So Robin paused. “Hello, small one.” The greeting left her before she considered its price, and she winced internally.
“You’re pretty,” the child said flatly. Male or female? Fey as a brughnie, with messy pale hair still sleep-tangled. Not a slattern’s mane to be elflocked into mischief, but fine silk begging to be combed and set right.
“Thank you.” Robin did not point, but she allowed her gaze to drift over the child’s head, back down. “Is that your house?”
“Yeah. Daddy came back again.” The child shrugged. “He drinks.”
Robin nodded. “Mine did, too.” Or rather, Daddy Snowe did. If he had only a little, he’d be friendly. She was suddenly aware of looming over the child and sank down into a crouch, peering through the fence as if she were a small one herself, her skirt brushing the ground around her. “Does he…”
Does he hurt you? But then, no child would tell, would they? Robin never had.
Still, the girl—now that she was this close, Robin could see female instead of just small—stared wide-eyed, as if she’d heard what Robin was about to ask.
A sharp, bright pain lanced through Robin’s chest. She shook her head, thin tendrils of steam rising from her damp shoulders, and glanced down, finding a small white pebble half hid under a brown, dying weed. She grubbed it up, rolled it in her fingers as if it were a pearl from the Wailing River past Brughnie Wood. Chantment flowed, her tongue stinging slightly as she whispered a few words in the Old Language, will taking shape in breath.
When she opened her hand again, a sullen gleam nestled in her palm, traces of wet earth still clinging to it. The rock looked different now, crystalline. “What’s your name, little one?”
The girl hesitated, don’t speak to strangers warring with obey the adult. Robin hunched her shoulders, to appear smaller.
“Cathy,” the child finally whispered. “What’s that? It looks magic.”
You’re far wiser than your parents. “It could be, small Cathy. Does your father drink ale? Beer?”
“He does. What is that?”
Would you understand, if I told you? Mortals grow early into disbelief. “Does he drink it from a can, or a cup?”
“Bottle. They have a deposit. Five cents.” Still wary, but the child stared at the small glowing stone.
“I see.” Robin nodded again. “List well, then. Don’t put this in soda. But the next time you bring him a bottle of beer, you can put this in, no matter how small the neck. It will fit. You can even put it in his coffee cup.”
“Is it bad?” Immediate distrust.
Poisonous, you mean? It’s well that I’m not another sidhe; that would be a very valid question. “It’s not. He won’t even notice, but he’ll never drink ale again. Or anything else that makes him shout, or be mean, or…” It will make him dog-sick to drink, and he’ll stop soon enough. Her throat full, she swallowed hard and continued. “Or anything that makes your mother cry,” she finished.
That was evidently the right thing to say, because the girl’s face eased. She shot a wary glance over her shoulder, and her dirty hand wormed through the fence.
Robin grabbed her wrist, dropped the bollstone into the small palm, closing the fingers around and breathing another syllable or two of chantment. It was as strong as she could make it under such circumstances. “Remember, small Cathy, not in soda.”
“Okay.” Disbelief warred with cautious hope. “You are magic.”
And you are mortal. “Don’t tell a soul. It will break the spell.”
“Okay.” The girl’s eyes were owlish, and she pulled her clenched fist back through the fence. “Here.”
A flicker of small fingers, and a flash of blue. It was a ring, blue plastic, glowing slightly with its own inner light. “For you,” Cathy whispered. “Th-thank you.”
A fullborn might take insult from those two words, or might consider the lack of them an affront, too, as it suited them. Robin merely nodded, picking up the small, sad payment. Maybe instinctive, maybe a young mortal’s generosity—or maybe it was that small Cathy knew, even so young, that nothing at all was ever free.
Robin watched as a pale head bobbed through the weeds and up shaking stairs that had probably once been handmade with care. The door slammed, but not before Robin heard raised voices. A woman’s, angry, and a hangover-blurred man’s, pleading.
She straightened, scuffing the empty dirt-socket she’d pulled the pebble from. If little Cathy was quick and canny, she might well be able to slip the boll into a cup. If not, the chantment would fade on the next full moon.
