His expression didn’t change. That just made it worse. “We missed you.”
“I missed me, too.” I sighed, trying to keep my temper under control. I’m not usually that touchy, but Devin always brought out the worst in me. “I’m sorry. It’s been a hard night.”
“We heard about the Winterrose. I’m sorry, Toby.” There was genuine sorrow in his voice. I frowned. Devin always hated Evening. Hearing him say he was sorry for her death was almost unbelievable.
“What was she to you?” I asked. Real tactful there, Toby.
He stared at me. When he spoke again, the warmth was gone, replaced by a bitter chill. “She kept this place alive after you disappeared. You know the purebloods would love to shut us down. All they need is an excuse—any excuse—and you seemed like a great start.
“You’re the one that went out and played the brave knight, Toby; you’re the one that started here and went on to something more. You made the Queen leave us alone, because she couldn’t rise against your home fiefdom without insulting your liege. That offended the hell out of her, and once you weren’t standing between her and us anymore, she stopped backing down.”
That was news to me. “She was going to move against you?”
“She almost did, until the Winterrose stopped her, in your name. Evening never approved of us, but she protected us anyway, and she did it for you. Did Sylvester try that hard to keep your memory alive?” He paused, expression challenging. I looked away. There were no words that could say what I needed to say to him; I wasn’t even willing to try.
There was a long pause, and when he continued, he sounded almost impossibly tired. When did the world get so old? “At first she was doing it for you, but I like to think that maybe, toward the end, she was doing it for herself. That she finally understood why we were here.”
“I didn’t know.”
“No,” he said, “you didn’t want to know. You pigeonholed her the way you’ve pigeonholed everybody else, and you ignored her when she tried to step out of the role you’d given her. You’ve done that for as long as I’ve known you, Toby, and I think I’ve known you longer than just about anyone else in this world.”
“I didn’t think—”
“That’s not much of a surprise.” He stopped and took a deep breath before flashing me a smile that managed to show all of his teeth at once. “But enough about you—let’s talk about me. Did you come here to sleep with me?”
I forced a smile, back on familiar ground. I could ignore the way his words stung until the job was over. “Sorry, Devin. Not this time.”
“Afraid that you can’t walk away from me twice?”
“Maybe.” I relaxed, my smile becoming real. “I really did miss you.”
“And we really did miss you, too,” he said. “I kept the kids looking for you for ten years, you know. We didn’t want to give up.”
“I’m glad of that,” I said. “Sometimes I think the whole world gave up on me while I was gone.”
“I think a lot of the world did, but I was never part of the crowd,” he said, and smiled. There wasn’t any phony sex in that smile; just old friendship and genuine welcome. I’d forgotten how good that could feel. “Most of the folks you knew aren’t here anymore: Jimmy’s dead, Julie’s working for Lily, John and Little Mike are both down south in Angels. As for the new generation, well . . .” He shrugged.
“The new generation needs to be kept on a leash. Starting with that little blonde bimbo-in-training you have doing front duty. I know everyone stands sentry, Devin, but you should teach her some manners before you let her out in public.”
“What, Dare? Did she give you any trouble?” He sounded affronted, but I could tell he was pleased. He wanted his kids to have a certain amount of spirit, as long as they did as they were told.
“Plenty of it, until I told her who I was. Could you have possibly found a kid with a worse attitude problem?”
“No, Toby, you were one of a kind.”
“Hey!”
Devin leaned forward, putting his hands on the desk. “She was worse when she got here. The kid couldn’t say two civil words to anyone, and now, well, she’s just a little mouthy. She’s a handful, but she does her share. They all do.”
“There are always more kids, aren’t there?” I said, looking at the wall behind his desk. He kept a giant bulletin board there, plastered with snapshots of every lost boy or girl that had ever come Home. I was in there somewhere, just another gawky teenager with badly cut hair, a bad attitude, and no common sense to speak of. It was comforting to realize that no matter what happened to me, my picture would always be buried in the collage behind Devin’s desk.
