Or so he thought.
There was another message in his words.
She was mortal.
And Robin was not. A flighty, faithless, treacherous sidhe bitch, capable of coldly plotting against even those who aided her, a poison spreading to all who breathed near her.
Perhaps, Robin considered, wearily, she should simply become such a thing. Would it hurt less?
He flicked the light switch, plunging the bedroom into darkness. A thin thread of yellow, mortal glow outlined the door, which he swept almost closed. He left the light in the hall on, and she heard him moving around his trailer while her eyes burned fiercely.
He would be gone when she awoke, even if Robin secretly, in some dark, small corner of herself, hoped to be proven wrong. Everything now depended on the Gallow Queensglass, the former Armormaster, betraying one ragged little bird.
A BOON
40
She finally slept, curled on her side and breathing deeply as the bruises faded on her shoulder. He could almost see them retreating.
I never will be.
The bag in his hands was black and silken, chantment in the gold-threaded stitches to guard its precious cargo. Inside, stitchery divided the pouch around slender glass tubes, sealed around a liquid that sparkled faintly. Tucked in her left skirt pocket along with a crumpled piece of paper—one of his own pay stubs, she’d probably thought to search for him with it—and a cheap blue plastic ring, a kid’s gimcrack prize her fingers were probably still slender enough to wear. It was exactly the shade of her dress, and he could see her finding it in the gutter, or on the sidewalk, picking it up like a magpie steals anything shiny.
And one more thing. If he hadn’t been looking for the ampoules he’d never have gone digging in her pocket and found it. A metal barrette, the kind that snapped closed when you bent it. Caught in it, wrapped tightly around, golden-red hairs that were not sidhe. Too pale, especially when compared to the glory of Robin’s mane.
Mortal hair.
Had Daisy been wearing it the day she died? You could do things with hair; a Realmaker’s chantment could be turned to dark uses indeed. Hell, you didn’t need Realmaking. Even a pixie could distract a driver, lead a car to jump a ditch and ram a lone tree.
Poor Robin; her mortal shadow earned all the affection, with barely a scrap left over.
It was a hell of a thing to think.
Balanced against it, everything he’d seen. I have the cure, Unwinter! Waving herself before the Unseelie to draw their chase. You fool! Her expression when he appeared, her obvious efforts to keep him from coming to harm… but she had led him into the Tangle, just like a faithless sidhe. She remembered names, too. Mortal names. A thin ancient dime tossed into a street busker’s case, a gift with no price and no sharp teeth.
What to believe? He was already halfway to somewhere he never thought he’d visit again, something he thought had died with Daisy.
Halfway? Oh, Gallow, do not start lying to yourself. Or at least, do not continue.
She sighed, shapelessly. Curled more tightly into the covers, clutching the pillow like a life raft. Daisy had sometimes done that, as if she could make herself small enough to be ignored. When she was ill, or upset, that was how she slept.
Beat me if you got to, Jer. Just don’t leave me.
The boy—Sean—was as good as dead in Summer’s clutches. Robin was as good as dead once the Queen had what she wanted; when the ampoules were handed over Summer would be just as dangerous as Unwinter’s pursuit. He could trade the Horn to Unwinter in return for Robin’s life—she wouldn’t like his ashen country, but it was better than death. He might even manage to win some other concession from the Unseelie King.
Worry about that later. You know what you have to do now.
Funny, but even in the uncertain light from the hallway, she didn’t look a thing like Daisy. There were similarities, of course, but they weren’t twins. Looking at her now, her face serene with sleep, her forehead painted with iodine—the wound had been shallow, thank God—you could see the sharper features, the original beauty.
Her mortal shadow.
Small consolation that he found he remembered Daisy’s face just fine, and Robin’s couldn’t take its place. Instead, the Ragged burned through him, a still, secret heat at his core, where the ash and gall of grief had rested. His own personal Unwinter, now broken.
Was it so easy?
It was tempting to think he could take his shirt and jeans off, slide into the bed next to her. Share that warmth, and put his arms around that softness. Let tomorrow do what it would.
