by Sarah Zettel
“You leave her out of this. She didn’t have any time to teach me much of anything because we were busy running away from the vigilante man you set on our trail!”
All the twisted good humor disappeared from Shake’s scarred face. “You kept me from my throne. It should have been mine when your father abdicated.”
“That’s not my fault!”
“No,” Shake agreed. “But I wanted you to die just the same.”
Shake—whose real name was Lorcan deMinuit—was my papa’s younger brother. Papa quit his job as heir to the Midnight Throne so he could marry my mama. This should have left Shake next in line to become the big boss for the Unseelie fairies. Problem was, I’d been born before Papa could finish with whatever passed as paperwork with the fairies. According to their law, that made me, not Shake, next in line for the throne. It turns out fairies can’t break their own laws any more than they can break a promise. As long as I was alive, I was first in line to take over the Midnight Throne, and there wasn’t a thing Uncle Shake could do about it. Except kill me.
I started to throw up my hands, but my right shoulder pulled and the pain sparked hot.
“You’re hurt.” Shake leaned forward. “Who hurt you, Callie? What have you been doing?”
“It’s none of your business!”
“Shhhhhh!” Shake held up one broken finger to his lips. “Here comes Mrs. Constantine.”
I heard her rustling on the other side of the curtain a second later.
“Your room’s all set, Mr. LeRoux.” Mrs. Constantine came back into the parlor. “That’ll be seven-fifty for the week, meals included. Cash. In advance.” Which just goes to show you the limits of fairy magic when it’s facing a city lady running her own boardinghouse.
“Of course.”
Shake had hold of me again, and he wasn’t even touching me. My magic bled away into him as he dug into his pocket and brought out a handful of nothing. He handed that nothing to Mrs. Constantine. My landlady took it, counted it, folded it neatly, and tucked it into her housecoat. “That’s fine, then. I’ll show you up.”
I followed them up the stairs. I spent the whole climb promising myself I’d find a way to get Mrs. Constantine her money, or at least make up to her for helping Shake push his way into her house. Of course, that’d have to be after I found out what he was actually doing here.
“Laundry is picked up on Thursdays,” Mrs. Constantine was saying as she pushed open the last door on the right, the one directly across the hall from mine. “Sheets are changed every Monday. No smoking in the rooms. No callers except in the parlor. No visitors of any kind after ten. This is a respectable house.”
The rooms at Mrs. Constantine’s were about as bare-bones as you could ask for—one old brass bed, a mishmash of worn-out furniture that would have been up in the attic of any house that could afford better. But everything was clean as a whistle and the roof didn’t leak. Considering that before this I’d spent a stretch sleeping in rail yards and chicken coops, it counted for a lot.
“This will do splendidly, Mrs. Constantine.” Shake looked around the room with his amber eye. I wondered where he’d been sleeping lately. I told myself I didn’t care, but I never was much of a liar. “Again, I sincerely apologize for getting you out of bed at this hour.”
“Well, these things happen, Mr. LeRoux. I’ll wish you good night now. I’m sure Callie can show you where everything is.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I agreed. I wanted her out of there. I had more than a few things left to say to Shake.
Mrs. Constantine left, and I shut the door behind her and shot the bolt. Then I turned on my uncle.
“No more games, Shake. What’re you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing, Callie. You shouldn’t be within a hundred miles of the Seelie territory.”
“I’ve got to find my parents!”
“What a coincidence. I also want to find your parents.”
“Oh, sure you do. You want to kill them too?” How had I even let him come near me? Why hadn’t I magicked him the second I recognized him?
“I told you, Callie, you got me all wrong. I want to help them, and you. I want to see you on the Midnight Throne.” He gave me his sloppy, broken-toothed grin. “Just like you’re supposed to be.”
I waited to feel his magic wrapping around me, all warm and cozy, trying to get me to believe what he said. But it didn’t come. It wasn’t possible he was telling the truth, was it? Slowly I stepped forward. I made myself look at his scarred face and milky eye, his lopsided head, and down, to his fingers.