“Yes,” he said, voice softening. “There are always more kids.” How many had he seen die, or vanish, or just fade away? I left Home for Sylvester’s Court, thinking it was better: Devin lost me, but at least he knew where I’d gone. How many of his kids just left and never came back at all?
And at the same time, how many of his kids did he bury in unmarked graves after the night-haunts had been and gone? So many changelings are like me, the stolen survivors of supposed childhood deaths. No one would miss them. No one would go looking. If I called one of the Courts in the Kingdom of Angels, and asked about a changeling Silene named John or a half Gremlin called Little Mike, would anyone know who I was talking about? I knew what Devin was. I’d always known. I needed to make sure I didn’t forget it.
I knotted my fingers in my skirt, trying to banish that line of thought. This wasn’t the time to dwell on it. Later. I could cry about it later, when Devin wouldn’t see me. “We should probably get around to business. I’m sure you have other people that you need to see.”
“What do you need?” he asked. I looked up, startled. He wasn’t planning to barter: he was just going to give me whatever I asked for. That was what coming back from the dead had earned me. I’d belonged to him, and he’d given up on me, and then I came back to him—how could he refuse me?
It took me a moment to get my bearings. Finally, I said, “I need to know who killed Evening.”
“Why?”
“So I can return the favor.”
“If I knew who killed her, I’d kill them myself.”
“It’s not your job, Devin.”
“So what makes it yours?”
I took a deep breath, and felt phantom thorns scrape against my skin. “Evening called me before she died. She knew what was coming; she knew they were coming to kill her.”
He froze, flower-petal eyes narrowing. “She knew?”
“Yeah, she knew. I don’t know why she didn’t run.”
“Maybe she didn’t have time . . .” he said. “Did she tell you who she thought was coming for her? Or why they were coming?”
“No. If she knew, she didn’t tell me. But she hired me to find them.” It was technically the truth. He didn’t need to know that she’d bound me, or how tightly the binding held. No one needed to know. “I’m on a case, Devin, and I can’t quit when the person that hired me is dead.”
“You can’t get paid, either.”
“I don’t care.” Money wasn’t the issue anymore; survival was. “She was my friend, and I’m going to do this for her.”
“Are you intending to follow her?” His tone was cold.
Fine: if that was how he wanted to play, that was how we’d play. It was his call. Manuel hadn’t known the details, and I was betting Devin didn’t know them either. “No,” I said, curtly. “If I wanted to die, I wouldn’t commit suicide by handing myself over to anyone that would slit a woman’s throat with an iron blade.”
Devin hesitated. “What?”
“Iron.” It took a lot of effort to keep my tone level. “They shot her so she wouldn’t run, and then they slit her throat.” I swallowed the sudden taste of roses, forcing back the sensory memories of Evening’s death. Ah, the glorious aftereffects of blood magic.
“How do you know . . .”
“I’m Amandine’s daughter, r
emember?” I waved a hand, not needing to feign the irony in my voice as I said, “Just doing what comes naturally.”
“Then you know who killed her,” he said, leaning back in his seat.
“No, I don’t. They hid it from me somehow, and I need to know. I’m not as familiar with this world as I used to be. It’s been too long, and I need help.”
“So why are you here? Why aren’t you at the Queen’s Court, going through all your precious pureblood contacts?” His voice was bitter. I frowned. He didn’t approve when I “moved uptown,” but this seemed more raw than it should have been. I’d left a long time ago. How long was he planning to resent me for it?
“I went to the Queen before I came here,” I said, and held up a fold of water-stained silk, shaking it for emphasis. “Where did you think I got this fabulous dress? It used to be my second-best jeans. I had to announce the death.”
“And you came here anyway? What, are you hedging your bets now?”
“No. She refused to help me.” Devin frowned, motioning for me to continue. I sighed. “She threw me out, Devin. She wouldn’t even let me tell her how Evening died.”