Oddly, Robin’s heart had lightened. Perhaps Cathy had a sister who would be grateful of the peace, too.
She turned, and almost-danced her way to the end of the fence, where the weeds leaned over into Gallow’s yard—if you could call hardpacked dirt and brambles a yard. His driveway was gravel, and the rosevines climbing over a trellis serving him as a carport looked blasted as well.
That was what had been bothering her. She’d forgotten the blue truck that had crouched here the other morning, just as worn-down and dirty as the rest of the place.
Robin nipped into the carport and stood for a moment, glad of the roses. They were good insurance against Unwinter. Her hand still tingled from chantment, scraps of the Old Language clinging to her fingers as she touched the vines to steady herself, wondering why her eyes were so dry and smarting.
Oh, Robin, you fool. He’s not home.
Had she stopped to consider, she might have expected as much. What had she been thinking?
Oh, come now, Robin, you know what you thought. Half distracted is as good as pixie-led. Parsifleur’s last despairing breath and Sean’s empty-eyed adoration even while Summer’s nails dug into his young skin filled her head, mixing with a pair of bright blue, too-wise eyes. Robin halted at Gallow’s doorstep, as if struck.
She leaned forward a little, and found it was true—he had buried cold iron under the threshold. The other day she had been able to cross, for the quirpiece was hers, and could be considered an invitation. Today, the tingling along her skin crested painfully. Still, she continued apace, and the knob turned under her touch as it had before, a lock glad to help a sidhe along. There was brief discomfort as she crossed the barrier, but then she was inside. So she was invited, after all. Perhaps he had not thought to bar her specifically? He seemed too canny to miss such elementary self-protection.
Maybe there was simply nothing here he valued. The trailer, without his breathing weight in it, sagged dull and dispirited. She paused in the kitchen, for the dishes had not been washed, and studied the glass he had taken his milk from. She peered down the hall that led to his bedroom, but some clear instinct kept her from treading further.
What was she looking for? These rooms seemed oddly familiar, and his kitchen, strangely, had been arranged just the way she would have thought a proper kitchen should be.
A proper mortal kitchen, like the one she had slaved in for Mama and Daddy Snowe. Girl can’t even make biscuits right. Come here, little girl! The crack of leather snapping against itself.
Robin shuddered, brought herself back into the present. The sidhe were brutal, but even their violence had a cold glamour Daddy Snowe had lacked. The more she saw of mortality, the less she liked that half of her heritage.
Sometimes she wondered if any of the tall, pale Court lords could be her father. Whoever he was, he was long gone, and no doubt had already forgotten his mortal paramour’s brief blooming. Even so, Mama had been brushed by the strange glimmer of sidhe from couching with one and breathing in his drugging breath; she had little trouble attracting another man to take care of her.
Now Robin wondered why Mama had stayed with Daddy Snowe’s violence and insults. It was a puzzle, and one she was no closer to solving for time spent thinking on it.
Even when the cancer had ravaged Mama, she had still looked wan and beautiful, though Robin had only seen as much through a rain-soaked window as the woman who birthed her lay on a ho
spital bed, the stentorious rise and fall of machines breathing for her a doom-knight’s footsteps without a bell-ringing edge to their accordion flex.
And I felt nothing, did I? Too sidhe for it, I suppose. That night she had also run across Puck Goodfellow again, just before she stepped over the border into Summer. He had asked her errand; she had returned that it was none of his business though she thanked him for his worry and fled.
It had perhaps not been wise to snap at him, but he appeared to take no umbrage. Who could tell when he would, though?
’Tis not your concern now, Robin. Where could this Gallow be, and dare I wait here?
She turned counter to the sun, a full circle once, twice. It was habit, to confuse any pursuer with a simple trick. You could sometimes tell a mortal who knew of the sidhe by the little measures—tying knots, tangling fringe, turning or pacing, or a single item worn seams-out. Mortals had forgotten much about the sideways realms, a fact often bemoaned when the malaise of boredom gripped the Court. It made mischief easier, though less satisfying since they refused to credit the Good Folk for their misfortune.