You know what you have to do. Time is short.
He uncoiled from his crouch next to the bed. Her dress hung in the bathroom, shedding mud as it dried, sidhe-woven cloth healing itself. The rips in her skirt she could mend with simple needle-chantment. He’d returned everything to her pocket except the ampoules in their black case.
Jeremiah’s fingers hovered a bare inch from her shoulder. The living heat of her brushed his palm, a feather’s caress. Soon the paleness would be burnished, whole again. She would probably sleep past daylight; Unwinter wouldn’t think to look here. Only a fool would come back to his own house after being under either hunt.
The pad of his middle fingertip barely brushed her skin. A familiar tightening, down low.
Who would even want Summer, with Robin standing nearby? Even her mortal shadow had been enough to dizzy an Armormaster. The flame itself threatened to leave him ash and cinders afresh, even as he welcomed its touch.
I am not my sister.
“No, you’re not,” he whispered, mouthing the words. “You’re something else, Robin.”
Moments later, the bedroom was empty.
So was Jeremiah Gallow’s trailer, except for a sleeping Half-sidhe, curled on her side and muttering shapelessly as she dreamed, then settling into healing blackness.
The borders of Seelie were watched, but he had not been Armormaster for naught. A man was only as free as knowledge could make him.
Night under a sliver of milk-pale moon in Summer was warm, hushed, and expectant. He tested the air, rolling it on his tongue, as the shifting border retreated. He had probably been remarked—there were foxfire pixie-lights in the tree branches, jewel tones winking in and out. Were they carrying tales to Puck, too? Or had he simply managed to interest them in the chase earlier?
I should be in armor for this. It probably wouldn’t help, though. His armor, chantment-chased, was hanging in a bus station locker, in a tiny purple bag with Daisy’s few bits of jewelry.
No time to brace himself. He stepped out into the open, the set of his shoulders military-straight. Falling back into the habit of moving like a sidhe, with that damnable sense of comfort. Struggling against his true nature wasn’t going to help anyone, least of all Robin.
Is that why you’re here?
The roads were bone-white, and he skirted the orchard out of habit. The high ground was best, and in any case, the apple trees were more… active… at night. There were no pennants and no bonfire visible through the blackened trunks, so she would perhaps be in a pavilion, or even abed.
The thought of waking her was equally fearsome and grimly pleasurable.
Summer and Puck both wanted him to think Robin had been involved in Daisy’s… death. Which could mean only one thing, and it did not make Robin guilty.
Quite the opposite.
Summerhome rose before him, bleached pale in the star-and moonlight. He had never noticed before how it looked like the bones of some giant creature, its flesh either fallen free through inactivity or outright death. It dozed, and it rotted.
At least in Unwinter the foulness was held in the open.
Thinking on that would only distract him. The Horn at his chest was quiescent, but so cold. Not burning-cold, just mortal ice against his breastbone. His skin wasn’t blackening under it; that was one mercy. More than he expected.
I was not always of Summer. Who would remember as m
uch? Maybe not even the Queen.
He climbed the stairs, and found no guard at the door. In his time, such laxity would have been unacceptable. Who was Armormaster now?
Did he care?
Well, for one thing, he might have to kill whoever held that position, if Summer was in a mood to play catlike with prey. It would be nice to know. The thrill along his nerves was danger, and after so long in the paper-thin mortal world he could almost have welcomed it.
Could you be truly living, if you did not know you could be slain?
The doors were easy enough to push open. He strode through the deserted entryhall, and the prickle of unease along his arms and legs crested. No mailed knights at guard here, either. No brughnies hurrying about their duties, no ghilliedhu girls swishing past with their long fingers full of jeweled pins and ribbons to tie in a lady’s hair.
Not Robin’s, though. Summer would not allow a Half to appear bedecked. The insult was perhaps mitigated by the fact that Robin needed no such decking.
Or driven in more deeply.