“She threw you out? What did you say?”
“Just that Evening was gone. I recited the proper death announcements and everything—I didn’t miss a step, but she flipped out.” My frustration was spilling over into my voice. “I don’t know what’s going on there. Her reaction wasn’t entirely sane.”
“Do you think she did it?”
I paused, considering this for a long moment before I said, “No. It’s not like I could touch her if she had, and she freaked out way too much for it to be purely guilt. It could have been someone close to her, I guess, but I don’t think so. I think she’s just . . . I think there’s something wrong with her.”
“So there’s no help from that quarter. Where else can you go?”
“Shadowed Hills. I can beg Sylvester—but you know he hasn’t got any real power in this city.” I was buttering him up. He probably knew it, and I didn’t care. If putting Sylvester down made him more likely to help me, I’d do it. I’d hate it, but I’d do it.
He sagged in his chair, shaking his head. “You need my help.”
“Yes. I need your help. There isn’t anyone else.”
“I can’t give you this one for free, Toby. If there’s someone out there that’s desperate enough to use iron . . .”
“I never asked for a freebie, remember? You offered.” So he was taking it back? Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. This was more than a favor to a friend: this was a matter of life or death—most likely death—and that sort of thing is too expensive to just give away.
“It’ll cost you.”
“I can pay.”
He looked at me steadily. I looked back, starting to realize just how much of a difference the last fourteen years had made in him. You can only fight the good fight for so long. Devin gave up a long time ago. “Are you sure?” he said. For a moment, I couldn’t find an answer.
Then I remembered Evening sprawled on the floor of her apartment, with a second mouth where her throat should have been. “I’m sure.”
After a pause that felt longer than those missing years, he nodded. “Done. I’ll send some kids to your place in the morning to check in and make sure you remember your part in the deal.”
Oh, I remembered. How could I ever forget? I’d dealt with this devil before; he had my signature under lock and key in his personal files. I didn’t sign in blood—he would never have been so gauche—but he trusted the power of my given word to bind me. He trusted, and he was right. I’d pay for any information he brought me, I’d pay for anything his kids did for me, and if he helped me find what I was looking for, I’d pay double. He liked me. I knew enough about what happened to people he didn’t like when their bills came due to hope he’d never stop liking me.
“Tomorrow morning doesn’t work,” I said. “I have to go to Shadowed Hills and talk to Sylvester. Tomorrow night’s the soonest I’ll be ready for them.”
“At least let me have someone escort you home.”
I rubbed my forehead with one hand. “Devin, I’m exhausted, and exhausted means I can’t deal with your kids right now. I need to get some sleep, or I’m not even going to be able to handle Sylvester.”
“If he has no power, why are you going to see him?”
“Because,” I replied, looking down at my silk-clad legs so that I wouldn’t have to see his expression. “He’s still my liege, and I’m embarking on a murder investigation. I don’t have to ask for his help, but I have to tell him before I endanger myself.”
I could feel Devin watching me. “You can break your fealty. He’s done you no favors.”
“Please. Don’t ask me for that.” I glanced up again. “Not yet.” Oath breaking is almost expected from a changeling. That’s why I’ve never done it. Sylvester would release me if I asked him, and I never will, because it would just prove all the things that have ever been said about my kind. I might regret my promises, but I keep them.
Devin looked at me for a moment, expression flat, before he sighed. “Have it your way—I know better than to argue with you.” He opened the top drawer of his desk, pulling out something the size of a deck of cards and shoving it toward me. “Take this.”
“What is it?” I asked, picking it up.
“Cell phone. I keep spares on hand for just this sort of thing.” Devin’s nod was small, but satisfied. Purebloods respond to change slowly, if at all. Flexibility and adaptation were changeling traits. If he still had them, he was doing just fine.
