by A. R. Kahler
It’s not exactly a life story.
“What about you?” she asks. “How does someone get tied up in”—she pauses, gesturing to the weapons along the wall, her finger lingering at the stuffed unicorn head above the fireplace—“in all of this?”
“It’s all I’ve known. Mab brought me here when I was a kid. My first memory is waking up and walking down the hall in tears, and then Mab appearing out of nowhere to tell me it was all going to be okay.”
I glance at Roxie. She’s stopped eating and is watching me intently.
“I’m sorry.” She actually sounds like she means it.
“Don’t be. I can’t miss what I don’t remember. Anyway, Mab isn’t one for keeping useless things around, so she started training me immediately. Said she needed someone like me, that I was important. And that’s precisely what I needed to hear. I didn’t want to make her proud, really. I just wanted her to want me around.”
“She called you useless?” Roxie asks.
“It’s just how she operates. I quickly learned that you’re only worth something here if you’re working, and you’re only kept around if you’re worth something. That’s why I don’t debate my role. I’ve never known anything else, and I don’t think I could do anything else. I know how to kill. And I’m damn good at it.”
“Don’t you ever feel bad about it?”
“No. Because if I didn’t do it, someone else would. I’d rather be on my end of the blade.”
She nods.
“You seem like you’ve had a rough life,” she adds.
I shrug. I don’t really like this, this reverse interrogation. But there’s something about the way she asks that makes me want to answer, rather than close up like I usually would. No one’s ever actually taken an interest in my feelings before. I can’t tell how it makes me feel—beyond odd.
“It’s just a side effect of growing up here,” I say. “I didn’t know anything else, so I’ve never really had room for comparison. Though, that said, watching mortals bitch about the little things is endlessly fascinating. I don’t know how you guys manage.”
She picks up on the sarcasm and laughs.
“We’re good at making the worst of anything. I’ve tried to take a different approach. You know that saying, when life hands you lemons.”
Once more, I don’t, but I’m not about to tell her that. I just nod knowingly. I can get the gist.
“Anyway, back to you,” I say. “Singing was your everything?”
“It was . . .” she begins. She looks into her mug for a moment. I just wait, patiently. I’m good at waiting. When I need to be.
“I don’t know anymore,” she finally says, speaking to the coffee and not to me. “The last month has been great in so many ways. I mean, all that adoration. All that applause. But none of it feels real. I don’t feel any happier at night. I still wake up alone and go through the motions and go to sleep wondering if there’s something else out there, something bigger. I thought that singing would fill the void, but it hasn’t. And maybe it’s just the circumstance. I don’t know. A part of me knows I was made for the stage. But the rest of me wants more than that.” She laughs and looks up. “Is it stupid to say I just want to be happy?”
“Normally I’d say yes,” I reply. “But in this case, no.”
“What about you?” she asks. “What do you want? Once all this is over with, what happens next?”
“Ideally I live.”
She raises an eyebrow over a sip of coffee.
“What? When you kill for a living, that’s the best reward—getting to wake up again.” And no, I’m not going to tell her that yes, a part of me is tired of waking up alone, too, because that part of me was killed off years ago through Mab’s training and a lot of other people’s blood.
She doesn’t say anything, though, which is a clear sign that she’s not taking me at my word.
“I’m serious. I’m not like you. I didn’t grow up with the American Dream or whatever—I was never told I could be or do whatever I wanted. My life was set in stone the moment I set foot here, and there’s really nothing I can do to change it.”
“Are you contracted to be her assassin?” she asks. The question is so innocent, yet so straight-to-the-heart, that I actually pause.
“No,” I finally admit. “I’ve never signed anything. I’m technically a free agent.”
“Then you could still change your future.”
“No. You wouldn’t understand. Things don’t work like that in Faerie.”
“Maybe. But you’re still human, magical powers or not. You could still always just go home.”
Home. The word is a bomb I prefer not to handle. This conversation’s veered way too close to personal territory.