The Hall’s great swinging doors opened, and this was why no guard had been set. The Hall throbbed with color and light, tinkling sidhe-laughter and a whirl of dresses. The music spilled out, too, bone-keyed harpsichord and silver-dipped pipe, the drums of stretched skin, pounding to speed mortal hearts along, to make them faint and dizzy.
How many years ago had he heard similar music while he wandered, starving and footsore, hiding from the railway dogs? More than a mortal lifetime, long enough that the memory didn’t wound him.
At least, not much.
And the smells! Spices no mortal could name, crisp-juicy apples, new-cut grass. A musky tang of sidhe sweat, the merriness of a just-kissed lover’s breath, the copper tang of fresh-spilled blood. It filled his nose, enough to reel even his senses… but into the whirl he plunged, an arrow in drab mortal clothing, flying true. His arms itched furiously, the marks moving under his sleeves, straining for release.
She did not recline upon her throne. Summer’s Queen, dressed in deep verdant green instead of blue, sat upright, her feathered mask slipping aside as she sighted him and smiled. Candy-red lips parting slightly, her white hand rising, the mask made a dipping gesture, and between one wild beat and the next… silence.
“And who is this?” Her words were edged with frost, even though this revel could only mean that she was about to open the Gates. “Why, it’s Gallow-my-Glass, visiting us afresh, come to bring his Queen a gift.”
Now, Jeremiah. He halted at the foot of the dais. They had drawn away—hobs and knights, ladies in fantastical velvet and fluttering silk, drogwiles and woodwights, dwarven envoys of the Red clans but none of the Black. Selkies with their shimmer-seal coats and dripping fingers, naiads clothed in riverglitter and dryads of every shape and size—the trolls and giants would be carousing on Hoyland Moor this night, and woe to any who wandered that way under ten feet tall.
“I do bring you what you asked, my Queen, and I will have a boon in return.”
“A boon!” Her gaze glittered, avid and hungry. “Oh, you demand payment for a gift, Gallow?”
“No. I demand the life of Robin Ragged.” He took a deep breath. “For this I will give thee what I carry, what you charged us to bring, O Summer. None other shall lay a hand upon the Ragged or claim her life. Only myself, and myself only.”
She clapped her hands, the mask fluttering, and the Seelie Queen’s laughter was silver bells. “Granted, with goodwill! Hear and witness, goodfolk all—the Ragged’s life belongs to Jeremiah Gallow, the Queensglass, once-Armormaster.”
I’ll not spend it to please you. His face showed no sign, merely set itself further. Years of wearing a mask for mortals served him in good stead now.
He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the bag. “As promised, then.” He tossed it, and Summer actually leapt from her throne to catch the small embroidered thing.
Also in his pocket were the three iron nails, and Jeremiah plunged his fist back in, almost tearing the material in his haste. His slippery fingers found and clasped them. “God’s blood!” he cried, and the world turned sideways as the revel of the sidhe cast him forth. Always, in tales, the blasphemy and cold iron flung one from the sideways realms. A truth hidden in so many garbled stories, but what they never mentioned was the pain.
It hurt, and he screamed.
MOST MARVELOUS MEAT
41
She slept deep, the young one, her hair spread over a mortal pillow and shaming it with rich redgold gloss. The familiar curve of her cheekbone, her long fingers mortal-fragile, the roundness of a cream-pale shoulder.
He stood at the foot of the bed, his irises glowing and their hourglass pupils each bearing green sparks in the top and bottom bells; his teeth lengthened as his mouth filled, again, with the juices of hunger. Sweet, and powerful. Not like a salt-rich, terror-drenched mortal.
The most marvelous meat of all was another of his kind.
He cocked his head, listening intently. Nothing but the hushed breathlessness of a mortal night, past witching hour and before gray predawn. No hint of silver whistles or clawed hoof-fall. The pixies would be winking out as dawn rose, slipping back into the Veil-pockets they lived in or fleeing to Summer’s bonny swards, weary after a night of good sport. They had performed well, aiding the Ragged’s passage and also stopping her from stepping over into Summer’s clutches, and he had wanted to be the one to find her. There was a bower within Amberline Park, soft moss and a clear running stream, heavy cream to soothe her thirst and hurts, and a couch wide enough to cradle her dreamlessly. Pixies to twist her hair into braids, and a robe made of sighs and crisp red fall afternoons to cover her, such a robe as she had never been given leave to wear in Summer.