Three times she turned, and as usual while she did so, she found the answer.
Or, if not precisely an answer, a direction.
Coworker. Friend.
Well, he had a job, then. Just like a normal mortal. Why?
Who cared? The important thing was, where there was a job there was paper, and where there was paper there was…
“Address,” she said, and the wide grin that broke over her face felt strange. A few moments’ worth of searching the breakfast bar and its small mountain of tossed paper garnered her several pay stubs, and she almost-danced with joy, again, as she tucked one into her skirt pocket and left his front door locked behind her.
She shouldn’t have danced, for the sky threatened rain and a long weary time later she found the address was only a building full of stupid mortals, with no spice or trace of sidhe about them. She perched above the alley where they stepped out into the cold to breathe on what the brughnies called nagsticks—the cigarettes, each puff freighted with sickness. The iron of the fire escape was only slightly uncomfortable, her mortal half useful after all.
They spoke of “job sites” and “targets,” “quotas” and “administration,” but none of them mentioned Gallow the knight. They also didn’t reek of turned earth and cold iron the way he did. Just paper, and mortal salt, and burned coffee.
She drew the paper out again and looked at its numbers and squiggles, most of them fairly incomprehensible. More than three was “many,” more than seven was a dance, more than thirteen simply a crowd. Numbers were a mortal magic, and one frowned upon at Court. She’d forgotten them gladly once she realized she never had to attend school again. How Puck had laughed at her when she asked if the sidhe had schools.
Now she wished she hadn’t forgotten. She knew there were certain numbers that mortals would take as almost-names, but which ones? A name she could follow, but the incomprehensible numbers just confused and sickened her. Disgusted, she slid the paper back into her pocket.
“Gallow,” someone breathed, and a chill trickle went down her back. Robin scrambled noiselessly for the roof, and pelted lightly across its tarpapered flatness.
She was in time to see the black-clad barrow-wights drifting out the front door, pale and insubstantial in the cloud-choked sunlight. Inside, though, they would appear real enough to stupid mortals. If they were out by day, they would have lightshield tattoos covering them, violet tree-rings that faded as they were spent shielding Unseelie from the day-eye.
She went to her knees, ducking under the lip of the roof, her heart hammering and her breath coming in short gasps. More wights, in daylight, and bearing his name like a tracking-banner.
So he was being hunted, too. Almost certainly because of last night’s act of charity. Or had it been generosity on his part? He certainly was a grim one, parsimonious of any cheer.
Yet he had appeared from nowhere, and killed. Had it been for her sake? Or had he business with Unwinter? Habit forced her breathing to even out, and she sought to control her pulse. There was no need to act the stupid rabbit when she could be a fox. Or better yet, a hawk lacking jesses and hood.
Did she dare to follow the wights? They would no doubt like to snare her as well, and she had little faith in her ability to withstand Unwinter’s… persuasion, should she be brought before him. That was, of course, if they caught her breathless and did not kill her outright.
Should she find Gallow before they did, what would she say?
Even as she debated, she knew it was too late. They had already vanished on a breeze laden with cinders, and she found herself sweating lightly, peeping over the roof’s edge at the gray city. Every alley a trap, every tree a spy, every building a dark, closed face.
It was essential to keep moving. A wandering Robin would be more difficult to catch. If she stayed in daylight she would have an edge when facing any of Unwinter’s minions capable of lightshield chantment; and the plagued would not dare even this milksop daylight.
Or so she hoped. She also hoped, as she ghosted noiseless above the roof while the mortals inside drank coffee, stared at glowing screens, argued, and cheated at their “jobs,” that she would have a better idea before sundown.
LOCKED AND SILENT
19
Jeremiah left his truck behind at the jobsite—dead mortals didn’t drive—so it was two long, weary bus rides and a mile’s ramble before he stopped at the corner and peered down his street. Midday, and the trailer court lay silent under the drizzle. The Garnier house was quiet and dark. Mama Loth’s rocker tilted back and forth, squeaking a little as the breeze pushed at it. The glass windchimes on Loth’s porch tinkled a sad dissonant melody.