“Speaking of,” I say, “we need to get you back home.”
“Why?” she asks. “You said yourself that faerie contracts can’t be broken.”
“They can’t. But if you kill the faerie holding the contract, it’s void.”
“But . . . won’t others hear about it?” she asks. It’s the first time in this conversation that she sounds timid. “I mean, this guy seemed like a big deal. Will I ever actually be safe?”
“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you,” I say, looking into her eyes.
The surprising thing is, I’m positive I actually mean it.
Seven
About an hour later we’re standing outside the door to Roxie’s Brooklyn apartment. She’s not on the top floor, but we’re pretty high up, and I know this place is more expensive than it should be. You can tell from the ridiculous modern art on the communal hallway walls. It’s in one of those fancy condos with a bellhop or whatever you call them at the front door. All that newfound success has been good to her.
“I used to live in a shared apartment in Queens,” she explains to us. “Three roommates. All artists, so obviously no one cleaned and they rarely paid the rent on time. It was hell.”
Us being me and Eli, of course. And Pan. Though he’s not very talkative right now.
Roxie glances to the satyr statue in front of her door. It definitely doesn’t look like it fits in, but this is New York—if nothing else, her neighbors will just label her as a little eccentric, if they notice anything at all. I pat Pan on the forehead as Roxie opens her door and leads us inside.
I can’t tell if the space screams Roxie or if it’s one of those prefurnished condos that make such good showpieces: White walls with multicolored accents—red in the kitchen, sage in the living room, chocolate in the dining room. Eclectic art, with ceramic vases and African statues, Impressionist portraits and urns filled with colored grasses. It’s antiseptic in its beauty. New money, clearly not lived-in, nothing that says personal or keepsake. Compared to my messy nest, this place makes me feel like I should be wearing gloves before touching anything. About the only nod to someone actually living in here is the bottle of wine on the glass coffee table, a single glass beside it. I also can’t help but notice all the truly important things: the number of windows, the alarm system, the furniture that could help hide or impede.
“So, you know the drill,” I say, turning back to Roxie. She looks much more natural now that she’s in her element. She nods and watches as Eli goes around to all the windows, a piece of orange chalk in his hand. He draws sigils of warding and protection on every corner of every entrance. I turn and start on the door, which is slightly more complicated.
“Yeah,” she says. “House arrest. I don’t leave unless you tell me to.”
She does not sound happy about it, either. The fear she showed yesterday is gone, and either she’s really good at rolling with the punches—which I guess she’d have to be after what she’s been through—or she’s currently acting pissed to hide her uncertainty about her safety.
I don’t react to the emotion in her voice. With Eli here, I can’t exactly sh
ow that I care about how she feels. He’d never let me live it down.
“Exactly,” I say. “Pan will be out front to protect and alert you. Remember—don’t let anyone in. Anyone. Even if they look like your best friend or mother. Shape-shifters are very, very good at their craft and the moment you invite one past the wards, you’re screwed.”
With Pan out there, it shouldn’t be a problem—the guy can sense faeries and mortals just as I can, though shape-shifters are some strange mix of both.
“And you’re sure those things will keep me safe?” she asks, nodding to the symbols.
I glance at my handiwork and almost laugh at her concern. Seeing it through her eyes, I can imagine just how childish this all looks. The Aramaic is indecipherable, but there are symbols even she can recognize—a few triangles for elemental binding, a sunwise spiral, and even a heart with an eye in the center, for seeing through illusions. Yeah, it looks like a kid just scribbled over her pristine walls. But it’s potent. Nothing even vaguely supernatural can cross the thresholds without her express permission.
“I’m positive,” I say.
I stand from my crouch and head over to a spot along the sage-colored wall. I made sure to tell her all about the boogie men the Fey might employ to bring her back, just to keep her from thinking it would be smart to dust off any of the symbols. I begin drawing a large rectangle that will link to the portal in my room. The wards I’ve drawn in here prevent spontaneous travel into this place, but I need a way to get in. Roxie watches this all in silence. Then I pull out a tiny awl from inside my boot and gesture her over. She comes. Slowly.