“What happened to you?”
“You did, Callie.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Shake sighed. “Well, for some reason Their Majesties weren’t too happy that I tried to kill you.”
This surprised me. Their Majesties, my grandparents, weren’t exactly the squeamish type. They certainly hadn’t shown any hesitation about dancing Jack to death—which was something we were going to have a little talk about, just as soon as I got over being terrified at the thought of them.
“If I’d finished the job, maybe they would have thought I’d done them a favor,” said Shake, like he knew what I was thinking. Which he just might have. “But blood’s thicker, as they say, and then there was the little matter of this prophecy regarding your power over the world gates. So I had to stand trial, and it did not go well. They marked me as a traitor.” He touched the scar that ran across the lid that drooped over his milky eye. “And they broke my hands.” I winced. I couldn’t help it. When I’d first met Shake, he’d been playing a piano. I remembered how graceful his hands had been then, and how his slow, lazy music made you want to listen all day. Now those hands didn’t look like they could hold a spoon, let alone play a piano.
“I have since been cast out to walk the mortal world.” Shake smiled broadly. “Let that be a lesson to you, Callie. When you set out to challenge the Midnight Throne, don’t you dare to fail.”
“Yeah, well, I hope you don’t expect me to feel sorry for you.” I tried to fit the mad back into my voice. I didn’t want to feel anything for him. He’d hurt me and scared me and just told me to my face he wasn’t a bit sorry. But at the same time, I couldn’t help thinking how the fairies collected beautiful things and beautiful people. They probably thought making someone ugly was worse than straight-up killing him. And the king and queen of the Midnight Throne had done this to one of their sons. “I’m just the one you tried to murder,” I said, almost as much to remind myself as to remind him. “Why should I care what you—”
“Okay, okay, Callie LeRoux.” Whatever magic he’d taken from me must have been wearing off, because the wobbles had crawled back into his voice. “Have it your own way. Now I’m tired, tired, tired. ‘Been walkin’ all day and I’m nearly done …,’ ” he crooned, and flashed that big gap-toothed grin again. “We’ll continue this so-pleasant conversation in the morning, isn’t that right?”
I knew what I should be doing. I should be magicking him out of there, the way I’d magicked away Ivy Bright and Ruth Markham. The problem was, I didn’t have any wishes, or anything else to feed the magic, and Uncle Shake wasn’t the only one who was tired. There was something else too. An idea was putting itself together in the back of my brain. It wasn’t a good idea. In fact, it looked awfully dangerous.
“In the morning. Right.” I turned to go.
“Callie.”
I stopped. My uncle moved faster than I would have believed. His hand closed around my bad shoulder, and I felt him dig into my magic and I yelped in pain. Then the pain was gone and he backed away and fell into the chair.
“You can go now,” he wheezed.
I left him there. I crossed the hall to my own room and shut the door. Miss Patty’s snoring hitched once and then settled in for the long haul. On the other side, Mr. and Mrs. Jones rolled over in a chorus of creaking springs and heavy-duty snoring. I took a deep breath, and another. I tried to tell
myself that this new, bad idea was from Shake, not from anywhere inside me. It didn’t work.
I changed out of my dress and finally got that stuffed bra off. I looked at my shoulder in the mirror. Four dark, scabby dots stood out in a neat line just below the collarbone. There was a lot of blood smeared around them, but the dots themselves were little more than pinpricks. I shrugged. This time it didn’t hurt.
I washed my shoulder with water from the basin I kept on the dresser. I pulled on my too-big secondhand nightgown. My silk stockings were ruined, but I hung them carefully over the back of the chair anyway. I lay down on the bed, setting up my own mess of spring creaks. City crickets, I thought, and closed my eyes. I opened them again. I stared at the streetlight working its way through the curtains, and at those torn stockings hanging like a pair of baby ghosts over the back of the chair. I told myself I was too tired to pay attention to some raggedy idea that was way too dangerous to work.
