Roadside Magic

by Lilith Saintcrow

  The crystalline steps were repaired but dull. The visitor’s glove-soled feet brushed them, and he blinked out of sight before the massive door. He appeared on the other side of it, stepping out of nowhere as casually as a mortal on a Sunday stroll.

  Who was it, to tread so bravely, when Summer’s door had not opened that morning? The Queen of Seelie was not accepting visitors. Perhaps he had an invitation?

  He passed lightly over the shifting map of Summer’s domain in the eternally twilit rotunda, glancing down only once to see the damage wrought by Unwinter’s raid. So much had been restored, but the edges of the map paled alarmingly. Half of the fens were gone, the Dreaming Sea reaching hungrily inland, the borders with the Low Counties ran and blurred much faster than they should, and the deep scars, as if a gauntleted fist had raked across the map, were still discernible.

  The doors to the Great Hall were closed as well, but he simply skipped through the Veil and came to a halt just inside them, observing the empty, cavernous space. The hangings were now the deep, clotted red of dried blood, hanging utterly still. The couch on the dais was no longer choked with pillows.

  Perhaps she found them too soft.

  On the couch, she sat, straight and slim. The red scarf knotted around her wrist dripped down the front of her dress of black spiderweb and sigh, its many misty, shifting draperies blurring her outline. Her hair was just as long and golden as ever, its waves hardening as she raised her head and saw who stood before her.

  “You,” she said tonelessly.

  He swept her a fine bow, hand wide as if holding a feathered cap free, one toe pointed just so. “Me. Hail Summer, light of Seelie, Jewel of Danu.”

  Her aristocratic nostrils might have flared a millimeter. That was all. She watched him straighten, and if she noticed any change in him, she did not inquire. No, she sat white and still, her slim fists clenched. The Jewel on her forehead gave a single brilliant flash, settled back to a low punky glow. No minstrels behind the carven screens above, no handmaidens waiting upon her, no knights in attendance.

  He turned in a complete circle, widdershins, looking about him with much interest. Finally, his irises flaring with yellowgreen light around the black tarns of hourglass pupils, he faced her again and mimed shock and surprise, his mobile mouth stretching wide, his features contorting.

  Whatever she thought of this display remained a mystery. When she did speak, the words dropped listless from her carmine lips. She moved them as little as possible. “What do you want?”

  “Many things, oh Summer. But is this any way for old friends to greet each other? Your hospitality grows a little thin of late, I should say.”

  “What. Do you. Want.” A tremble passed through the throneroom, and the visitor affected not to notice.

  “You had better manners when you were a serving-girl, my dear.”

  Another tremor slid through the room, this one more definite. Summer’s blue, blue eyes narrowed a fraction.

  That was all.

  Finally, he sighed, an almost-comical expression of resignation playing over his youthful face. “I shall match rudeness with its own kind, then.” He stepped forward, easily, and again, until he stood in the exact center of the hall. “And I will ask very simply, so you may understand me.”

  “Ask and begone.” Summer did not move.

  “With good grace.” Puck, called Goodfellow by some, the closest thing to a leader the free sidhe had, bared his sharp teeth in his V-shaped grin. All things considered, he was looking very well, though his leathers were new, and a pair of sharp eyes might have noticed a certain absence of items at his belt. “I have searched as you bade me and found nothing but hints of your knights striking death into mortals. This will not do. Where is my girl, oh Seelie’s Dawn? Where, oh where, is my Robin Ragged?”

  INVITED GUESTS

  33

  Gallow.” She prodded his shoulder, felt at his clammy forehead. “Hist, Gallow.”

  He groaned, woke with a start. She clapped her hand over his mouth to capture any startled cry.

  “Listen,” she whispered. “Crenn is gone; he left just a few moments ago. Wake. We must move.”

  Gallow blinked. This close, she could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes—he had been much older than her when he first stepped into the sideways realms. His skin was too cold, and sweat-slick besides. As long as he stayed in the mortal realm, he wouldn’t sicken further; one step into the sideways and the poison would begin to swell in the wound again. He nodded, his black hair rasping against his sleeve, and she eased her fingers away.