She would no doubt be grateful, Half as she was, for his attentions. Such a little thing he would ask of her in return.
Only to be his.
Instead, she was here. But what a stroke of luck, the milksop Armormaster stealing and sliding over the border! It was, he decided, even better this way. He had noted a troubling softness in the Ragged’s treatment of the Queensglass, and vice versa.
It was, he rather thought, time for the Ragged to be taught a lesson.
He turned, softly, softly, and winked through the bedroom door. Down the hall, soft-padding, and impatience rose. If he woke her, she would be half dead, and useless besides. As charming as it would be to maze a dozing Ragged, to see her wander with sleep-weighed lashes and a flush of exhaustion on her cheeks, it would not do.
He had prepared such a pretty bower for her, too. Not like this mortal hole, with filth everywhere. Long ago, such a thing—a slattern’s hair, a hearth ill swept, crusted food left on trenchers instead of scrubbed off with sand—would have moved him to mischief.
Now it moved him in another direction. The Queensglass should know better than this. If he was to ape a mortal’s life, he could at least show some respect to his betters when they visited.
Puck Goodfellow stepped into the kitchen, examined the dirty dishes. His lip curled, and he turned in a full circle, deosil, then another widdershins, while he mulled how best to express his displeasure.
Not as if it mattered, really, since Unwinter now wished Gallow’s head on a pike. He was welcome to it, too.
Puck Goodfellow’s smile widened, and widened again. His face suffused with dark glee, and he began to hum.
PRIMROSE DARLING
42
Oh, what a merry song I give…”
Someone was singing, a light tenor wandering through an airy tune. Golden light striped her face, and for a long syrupy moment she was a child again. Waking up in Mama’s trailer, a sick knot of fear in her stomach, listening to find out if Daddy Snowe was home, Daisy beside her—
There was no small, warm, living weight next to her. The light was wrong, too, from her feet instead of her right side. The singing wasn’t Mama’s wandering renditions of gospel or Grand Ole Opry ballads, either. There was a hiss, a
crash, and low sidhe laughter.
“When I undertake to sail a sieve…” More singing. Quick, light dancing sounds—the trailer shook, and there was another crashing noise. “Oh, how I wish she’d never leave… oh, oh, what a tangled web I weave…”
That’s not Gallow. He didn’t seem the type to sing in the morning, with his set face and sullenness.
She stretched cautiously. Her arms and legs obeyed her, and she was naked in a bed that took up most of a trailer’s master bedroom. Electric light glowed around the half-closed door, no sunshine apparent. Daisy’s clothes were in the closet, along with Gallow’s, and Robin was head-sore and a little shaky, but otherwise whole.
Did I truly escape Unwinter? And Gallow carried me here. Why?
If this was his idea of a clever move, she supposed her own breathing life would be proof of its success. She had not cared enough to question last night, all her failing strength taken up with not giving away her small, slight advantage, her toss of the dice in this murderous game.
The crashing halted, and Robin slowly pushed herself up on her elbows. There was a galumping in the hall, the bedroom door flung itself open, and Puck Goodfellow bounded through, landing on all fours on the bed as Robin scrambled back, cloth tearing. She took the sheet with her, and her throat tingled, but Puck merely grinned, his sharp white teeth gleaming. Electric light from the hall glowed on his nut-brown skin, fired in his eyes, and picked out the grain of his leather jerkin. If not for the catlike crouch and the points of his ears, he could probably be mistaken for a mortal boy.
“Good early morn, damsel, and look at you a-tumble. Did I not know Gallow was in Summer before the witching hour, I would suspect you dishonored by a knight neither of Seelie nor its counterpart.”
Trailer Park Fae Page 21