“Hold out your finger,” I say. She does. Despite her reservations, she doesn’t shake. I like that about her—she doesn’t flinch from reality, even if reality is about as unreal as you can get. I take her hand and ignore how soft it is, how her pulse flutters, strong and steady. One quick prick and a small drop of blood bubbles up on her finger. She doesn’t even gasp. “Press it here.” I point to a blank space in a rather long string of hieroglyphs, between a falcon and two palm fronds. The only thing that seems to bother her about all this is the fact that she’s smudging blood onto her wall.
I prick my own finger and leave a trail of blood right beside hers. The colors are the same. Is it wrong that that seems kind of romantic, us both being humans who bleed the same color? It’s funny, the things you take for granted when you live among the Fey.
When done, I draw another series of hieroglyphs right below it, then encircle the entire thing in a symbolic cartouche, binding the blood and the glyphs together. Now, no one can enter or leave through this portal, save for her and me.
“How rude,” Eli says, examining it all from behind us, knowing full well he isn’t allowed into my room. “I don’t get a key?”
“No way in hell.” I smile—I mean that figuratively and literally. “You can go through the front door like everyone else.”
“So trusting.”
“And still alive because of it.”
I go around and inspect the windows and vents and every other opening he’s surrounded with wards, just to be sure. It’s against his binding to do anything beyond what I say, and since he was expressly told what to do, he shouldn’t be able to cock it up intentionally. But even centuries-old astral creatures can make mistakes. Especially if those mistakes are convenient.
“Looks good,” I say when I’ve made my rounds. I look to Roxie, who’s standing beside the sofa like she isn’t certain what she should be doing, an actress who can’t figure out what to do with her hands. “Do you need anything before I leave?”
“Not now. But if I do later?”
“Knock twice on the door if you need Pan for something, you know, not life threatening. Knock any other number of times if you’re in danger. He’ll relay any messages to me and I’ll be here as soon as I can. Just don’t open the door. Ever. Even if it’s just to chat with him or accept a pizza. I’ll deliver whatever food you need until this blows over. And don’t. Touch. The chalk.”
She nods. Eli’s disappeared somewhere in the back of the apartment, probably searching the bedroom for anything scandalous, because he’s a perv like that.
“What happens if . . . if they get in?” she asks.
I don’t want to tell her that she’s screwed if they make it past my defenses. If my magic can’t hold them, nothing she can do will save her skin. But she’s looking at me like she needs me, and that makes me soften. I pull out a tiny folding dagger and hand it to her.
“That’s iron,” I say as she tests its weight. “Poison to faeries, and it’s magicked strong enough that they can’t sense it on you. I added a few enchantments in there to bring them down fast. Just be careful—it’ll work on you just as well.”
“I know how to wield a knife,” she says. She grins when she says it, and I have to admit, that’s a huge turn-on.
“I bet you do,” I say. “But hopefully you won’t have to. I know I don’t need to tell you how dangerous these things are, Roxie.”
“You don’t.”
Then, after slipping the knife in her pocket, she steps forward and wraps me in a hug. She smells of a deep perfume I can’t place. And, unlike the few times other people have tried to hug me, I don’t flinch from it. But I don’t hug her back, either.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you for everything. I owe you my life.”
“Am I interrupting something?” Eli asks.
Roxie steps back hurriedly.
“Oh, no, no need,” Eli says. “I was just going to make some popcorn if there was a show to catch.”
I fight the blush that rises—what the hell? I don’t blush—and turn to the door, not looking to see Roxie’s reaction.
“We’re going, Eli,” I say.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to ruin the fun.”
“And Roxie,” I say as Eli heads toward me, “that blade will work just as well on assholes like Eli. Just make sure to stab them in the dick.”
Eli doesn’t say anything. His chuckle is enough.