He crouched in the lee of Bob Haskell’s dead, ancient van with a stag painted on its side, its four flat tires melding with the patched concrete. The stag was the only spot of color on the street, its painted sides somehow heaving even as it lifted its disproportionate head. Behind it, the artist had tried for mountains that looked more like low blue loaves of bread. The grass looked like wisps of smoke, and Jeremiah was suddenly aware he reeked of fire and bloodshed.
He exhaled softly. Nothing appeared out of order. If they could find him at an iron-laced jobsite, though, could he assume his home was safe? Or even the admin building downtown?
Then again, an attack on his burrow would be foolish; they couldn’t guess what he had lurking in the walls or ceiling to trap the unwary.
Five minutes. That’s all you’re allowed.
He stepped out of cover and sauntered down the street, an iron nail clutched in his left fist, every sense quivering-alert. The doorknob gave under his hand, and all was as it should be. It even smelled right—dust, dead air, the lingering of Robin’s perfume.
“I should have known,” he muttered once, while opening dresser drawers that still held a breath of violet sachet. In the end, a single backpack contained everything he needed. The spare pair of boots, two pairs of jeans, underwear, a few shirts… and the weapons. The two knives, slender-hilted with curveleaf blades. He’d left behind the long, slim box strapped to the wrapped cylinder of a quiver when he left Court, and now he regretted it. A bow kept the enemy further from you than the lance.
He paused, and swept Daisy’s jewelry from the top drawer of the dresser into the Crown Royal bag she’d kept potpourri in. She’d never wanted much—it got caught on things, got lost, she said. He knew it was because they scraped by. He could have done so much more, but Daisy said it was good enough.
He’d believed her. Now he wondered.
Four and a half minutes later, he stepped out onto the porch and glanced at the carport. It stood like always, the thorny vines reaching up like a throbveined hand. He swung the door shut as an afterthought, and stopped.
Little green buds covered the tough blasted vines. They were tipped with pinpricks of swelling crimson.
All the breath left h
im in a rush. He actually clung to the doorknob, memory rising under his skin. Daisy on the step, laughing, her hand up to shade her eyes. Daisy coaxing the rose vines, Daisy warm and silently sleeping on moonlit nights.
Why was her face suddenly a haze? Just the coppery hair and her rich, young, beautiful laugh.
His fingers slid off the knob. It was spring. There were tiny razor-tooth leaves clinging to the vines as well. No mystery, just that the roses had finally decided to come back. Sometimes they did. It had nothing to do with anything sidhe. Just chance, luck, coincidence.
“Right,” he muttered, and his fingers flicked. The door locked, the deadbolt shot home. Let it stand or let it burn, he had everything he needed.
Except he didn’t. He hefted the bag onto his shoulder and checked the sky. Still gray and spattering drizzle on the mortal earth. At the site they would be poking through the wreckage, either cursing the loss of half a day to disaster or secretly excited at the break in routine.
Halfway down the street, he glanced back. The little flashes of red in the carport mocked him, and the trailer already looked abandoned. Mama Loth would watch his carport and the yard as the days lengthened, spitting into her Folgers can and occasionally nodding a counterpoint to the conversation in her head. Garnier, once his wife let him back in, would take care of the mowing and scare off any mortal nosing around in the evenings. The rent was paid automatically; there was enough for at least a year and a day in that account.
What else did he have to spend it on? Worse than dead leaves; at least the leaves had some value as they decayed to feed the next generation of trees.
Gallow left his mortal life locked and silent, and vanished.
MERCY IN HIS END
20
Tap, tap, who is home?” Drumming his fingertips on the thin door, as the trailer rocked slightly. It was much sturdier than it appeared, but he had laid some of the glamour and chantments here himself, and they obeyed his poking and prodding. “Who is that nibbling at my house?”
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