  “He’s gone?” he whispered.

  She let her hand fall and matched his quiet tone. “As soon as dawn rose. I do not like the thought of where he might hie himself to. We must away.”

  “Okay.” He nodded, levered himself up with a grunt. Stood, rubbing the sleep from his green eyes with one hand, and the set of his shoulders would have told her he was in pain, even if he had not winced a little, digging in his pocket with the other hand. “Half a minute.”

  “He’ll return, probably with reinforcements.” She restrained the urge to hop from foot to foot. “If Summer wants me, it’s best not to stay where her messenger left us.”

  “Where’s your dog?”

  Does it matter? “Looking for a safer place to hide. It’s dawn; come along or I shall leave you.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend that.” He rolled something in his palm, then cracked it, like a nut in a brughnie’s capable, horn-hard hands. A red glimmer, creaking leather, and she averted her eyes as he stripped off the rags of his dun coat and shirt. Muscle flickered under pale skin, and he struggled into a gossamer doublet pulled from a carrying-boll. She recognized it now—goblin work, and fine, capable of carrying almost any weight. “A few seconds now might save us trouble later.”

  “I have difficulty believing anything will save us trouble now.” She found herself stepping forward, tugging at the under-doublet laces to settle them aright, as if he were a child or a lover.

  The leather was supple, varnished-red armor, with a jingle of whisper-light and iron-hard chain worked into the hide. Dwarven work, very fine, but not of a cut Summer’s knights would willingly wear. It was, perhaps, just the thing for a lanceman who needed a balance between agility and a fair measure of protection. Was that what he’d gone into the Markets for?

  “What else have you in there?” Why am I whispering?

  “Want to dig and take a look?” A lopsided grin, and he bent to his boots.

  She found herself smiling as well and smoothed her face as well as she could. She turned in a circle, first deosil then widdershins, wishing Crenn wasn’t so quiet. If he came back now—

  A few more moments, and she turned back to find Jeremiah Gallow running a hand back over his short hair. He offered her the boll, his palm cupped a-cradle and his dirty fingers shaking slightly. “Here.”

  She took it, marveling at its lightness, running her fingers over the patterned surface. “A beautiful piece of work.”

  “Should be. I paid enough for it. My Summer armor’s back at the bus station.”

  Why tell me? She shrugged as he picked up his tattered coat again, digging in its pockets. She looked away, unwilling to witness any other secrets he might be carrying. “You planned to leave, then?”

  “What? Summer? Oh. I wasn’t always . . . well.” He dropped the coat, kicked at it with one booted foot. Now they weren’t mortal shoes, but hobleaf-boots, light and supple to the wearer, heavy as stone to the insect crushed beneath them, and worth a pretty penny. “I was not always Summer, Robin. Let’s go.”

  “Wait.” She offered him the boll again. “You must need this.”

  “No.” Gallow looked down at her, and there was the mark of fever on his cheeks, a slight hectic flush. His green eyes glittered dangerously. “You may find a use for it, or for anything in it. It’s yours.”

  “I have nothing to offer in return.”

  “I didn’t ask
you for anything in return. Come on.”

  As if you know where we’re going. “Not that way. Here.” She slipped the boll into her own pocket. If he was in a giving mood, well enough. If it was a trap, she could rid herself of it later, couldn’t she?

  A door on the south side was chained shut, but the padlock holding the chain was more than happy to click open under a sidhe’s gentle coaxing. The hinges were rusty, too, but she pushed it open, wincing at the scraping, and peered out. Thin sunshine fell over a weedy gravel driveway, shadows sharp as knives, and a flash of tawny-russet was Pepperbuckle, slinking along the fence at the end of the gravel.

  The touch surprised her. Gallow’s hand closed loosely about her wrist. “Do you really think I’d kill you for Summer?”

  She pulled away, or tried to. “Come along.”

