The rind crumbled, turning black and paper-thin. Her suckling did not cease until the fruit was no more than a smear of ash, flakes lifting from her white hand as she flicked the remains away. Full-glowing now, her lips were a sweet curve, redder than any red. “As planned,” she murmured. “My thanks, Goodfellow.”
“And mine, my lady.” He drew back into dappled leafshade as she turned away, and her laughter as she joined her ladies was a silver bell. “As planned indeed,” Puck whispered, and faded from sight into a deeper pool of dimness. Only the smears of his glowing irises remained, painted on the air for a few moments before winking out, and his own merry laughter was a faraway cackle that startled the swarming pixies.
No few of them dropped, their tiny hummingbird hearts halted between one moment and the next, and the tinkling of their deaths was lost under Summer’s gaiety.
HEART OF THE RIDDLE
27
Lies. All of it. Gallow’s teeth ground together, hard enough to crack one or two of them. He dragged the stumbling girl along, cursing himself for a fool. Summer’s laughter died as he strode down the flour-pale road, small curls of white vapor rising from his footsteps.
Was the girl glamoured to look like Daisy? Poison in a sweet sidhe wrapper, russet hair and a blue dress a bait he’d swallowed whole.
Except for the picture, he would think all of this a game, even the rotting Unwinter knight. The picture he’d found after the memorial service—a very young Daisy on the steps of a trailer, a yellowing Polaroid. And next to his dead wife was a gaptooth child, another girl. Older, just a little, but both of them held the promise of beauty. Anyone could see it. They’ll grow up to be stunners, an observer would say, squinting at the fading image.
Their arms around each other, their hair clearly redgold, but the older girl… well, the half-nervous smile, the way her thin knees rested under her dress, the pearliness of her teeth all shouted sidhe.
At least, now that he knew what he’d been looking at, they did.
“Is it true?” He skidded to a halt just at the edge of the orchard and suddenly realized she was gasping to breathe. A mortal man might have cared. Jeremiah just hitched his backpack higher and grabbed her other arm. Shook her, so sharply her head bobbled. “Is it true?”
Tears slicked her cheeks. Was she crying for the boy? Goddamn sidhe and their little games.
“Damn you, answer me!”
Robin’s sob, bit in half, hit him like ice water, right in the face. Her hair bounced, curtaining her expression, and suddenly she was Daisy during one of their few fights. Hit me if you gotta, Jer. Just don’t leave me.
As if he would. As if he would raise a hand to her. Daisy’s flinching told him much about her early life, the things she didn’t speak about, and he had let them lie.
Robin’s flinch spoke the same language.
“Christ,” he breathed, unmindful of the way the blasphemy shriveled into blackness and fell to his feet, shredding in the sunshine. “Come on.” His grip did not gentle, and she still didn’t struggle. Just let him bear her along, like a breathing, pliable doll.
All in all, he supposed, it was pretty much how he’d feared walking into Summer again would go.
They stepped over the border into a chill late-spring mortal morning, the uncommon bite in the air making much more sense now that he’d seen the Gates firmly closed. This particular exit was ancient and well-worn, and he might have been more worried about someone watching it if not for Robin’s pallor and her gasping.
Even while weeping, splotches of red on her cheeks and her nose pink-raw, she was still beautiful. It was pure sidhe, and its similarity to Daisy both curdled his stomach and started an ache down low where a man did most of his thinking before he learned better.
If he ever did.
There were bruises on her bare, milk-pale arms, rising swift and ugly. Deep red-black, the marks of his fingers clearly visible. Even though she could probably hurt him past Twisting him if she opened her mouth and let that massive orchestral noise loose, he’d still bruised a woman.
A sidhe, though. Did she count as defenseless?
Once you started thinking like that, were you any better than a murderous highborn, or a drink-maddened mortal?
Just look at her. Or better, don’t. It’ll only get you in trouble.