After the night I’d had, I would have said there was nothing left that could shake me. I definitely wouldn’t have placed my bets on a little plastic box that weighed no more than a few ounces, keys hidden by a flip-down front that made it look like something out of Star Trek. Suddenly numb, I lifted my head and stared at Devin.
Fourteen years is no time at all in Faerie. It’s the blink of an eye, it’s the turning of a single tide. There have been balls that lasted longer than that, waltzes and banquets that stretched on for decades. The mortal world, though . . . the mortal world doesn’t work that way. The phone I used to talk to Cliff for the last time before I vanished weighed almost a pound. It was ugly and clunky and almost impossible to lose. This was a sleek, streamlined accessory, the sort of thing every person on the street would carry. It was the future, condensed into something solid. I’d been able to handle it when it was just the humans carrying the things; I could pretend that Faerie, at least, had stayed the same. But it hadn’t. Nothing had.
Devin saw the confusion in my eyes, because he smiled a small, hurtful smile, saying, “It wouldn’t have happened if you’d stayed here,” before he turned to press the button for the intercom. The equivalent button in the main room was set in the wall, under glass. I’d only seen the intercom from the main room used twice. Once it was a prank, and the kid that did it wound up beaten within an inch of his life by half a dozen of the bigger kids. The other time it was because Julie had been hurt so badly that we didn’t know how to put her together again, and even then we hesitated, afraid of the consequences. No one bothered Devin without good reason.
“Dare, I need you to come back here and escort Ms. Daye to her car. Now,” he said. If Dare was in the bar, she’d come. If she wasn’t, someone else would come in her place, and she’d be in a world of trouble.
Lucky for her, she hadn’t stepped out for a cigarette. The door opened a few minutes later, revealing a very nervous Dare and her slightly more relaxed older brother. Neither looked happy. That was my fault, but I was still too stunned to really care. I hadn’t known what Evening had meant to these people. I would never have guessed—I would never even have dreamed—and I should have known. What happened to the world while I was gone? How much needed to change before the most arrogant pureblood I’d ever known could come to a place like Home and earn that much respect?
“Sir,” said Dare, bending in what looked like a
six-year-old’s approximation of a curtsy, “you need me to take Ms. Daye to her car?” Her accent was substantially lighter when she was speaking to Devin. The bruise on her cheek was flowering now, turning purple and gold.
Devin narrowed his eyes. I used to try guessing how much of The Look was real and how much was an act before I realized it wasn’t important. It worked. That was what mattered. Devin might lie to you, but he always got results. “That was why I called you, Dare. You can hear, can’t you?”
She cringed. Manuel turned to me, pleading with his eyes. I just shrugged. Devin used the same look and the same lines on me, once; I wasn’t foolish enough to try undermining his authority with someone who still believed they meant something. Dare gave him all the power he had over her. Once she grew up enough to figure out that Devin could only control her as long as she let him, she’d be fine, and if she never grew up that much, she belonged at Home, where someone else would take care of the real world and she could take care of the chores.
“Yes, sir,” Dare said, straightening. “I can hear, sir. I’ll take her to her car right away, it’s just outside, and then I’ll come back and wait, just like I’m supposed to.”
Devin settled back in his chair with a nod. I’d have been scared of him if I hadn’t known him so well—and knowing him like I did, I was terrified. He was putting on this little show for my benefit, reminding me that he was in charge and his word was law. He was always putting on the show for someone’s benefit, even when no one else was there. Playing mind games with Devin was like playing with dynamite: someone always got hurt in the end. I was hoping like hell that it wouldn’t be me.
“Good girl, Dare,” he said. She preened under the praise. I think all kids are hungry for a kind word, not just the lost ones that wind up drifting into places like Home. They all react the same way when they’re given the validation they need, locking fear and love together so tightly that they never even notice the moment when they grow up.
Dare turned to me, apple-green eyes wide, and said, “I’ll show you to your car now, Ms. Daye. You’ll follow me?” Manuel watched from behind her. It was hard to face both sets of eyes at once: the color was too bright, too needy.
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