  Sunshine, a balm against her skin. It felt good, even wan as early-morning spring light could be, and she pulled Gallow along. He turned loose of her wrist only to slip his fingers through hers—his gauntlets had retracted, a marvelous bit of workmanship. Warm skin, calluses scraping, and she wondered why it felt . . . well, natural, to hold his hand.

  “Tell me.” He didn’t squeeze, but his hand caged hers securely.

  “I don’t know.” There it was, in plainest truth. Pepperbuckle’s pads didn’t disarrange the gravel at all; he nosed at her excitedly and pranced, clearly proud of himself. “You might give me some lee to run, for Daisy’s sake.”

  His fingers tightened. There was a weak spot in the fencing here, she spread her free hand against it and pushed. Chantment sparked on her fingers, and a curtain of chainlink drew aside. She hopped through; Gallow had to bend, much taller than her. Pepperbuckle nipped along at Gallow’s heels, and when they were done the chantment loosened and the fence snapped back into place. She exhaled, shaking a slight stiffness from her fingers.

  “I would not betray thee, Robin.” A little formally. He’d fallen back into sidhe-speech now, with its arcane etiquette and architecture. “What I did, I did to protect you.”

  “So you say.” You stole from me. Was she supposed to believe he felt so much for her dead sister he would risk his own skin for just a fading echo of her in Robin’s own face?

  “Summer didn’t send Crenn to kill you, at least. Just to bring you back.”

  “No doubt what she has planned for me is worse than a simple stabbing.” She tested the wind and glanced at Pepperbuckle, who took off trotting along the fence, tail high, the very picture of a hound with a mission. He glanced back, and she hurried to keep up. Gallow moved well enough in her wake, but even in the hobleaf-boots his steps were heavier than their wont. “Especially if . . .”

  “Especially if she knows you invited guests to her revel.”

  Robin halted. Her breath caught, and her back prickled with gooseflesh.

  He knew. How?

  Stop. He’s only guessing.

  He was at her back now, so close she could feel the fever-heat of him. “What hold does Puck have on you?” His breath brushed her ear, another chill running down her spine. “I’ll protect you, Robin.”

  A lucky guess, nothing more. “Protect me?” Her throat was dry, and the music under her thoughts took on a slow, sonorous quality. Was she going to have to unleash it on him? “You’re poisoned, Gallow. All I have to do is wait.” Just as Crenn said.

  “That’s why you woke me up instead of just slipping out with your dog?”

  The world threatened to tilt out from underneath her.

  Pepperbuckle trotted back, ears perked and his ruff rising, and she saw something hopeful in the distance, glowing white. Atop it, one of the more hated symbols perched, its stubby arms thrust stiffly out. Her heart tore a little further. Funny, how she’d thought she had already suffered enough.

  There was always more to be drawn from that well.

  “Please,” Gallow breathed in her ear, and she shut her eyes, as if she could pretend he meant any of the words that would follow. “Please, Robin.”

  The mothering darkness behind her lids, a false friend, offered no comfort. “Let go of me.”

  He did.

  She took two steps, rubbing at her left wrist as if he’d injured it. Her skin ran with electricity at his nearness, at the chill left by moving away from his warmth. She opened her eyes as Pepperbuckle halted, ears pinpricked and tail stiff, its fringe moving slightly as morning breeze touched it. Exhaust, cold iron, the filth of mortal living. Summer was more fragrant, but much more dangerous. A pretty sweet, wrapped in gold to hide the poison.

  Was Unwinter better? Did she care enough to find out?

  “There’s a church,” she said, hollowly. “You’ll be safe enough there.”

  “And you?”

  She shook her head, her hair bouncing, and set off down the sidewalk again. The street curved down a hillside, shambling warehouses rising on either side, early light tinting even the tired facades with gold.

  Her velvet coat was no longer so dusty. Pepperbuckle’s heat had dried it quite nicely last night, and she could perhaps needle-chantment some of its threadbare patches. Some of the rips would mend of their own accord as the heat and chantment-aura of a part-sidhe worked out through her skin and into the cloth.