He glanced at the sky, took in the terrain. A dead-end street, juicy-greening blackberry bushes with long tearing thorns making an arch over this small doorway in a concrete wall. The door itself was closed, age-blackened wood and tarnished metal buried under the vines. No prying, watching eyes he could see, and it was daylight. Still, going blindly for a familiar exit wasn’t wise.
Losing his goddamn mind in front of her hadn’t been wise either.
Robin’s gasping quieted, little by little. She flinched when he tried clumsily to wipe at her wet cheeks, and the tiny cowering movement was so much like Daisy’s a hot acid bubble rose under his breastbone.
It was that flinch that made it truth. Even a Realmaker couldn’t be glamoured this thoroughly. She even smelled right, Half and mortal flesh both.
What were the chances of seeing her in that bar? What were the chances of anything, now that both Summer and Unwinter were involved?
Now that he had to, he was thinking about the accident again. A long straightaway of dry pavement. A single oak tree across a ditch. A parched autumn night, no frost, nothing to make Daisy’s car—a reliable sedan he had bargained for in a dusty lot off Shreves Avenue—veer, jump the ditch, and ram into the only obstruction.
Her body, tumbled across the field. No seat belt, Mr. Gallow. Did she often drive without it?
No. Never. Numb and shaking, had he really only thought it was ill-luck? Chance? Misfortune?
I’ll tell you, Gallow-my-glass, she met a sidhe.
Which could mean anything mortal-Tainted, a quarter sidhe or above.
The Polaroid he remembered, tucked safely in his dresser, had a heart drawn on the back in pink nail polish. Sloppy and childlike, he could almost see one of them biting the full lower lip they shared, tracing its contours in some ramshackle rotting tin can of a trailer, while screams throbbed in the kitchen or bedroom.
How he had wanted to give her more, but the sum of Daisy’s dreams was a trailer of her very own. We can’t afford a house, she’d said, with a peculiar smile. This is good enough.
Stupidly, he had thought she was right. Now he wondered who had taught her not to want, because it would be taken away.
She never mentioned a sister, either. She didn’t talk about her past, and neither did he. Better to say nothing than to lie—maybe she had thought it was better to say nothing than to tell the truth. Had she known what he was?
Since you like your milk so much. But nobody believed in the sidhe anymore. Still, with a Half sister…
It was no use. Daisy was gone, mortal clay, and no skill or chantment would bring her back to answer any questions.
Robin, still pale, wrenched herself from his grasp. He could have kept her, if he didn’t mind bruising her afresh. Maybe she thought to flee him, but she only took two staggering steps, bent over, and retched, a deep, awful noise that nonetheless carried no vomit to the pavement.
Had she loved him? Sean. A young mortal boy.
She spat as if to clear her mouth, and slowly straightened. Her eyes were closed, her head tipped back, and the beads of sweat on her neck were diamonds.
“I’m sorry.” Harshly.
Whatever reply he’d expected, it wasn’t her bitter laugh. She hugged herself, tightly, thin traceries of steam rising from her bare shoulders. “Why? You did nothing.” She was hoarse, too.
At least she wasn’t singing.
You’re right. I did nothing. Curse me for a fool, twice and thrice over. The tingling and itching up his arms receded, but the effort left him sweating afresh. “This… Sean. Did you love him?”
She regained her breath, shook her head. “What use is love?” Each word low and rough
as a cat’s tongue. “He was a baby, just a baby. I fed him. I bargained brughnies to care for him. I… I taught him…”
She ran out of words, and Jeremiah realized all at once what she meant. “Ah.” The curdling in him went away, and fresh loathing rose to take its place. Had he really thought she would… and that relief, deep down in him, because… why?
You know why.
In any case, it was time to move. “Come.”
“I will hurt her,” she said quietly. “I will kill—”
He did not remember moving; he found his hand clapped over Robin’s mouth as her wide, dark blue eyes rolled. He had her arm again, in case she decided to struggle, but she went limp.
“Hush, now.” As if there was a rock in his own throat. “Don’t swear an oath that will get you killed, woman.”
He could almost hear her reply. What do you care?
There was the heart of the riddle.
He didn’t know.