That raggedy idea wasn’t listening. It just kept picking up more pieces from around my brain and sticking them onto its sides. It grabbed hold of how I didn’t know what to do next, even though we’d found the fairies, and how Uncle Shake might really mean it when he said he wanted me on the Midnight Throne, and how he knew how to use magic in ways the Seelies couldn’t catch hold of. Last of all, it sussed out how I knew exactly what Shake wanted from me, and the way I could give it to him. In return, I could make him tell me all the things I didn’t know, including how to free my parents.
My idea used all these bits to make itself bigger and better, while I stayed awake and watched.
7
Shall We Dance?
It took until the sun rose over the Los Angeles rooftops, but I finally found a way to make my raggedy idea back off. Before I did anything else, I was going to talk to Mr. Robeson. He knew plenty of important things about the Seelies, like how to stay free when they were after you. Plus, he’d already saved me and Jack from them once, which was one hundred percent more times than my uncle had. Maybe I could even find a way to tell him about Shake without mentioning that he was my uncle. The idea of explaining to Mr. Robeson how I was part fairy made my stomach squirm and start looking for a back door.
I told myself over and over again while I got dressed that this was the best plan, trying to settle it down in my head. It wasn’t easy. From the beginning, Jack and I had been on our own. We’d gotten used to hiding and to keeping secrets. The thought of telling someone else what we were aiming for was awfully slow to take root.
I was back in normal clothes today—a brown skirt I’d hemmed up so it wasn’t too long, a white blouse that was only a little too big, white socks, and almost-new shoes. I caught myself taking my own sweet time braiding up my hair. I knew as soon as I finished I’d have to do something about Shake. If he was even still there. Which he might not be.
That idea dropped like a brick into my mind. Shake could have snuck away while I was trying to figure out how not to have to do any kind of deal with him. He said he didn’t have his magic anymore and that we should be one big happy family now, but that could just be a fresh batch of moonshine. He could be anywhere, doing anything. Anything.
I shot across the hall to bang on Shake’s door.
You better be in there. You just better! At the same time I had no idea what I’d do if he wasn’t.
“What on earth!” Miss Patty stuck her head out her door. “Callie? What’s wrong?”
“I … uh …”
Shake’s door opened too. He slapped his cold hand down around my wrist. Before I could do more than yelp, he’d siphoned off enough magic to pull on his disguise like other folks pull on their bathrobe.
“Callie. What is the matter?” Shake looked like he was dressed in a good dark suit, a clean blue shirt, and a straight black tie. He saw Miss Patty and smiled at her. “Good morning, ma’am. Lawrence LeRoux. Sorry if we disturbed you.”
“I … uh … it’s breakfast time … Uncle Lawrence,” I mumbled. “I didn’t want you to be late.”
“I appreciate that, Callie, but there’s no need to raise the roof about it. Do excuse us, ma’am.” He smiled once more at Miss Patty and, still holding my wrist, steered me into his room and shut the door.
I shook him off and backed away until I was up against the wall.
“You have got to stop calling attention to yourself,” scolded Shake—or Lawrence, or Lorcan. He was piling up names faster than he was piling up disguises.
“You don’t tell me what to do!”
He didn’t even flinch. “Somebody’s got to; otherwise you’re not going to make it six feet from this door now that the Seelies know you’re here.”
“I don’t need your help. We’ve been doing just fine.”
He shrugged. “Probably you’re right. Probably I need you much more than you need me. So, what are you going to do about that?”
Which was a really good question, and I hated him hard for saying it out loud.
“I’ve got to go talk to somebody.” I sure didn’t want to tell him what I was planning, or about the idea that had built itself up so big in my head the night before. That didn’t leave a whole lot I could tell him. “You stay here until I get back. You don’t go anywhere, you don’t talk to anybody, and you especially don’t magic anybody.”
“I’ve told you, Callie, without you, I can’t lay any spells at all. That’s gone from me.”
“I know what you said. Why should I believe you?”
Shake was silent for a minute, as if this was a brand-new idea. “Very well.” He held up his hand. “See for yourself.”
I stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Come into my mind. You know it’s within your power. See for yourself what I am doing here.”
I didn’t doubt I could do it. When I opened my magic, I could feel people’s wishes and wants. The idea that I could hear thoughts wasn’t that much of a stretch. But I saw the starlight sparkling in the back of Shake’s amber eye, and all of a sudden, memory took hold. I saw my mother, standing in the kitchen, arms folded. It was right after the banker had left. He’d been trying to get her to put up the Imperial as collateral for a new loan.
Come into my parlor, Mama muttered, said the spider to the fly.…
“No,” I told Shake. “You’re not getting hold of me that easy.” He’d already proved he could siphon off some of my power when I didn’t want him to; what was he going to be able to grab if I opened all the way up to him?
“Callie, Callie.” Shake’s fist shook as he closed it. “You have to trust me.”
“I don’t have to do anything. You’re nothing but a liar. You lied your way right in here!”
“Your landlady did that to herself. She wished I was a respectable man, someone who could make the rent, and so I was.”
“When I met you back in Kansas, you said you were my papa!”
“I never did. I may have let you think I said it, but I never out-and-out said it myself. We are very good with words, Callie. We have to be in order to survive being near humans. But lies … that’s different. Every lie is a new story, and that kind of creativity is difficult for us.”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to be talking about this, and I especially didn’t want to think about how humans might be dangerous to fairies. That did not sit well at all. Neither did the idea that my inability to lie might be a consequence of my fairy half. “You just stay here, and don’t do anything until I get back,” I muttered.
“Am I allowed breakfast? After you made such a fuss in the hallway, it will look extremely odd if I don’t put in an appearance.”
I gritted my teeth. “Okay. But you go straight back to your room afterward.”
“I am your obedient uncle and servant, Callie.”
There weren’t words enough in Webster’s dictionary for how much I did not believe that “obedient” bit.
* * *
Shake and I were the last ones into the dining room. Mrs. Constantine was bust
ling around, laying out ham, eggs, biscuits and gravy, milk, and coffee so her guests could help themselves. Not that everybody ate all that. Miss Whitman just had a half grapefruit and coffee, because she was an actress and had to watch her figure, she said. Mr. and Mrs. Jones kept to toast and butter and maybe a slice of ham. Miss Patty, though, she ate everything that came her way. She was the personal assistant to Miss Gina Lords, who was starring in a new picture this summer, and Miss Lords sometimes kept her running around all day and didn’t remember to give her time to get lunch.
“Good morning, good morning!” said Shake as we took our seats at the table. He proceeded to introduce himself to one and all as my uncle Lawrence LeRoux. He shook hands with Mr. Jones, bestowed a sweet smile on all the ladies, and settled down to enjoy Mrs. Constantine’s breakfast.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody eat so much, not even Jack after we’d been on the bum for a week getting from Kansas City to Los Angeles. Shake didn’t even have to help himself after the first biscuit. He just talked so much sugar to the ladies at the table, they were all batting their eyelashes at him and urging him to take another helping, even Mrs. Jones. Shake joked with Mr. Jones too and asked him about his work in dry goods and what he thought about California politics and the latest crisis in Europe. Before long, the whole table had decided Shake was a long-lost friend.
While Shake worked his way through a fourth ham slice, I couldn’t seem to manage to do more than cut my biscuits into little pieces and push them around in puddles of gravy. I didn’t dare look up. Somebody would see that the only person at the table who wasn’t glad Shake had joined them was his niece.
“Callie.” Mrs. Constantine came out of the kitchen, a fresh pot of coffee in her hand. “Your friend Jack is here. I put him in the parlor.”
I threw down my napkin and ran out without an “excuse me” or a backward glance.
“Callie! I got great news!” shouted Jack as I came through the curtains. I glanced back over my shoulder, waving at him to keep it down. Jack just rolled his eyes and grinned at me. He sure didn’t seem any the worse for our late night. In fact, he looked ready to wrestle bears or monsters, whichever he could find first. “I got a telephone call from Ivy Bright!”