  “Robin.” Gallow, behind her. “I was frantic, searching for you. I cleared your trail of all the Unseelie I could find. I have something Unwinter himself wants, and I mean to trade it to him for your protection.”

  Oh, Daisy would be proud of you. “Very kind of you.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”

  “You must have loved Daisy very much.” She sped up, her heels clicking, a familiar sound. “We must hurry. The assassin of Marrowdowne will no doubt track us easily.”

  Thankfully, finally, he spoke no more, just stepped heavily behind her. His breath came hard and fast, but she didn’t slow.

  BELIEVE NO MAN

  34

  Damn the woman. The stitch in his side gripped even harder, and sweat stung all over him. Still, he kept going, grimly determined to keep her in sight. The dog gave him many a dubious look, but at least there were no mortals about to witness a huge russet hound, the woman with the fiery hair in tattered black velvet, and the man in her wake wearing armor he didn’t have the strength to glamour.

  He kept his gaze fixed on the back of her head. What was she thinking? Daisy hadn’t been this . . . difficult. But then, Daisy hadn’t been to Court, and hadn’t survived among the sidhe. Simple, uncomplicated, sunny, that was his dead wife.

  Except she’d never breathed a word about her sister. How much had she suspected? Or was Robin just a family secret? A Half’s talents could make things difficult, among mortals. Had Robin been sent away, a shameful blot on the past?

  Puck had found her, and brought her to Summer. Now Jeremiah was thinking there was more to the story. Far, far more, but some turn of it escaped him.

  If he could manage to earn her trust, she might tell him enough to make the whole story visible. The more he knew, the better he could play both ends to keep her safe. Or as safe as possible even after the poison eventually claimed him.

  The sun mounted higher. A buzz and blur of traffic began, drawing nearer, a snake-rattle of warning.

  She finally noticed he was lagging. His feet didn’t want to work quite right. Was this what mortals felt, what they called sick? It was different from being wounded.

  Much different.

  Her fingers, warm against his forehead. The armor was too heavy; now he was thinking he shouldn’t have put it on. The sidewalk glittered with chips of quartz, even the cracks and seams full of rich dirt and tiny green sprouts. His toes caught, he stumbled, and Robin was speaking to him.

  “You’re fevered. How long were you in the Markets, Gallow?”

  Long enough to find you. His tongue fit oddly in his mouth, so he didn’t say it. Greasy sweat all over him—going without rest, without anything but mortal food, then fighting a running battle through the
Gobelins with the poison breeding silently in his side. Movement—she was under his arm, now, and he leaned on her drunkenly. A hot weight on his other side was the dog, pressing close, and Robin whispering. Glamour-chantment, prickling all over him to disguise their bizarre appearances, digging at the scar in his side with tiny diamond claws.

  “Why didn’t you tell me it was this bad? Oh, damn it.” She stumbled, too, righted both of them, and a long reeling time later there was a rattling. She propped him against a stone wall, and he lost himself in the veins, cracks, moss, small spots of lichen. “No, Pepperbuckle, stay back. Back. It will hurt you.” More rattling, a whisper of lock-opening chantment, and the raw edge of fear in her voice was wrong.

  “Come now,” she coaxed, and he blindly followed. Smears of daylight, he tripped over an edge and fell. Instinct tucked his shoulder, tried to make him roll; the world turned over and a short, stunned cry echoed all around him.

  The haze cleared. His side ached furiously. He curled around it, the armor flowing with him. It was much more comfortable than mortal clothes, but still, he’d rather be home in bed, with Daisy bringing him something fine and cold to drink and—

  Daisy’s dead. Watch where you are now, Gallow.

  “No, Pepperbuckle!” Robin, a low, hoarse frantic voice. “It will hurt you, you’re sidhe, oh, by the Stone . . . oh.”

  He tilted his head, gravel digging into his hair and the scalp beneath. The world was cockeyed because he lay spilled on his unwounded side, and he watched as a sideways dog whose coat matched Robin’s glorious mane stepped daintily over an invisible border, framed by high iron gates. It looked vaguely familiar.