SIDHE ENOUGH
28
She held her tongue while he dragged her along. There was a small diner nearby, one of the twenty-four-hour variety, full of grease, fluorescent light, and mortal desperation. The waitress—a just-past-teenage girl with deep shadows under her eyes—looked at Robin’s bruises and probably assumed… several things.
The Armormaster ordered for both of them, and Robin stared at the cup of pallid boiled liquid that passed for coffee. A chipped rim, settled on a table tacky-wet and wiped with bleach water she could still smell.
If she hadn’t bargained herself away so young, perhaps she would have been a waitress, too. Backsore and hole-eyed, the vigor of youth drained away by drudgery and her sidhe half still sleeping. Instead, she was here.
Mother, gone. Her sister, gone.
Sean, gone.
Robin was not fool enough to think Summer would ever restore him to flesh. Was he struggling to draw breath inside that stone-resin prison? Nausea thumped into her middle, and she fought the urge to simply put her forehead on the mortal-dirty table and weep afresh. This time, the tears would not be rage, so she denied them.
Gallow watched her. What had he made of all this?
When she spoke, it was a surprise to hear her own soft, throaty tone. “He was stolen away.” Her hands lay on the table, discarded gloves. “She told me to sing the thief a song, and I did; then I… I begged him as a boon. I thought… I do not know what I thought.” Soft and measured, as if each word was not a knife to her heart. “I taught him the names of the stars. And she…”
The Armormaster shifted, uncomfortably. “He was dead the moment he was taken. All of us were.”
Is that what you think? “It would be a relief if that were true.”
“Maybe.” Then, the question she had been dreading. “Is it true? Daisy Snowe. Daisy Elaine.”
She blinked. It’s a common name. All common names. Just like mine was before I chose the truer ones.
“She had a mole.” He touched the underside of his jaw, on the left side. “Here. And her toes—the second and third were the same length. She sang gospel while she was in the shower, and her favorite flowers were—”
“Dandelions,” Robin whispered. “We had a song about them, when we were little. I used to hum it to her when…” When they were fighting. Or when Daddy Snowe was yelling and Mama sobbing. Daisy in her arms, a heavy weight, she rocked her sister while the noise battered their flimsy bedroom door.
You’re so warm, Rob.
Just as she’d rocked Sean, kissing the top of his head where the smell of Seelie, salt dust, and mortal child concentrated in his tumbled hair. Running through the orchard with Robin at his side, fleet of foot and laughing while she watched for pitfalls.
Gallow sagged against the cracked purple vinyl of the booth. He’d gone quite alarmingly pale. Robin returned to herself with a jolt, staring at him. Was it even possible?
I have me a man, Daisy had said, and I want the rest of it. Please, Rob.
Robin studied Gallow afresh. Yes, Daisy would like him. Strong-jawed, those pale eyes, and the broad shoulders. He was the very antithesis of short, pretty-faced Daddy Snowe. You had to look harder at Gallow to find the sidhe on him, behind the scornful mortal dross he wore like a cloak.
It didn’t seem to be a glamour. Everything about him simply denied comfort with a vengeance.
“Was she happy?” She curled her fingers around the mug, soaking in the warmth. “Did you… Were you kind to her?”
“Kind?” His laughter was as bitter as hers, as if he had a mouthful of rot. “I would have died for her. I would have given her anything she wanted. I tried. But maybe I wasn’t kind.” A muscle in his cheek flicked. His stubble was coming in, a charcoal brushing. “I’m not mortal enough for kindness.” One corner of his mouth tilted up, just slightly. “Neither are you, it seems.”
How would you know? It shouldn’t have stung, but it did. She dropped her gaze back into the coffee-sludge. “She wants the vials.”
“What vials?”
“The plague.” Robin wet her lips nervously. “There is… a cure. An inoculation. Summer snared a mortal of science to make one. He sent word that he had succeeded. I was sent to fetch it from the one who told her of its existence. That’s where…” No, Robin. Be careful. Don’t allow Puck further into this game than he already is. “Unwinter’s knight almost caught me. Then… you.”