Snow swirls around us. It’s not a blizzard, but it’s damn well close. Because Mab doesn’t appreciate having Eli enter her kingdom through anything besides the front gate, we trudge through the gale toward the kingdom’s wall. I have my coat zipped up and the collar pulled to my ears. Eli looks like he’s out for a casual jaunt on a sunny afternoon—I’m surprised he’s not whistling happily to himself as his unbuttoned jacket flutters in the wind.
The gate rises up before us like a plate of blackened glass, a monstrous feat of engineering that looks deceptively delicate. The material is maybe half an inch thick and stretches a full two stories above the wall itself, the top a sheer slice of glass as sharp as a knife’s edge. No guards out here, no patrols on the wall itself. None of that is necessary. Even though the wall is reflective and smooth, there are more glyphs and wards and golems hidden within than there are snowflakes in the city. As Eli and I approach, I momentarily wonder what it would be like to try attacking this place. Everything about Mab’s kingdom is deceptive and imposing, a tantalizing mix of satin and steel—you know it will bite, but the temptation to try is still there. We near, and a long line of runes in old Celtic Ogham blazes into life, a turquoise brilliance that stretches from the top of the gate to the bottom. I feel my own markings tingle along my spine. The gate opens silently, wide enough to admit Eli and me side by side. It closes silently behind us when we step through, immediately blocking out the wind and the snow.
I’ve been doing that for years, but every time I do, I still feel a little badass for having the key.
Everything within the walls is silent. There’s a long, wide avenue of black stones leading straight up to the castle, but that’s not my destination. We head up the ave for a while, my footsteps silent, Eli’s shoes clopping against the tile like gunshots. Normally there’d be someone out and about right now. The F
ey don’t sleep, so it’s not like they’re all taking a nap.
“Why are we here again?” Eli asks. “Unless you’re expecting to find the mastermind within Mab’s walls. That would be a fantastic twist.” He pauses and grabs my arm dramatically. “Ooh, you don’t think it’s actually Mab, do you?”
I shake off his grip. Now that Roxie’s safe, I can get down to business.
“This is bigger than one Fey,” I say. I try to keep my voice down, just in case someone’s listening in. Mab would kill me if her kingdom found out there was a crisis. “Even if Roxie’s contract holder is involved, he’s not the one behind all this.”
“How can you be so certain? Don’t they say that the most convenient answer is often correct?”
“If they do, they’re idiots. Besides, Roxie didn’t smell like Frank.”
It sounds like an irrelevant statement, but people take for granted how potent smells are. Especially magic—there’s a tang to it that’s nearly imperceptible, yet it brands the power like a calling card. Anyone who uses magic or Dream leaves their own personal impression on it. The magic binding Roxie was completely different from the magic lingering in Frank’s room. So either there’s a bunch of people smuggling Dream for disparate reasons, or there’s someone in charge who hasn’t shown their hand yet.
Either way, my job is far from done. And I need to figure out where the next leak will be. I can sense where Dream originates and trace where it goes, but tracking down the end points for every thread of Dream in the world would be an endless task. The Seattle gig was a shot in the dark, but I haven’t heard of any more venues losing their revenue. Which means this buyer either is very crafty, or is going off our usual grid.
“So,” Eli says, “where are we going?”
“The jewelers,” I say. “Mab put in a special order for me.”
We take a side alley that leads past shops out of a fantasy nerd’s wet dream. There are apothecaries with bubbling vials and jars of literally everything you could imagine, magic shops with pentagrams in the window and magical artifacts predating Jesus, and even a bookstore that stretches for five blocks, every window crammed with books stolen from the mortal world or handcrafted in Faerie. I’ve spent months of my life wandering through here, picking up odds and ends, learning the histories of people and places no one else had even heard of. It was my first real introduction to the mortal world, before Mab actually let me venture there. Just being here makes a weight settle in my bones, a history that ties me to something larger than myself. It’s honestly the only place in Faerie besides my room that feels inhabitable. Probably because it’s the largest collection of things taken from humans.