroidered with birds of paradise. He laughed at her discomfort. “He says that to everybody. Amusing, no? I’ve had men threaten to punch me for it.” He shrugged. “It’s just a bird.”

  Dorie straightened. “I hear you pay for animals,” she said in her gruffest, most manly voice. She had modified her vocal cords as well, so she could not accidentally slip up and talk in treble. Nervously she wiped her palms on her trousers—Jack had borrowed clothes from a male friend for her—and held out her hand. “Name’s Dorian Eliot.” Malcolm kept his eyebrows raised, a carefully blank expression on his face, and she thought, oh, hell, what did I do wrong? Her mind raced, and then suddenly she remembered to add: “Fitzhaber sent me.”

  “Good, good,” Malcolm said, finally shaking her hand. “Can’t be too careful these days. Not technically illegal, but the silvermen are always looking for an excuse to shut me down under Subversive Activities. Jealous, I say. Birds in cages getcha birds on couches, ya know? But I envy you university men. A campus full of coeds these days, you get all the birds you want, eh?” He held out a wooden box and extracted himself a cigarette from it. “Last time Fitzhaber came we sat on this couch until three a.m. drinking whiskey and talking about his campus conquests. Really takes me back, ya know? Fancy a smoke?”

  “No thanks,” she said, wishing he would offer her a snack instead. It would almost make it worthwhile to be here. She had not known how uncomfortable it would be to listen to this kind of thing. This wasn’t true of all men, was it? Was this what she would encounter from day to day? It would be a rough haul if so. But Dorian came from nowhere. He didn’t have the credentials to waltz into the Queen’s Lab. She was going to have to work her way up.

  Malcolm did not seem put off by her unwillingness to spill the beans about the girls at school. Perhaps he figured it was only a matter of time and whiskey. From his dressing gown pocket he produced a bit of paper with penciled figures scrawled on it. “The list I give to all you chaps,” he said. “Current pricing for horns and eggs and so on—subject to change, of course! Ya never know when the market abroad is gonna decide that ground-up tortua shells don’t give them the … potency … they were hoping for, eh? And what would I do with a roomful of shells then. Certainly I got all the potency I need, but maybe you could use some, eh? Skinny-looking chap like you?”

  “Right. The list. Got it,” said Dorie. She turned to go. The contrast between this man and the Queen’s Lab was stark and humiliating. Her top marks, her careful letters of recommendation—none of it mattered now. All that mattered was that she was a boy, and the magic words “Fitzhaber sent me.” It’s a job, she told herself. No worse than Jack drawing nudie pics. (Blood money.) It will pay the rent. Bring him some cast-offs, feathers and shed skins, that you don’t mind getting for him. And then, you can use this to work your way up, until what matters again is your brain and your skill, what Jane always promised would be true.

  “But never mind the list for right now, really,” Malcolm said as she started for the door. “Keep it for next month. I’ve told everyone there’s a two-week moratorium on everything on that list. What I really want are wyvern eggs.”

  Her heart sank. “Live eggs?”

  “Yes, yes. Focus on wyvern eggs and don’t bring me any damn other thing. The Queen’s Lab is trying to corner the market on them—can’t have that. We got just as much right to their benefits as anyone else.”

  Her attention sharpened. At least maybe she could find out what they were for. “Yes, those properties are interesting, aren’t they?” she said, trying to draw him out. “I was just in the Queen’s Lab the other day watching one hatch.”

  He took an eager step closer, and she tried not to back up. “In the Queen’s Lab? I hear they have a machine for extracting the goo. Tell me, ya think it keeps it any fresher than scooping it out with a copper spoon?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. She kept her stance wide and casual. “Does it really go bad that fast?”

  “I’m told it stops working after a few minutes,” he said. “I haven’t tried one myself—get more money out of selling them before they hatch, obviously. But I sold one on to this blacksmith, and he’s got one of the blue devils captured, and he said it only works on them within the first few minutes. Then it’s no good; might as well be a chicken egg for all the good it does.”

  Dorie went cold from her head to her toes. Blue devils—that was fey, of course. Her voice croaked as she said, “What do you mean—works?”

  “Well, kills them, of course. That’s what this run on them is all about. Pure poison to fey.” Malcolm took a long draw on his cigarette and said, “Well, look, Dorian. You bring me wyvern eggs and I’ll pay you well, you understand? Don’t worry if you have to take down the adults to get it. Eggs are what’s important.” He pointed at the number on the sheet. “Take that and double it.”

  Dorie shook with fear and rage as she trailed him to the door. Her fingers jerked out—a table ten feet away wobbled, its contents shaking. She managed to still it before he noticed. She twisted her fingers together to stop herself from destroying his library in a tornado of splintering rage. That would not help make the rent. “And nothing else?” she said tightly. “No hartbird feathers right now? Cast-off hydra skins?” Anything but live wyvern eggs.

  “Bah,” Malcolm said. A trail of smoke drifted behind him as he showed her out. “Got all the damn feathers I need. Come back soon and show me what you’re made of.” He pointed a finger at her. “You, me, whiskey, girls. I think highly of my boys who work for me. We have a grand old time.”

  “Glad to hear it,” said Dorie. It was not quite a spit.

  He smiled as she went numbly down the steps, fingers interlaced. “Just remember, Dorian. Wyvern eggs or nothing.”

  Chapter 4

  STALKING THE WYVERN

  In a small town out east I found the first sign of a connection between wyverns and fey. Here, it was well known that a wyvern egg, cracked by the light of the full moon and buried in your yard, would stop the fey from coming past your gate. (That the sheer difficulty of procuring wyvern eggs made this superstition impossible to test was considered rather beside the point.) But two towns to the north I found the corroboration in an attic, in an ancient set of decaying notebooks from the town’s former wisewoman: 1 swallowe of the juice of the wyvern egg will kill the fey inside you, it said. But the remedie must be applied within 5 minutes of cracking the egg.

  —Thomas Grimsby, “Wyverns: The Fey Antidote?” Collected Fey Tales


  * * *

  There was a reason everyone was paying so darn well for wyvern eggs, beside their recently discovered value. Wyverns were cranky, skittish, and elusive. They were devoted parents and kept a sharp eye on their nests. Dorie really had no idea how anyone had managed to get any eggs at all—it was nearly impossible to get close to the wary animals unless you were fey.

  And Dorie was only half.

  After leaving Malcolm’s, she had hitched out as far as the major country road would take her. Then it was still a good trek up the side road that led into the forest that covered the base of Black Rock Mountain. Thankfully the higher she went, the cooler it became. The mountain was carpeted thickly in evergreens: tall fir and juniper and soft spruce. She had last been out here a year ago, tracking down some feywort for a sick friend in the history department. It was widely known as the best place to find wyverns—generally meaning, the place you most wanted to avoid during hatching season. The nesting wyverns could steam you with pinpoint accuracy—and would.

  She was still in guise as Dorian, as only practice would make that shape perfect. Better to slip up while alone in the wilderness, rather than in the city. She stepped as carefully through the forest as twenty-two years of woodscraft and being half-human could let her, moving from stick to stick with no more sound than a falling leaf. Removing her fey side seven years ago had left her suddenly dependent on ordinary human senses and skills, and, frustrated, she had sharpened those to bring them back as close as she could to half-fey.

  Now, with her fey side filling her bones, she felt bright as light, stunning, invincible. The pine smell filled her nostrils, and she could sense every robin, every sparrow, every tiny goldwing moth for several paces in every direction. It fizzled her head like wine. She had to remember how to let those senses fade out and focus on what was in front of her.