“Ah.” He didn’t ask if the Unseelie had somehow loosed the plague in the first place. It was the obvious question, and no sidhe would wish to be too obvious. “And you bargained with her?”
“I told her I wouldn’t bring the ampoules back until she released Sean and guaranteed his family, with no ill effects…” Abruptly, she was aware of how childish it sounded. Had she thought she could outfox a creature so old? The very Queen of Seelie herself?
“Stupid.” He drummed callused fingers on the tabletop. The place was slowly filling, mortals straggling in to eat whatever passed for food here. Hissing in the kitchens, almost the same as Peleaster the Cook’s steaming hell—but not quite. She had explored the Court kitchens more than once. It had never sounded like this.
This inimical.
Robin was used to hating the mortal world. Now, she realized, she hated Summer, too. Would she find a home in Unwinter, then? You could not trust an Unseelie to honor a bargain, the Summer sidhe said, and their King was darkness itself. His pride had caused the Sundering, ’twas said, but before that he had been Summer’s Consort, a match for her indeed.
Robin had only glimpsed Unwinter’s cheerless country once or twice, and had no desire to ever see its cinder-rain and crimson spatters again.
A shudder worked through her. There would be no place to rest, not for a long while. The man across from her was most likely an enemy, too, even if he had been kind to Daisy, and for one simple reason.
You could not trust anything male once Summer had set her gaze upon it. From the lowest cur to the highest fullblood knight, they swelled below the belt and Summer led them neatly by the protuberance. What would this Armormaster give to worm his way back into Summer’s favor?
Perhaps he had simply amused himself with Daisy during his banishment.
Gallow finally spoke again. “You must have cared for him.” Quietly, as if it didn’t matter. “Where are they, then?” He glanced at the front of the diner, the flyspecked windows filling with gold as the sun rose through mist. She could not keep the Gates closed much longer—that much was true. When they opened, she was renewed, and that renewal spread through each realm in its own fashion.
“What, I’m to tell you?” Robin shook her head. “No, Armormaster. I would like to live a little longer.”
“What for?” Soft, but cruel. He probably would be flattered to know he sounded like Summer herself. But he shook his head, as if realizing his rudeness. “I mean—”
Vengeance. “Does it matter?”
“Oh, it does. I wouldn’t kill you, Ragged.” Flat and convincing, it had all the ring of sin
cerity. “Not unless I knew…”
Knew what? An idiot’s question. When he knew she had the vials, and that Summer would welcome him into her arms and couch again, Robin Ragged would be dead indeed. She had only her wits and her song, not to mention the few small trinkets she carried, to aid her in surviving.
His eyes had paled another shade or two. That was all.
“Breakfast!” The waitress slammed plates down on the table between them, and Robin forced herself not to flinch. Steam lifted from something that was supposed to resemble eggs, and the pancakes were uneven blobs, probably burned on the side facing down. There was bacon, too, full of salt goodness, but revulsion filled Robin’s belly.
There were two glasses of milk, anyway, and at least that smelled fresh. Pale, of course, having been processed, but still better than the rest of it. She reached for the glass, realized it was smudged. More pointless revulsion.
“Eat while you can.” He looked down at his own plate.
Eat this? Are you mad? She forced herself to take a sip of milk, her skin crawling at the thought of mortal effluvia still on the glass.
She was sidhe enough for that, at least.
Maybe she could be heartless, too.
FOR JOY OR SORROW
29
Canton Station echoed with midday traffic. Silver pig-buses nuzzled at the big dun sow of a building, and even though the interior was tired and old, it still held Art Deco reminders. Brass rails and marble flooring, shafts of weak cloud-filtered light beaming down from skylights, the fixtures hanging from the ceiling frosted with dust but still intricately pleasing.
Best of all, the lockers were steel, which meant enough cold iron to make them safe. He found the one he wanted and touched the handle, a single syllable of chantment resounding low and vibrating under the PA system announcing leaving for Buffalo, now boarding in bay 16.
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