Valiant mtof-2 Read online

  Mabry drew it from her hair, letting the locks tumble down her back, and gave Val a wide, lush smile. "I know you. The servant Ravus has become overfond of. Take this little trinket if you like. Perhaps your hair will grow into it."

  Val ran her fingers over the cool surface of the shell, but she was sure that a gift delivered with such a barb didn't deserve any thanks.

  Mabry reached out a finger and touched the side of Val's mouth. "I see you've had a taste of what your skin has been drinking."

  Val started. "How did you know?"

  "It is my habit to know things," Mabry said, turning to walk off before Val got to ask a single thing she wanted to know.

  Val tried to follow Mabry, but a faerie with hair of long weeds and a smile full of wicked laughter interposed himself. "My lovely, let me devour your beauty."

  "You've got to be joking," Val said, trying to push past him.

  "Not in the least," he said, and suddenly, strangely, Val could feel desire twist in her belly.

  Her face went hot. "I can make even your dreams be of want."

  A hand caught her throat and a deep, rough voice spoke low and close to her ear. "And now what is your training good for?"

  "Ravus?" Val asked, although she knew his voice.

  The other faerie slunk away, but Ravus kept his fingers at her neck. "It's dangerous here. You should be more careful. Now I'd like you to at least try and break free."

  "You never taught me—," she began, but then she stopped, ashamed of the way her voice sounded like whining. He was teaching her now. After all, he was giving her time to think what the possible moves might be. It wasn't as though he was choking her. He was giving her time to win.

  Val relaxed, pressing her back to his chest and grinding against him. Startled, he loosed his grasp and she pulled free. He clutched her arm, but she spun around and pressed her mouth to his.

  His lips were rough, chapped. She felt the sting of fangs against her bottom lip. He made a sharp sound in the back of his throat and closed his eyes, mouth opening under hers. The smell of him—of cold, damp stone—made her head swim. One kiss slid into another and it was perfect, was exactly right, was real.

  He pulled back abruptly, turning his head so that he wasn't looking at her. "Effective," he said.

  "I thought maybe you wanted me to kiss you. Sometimes I thought I could see it." Her heart was thundering in her chest and her cheeks were scalding, but she was pleased that she sounded calm.

  "I didn't want you…" Ravus said. "I didn't want you to see it."

  She almost laughed. "You look so shocked. Hasn't anyone ever kissed you before?" Val wanted to do it again, but she didn't dare.

  His voice was cool. "On rare occasions."

  "Did you like it?"

  "Then or now?"

  Val sucked in a breath, let it out with a sigh. "Both. Either."

  "I liked it," he said softly. It was then that she remembered he could not lie.

  She ran her hand over his cheek. "Kiss me back."

  Ravus caught her fingers, clutched them so hard that they hurt. "Enough," he said. "Whatever game you are playing at, end it now."

  She pulled her hand out of his grip, sobering abruptly, and took several steps back from him. "I'm sorry—I thought—" In truth, she couldn't recall what she'd thought, what had made this seem like a good idea.

  "Come along," he said, not looking at her. "I'll take you back to the tunnels."

  "No," Val said.

  He stopped. "It would be unwise to remain here, no matter your—"

  Val shook her head. "That's not what I mean. Someone found our place. There's nowhere to go back to." It had been a long time since there was something to go back to, anything to go back to anywhere.

  He spread his hand as though trying to express something inexpressible. "We both know that I am a monster."

  "You're not—"

  "It demeans you to cover rotten meat with honey. I know what I am. What would you want with a monster?"

  "Everything," Val said solemnly. "I'm sorry I kissed you—it was selfish and it upset you—but you can't ask me to pretend I didn't want to."

  He regarded her warily as she took a step closer to him. "I'm not very good at explaining things," she said. "But I think you have beautiful eyes. I love the gold in them. I love that they're different from my eyes—I see mine all the time and I'm bored with them."

  He snorted with amusement, but stayed still.

  She reached up and touched the pale green of his cheek. "I like all the things that make you monstrous."

  His long fingers threaded through the peach fuzz of her hair, clawed nails resting carefully against her skin. "I'm afraid that whatsoever I touch is spoilt by the contact."

  "I'm not scared of being spoiled," Val said.

  The side of Ravus's mouth twitched.

  A woman's voice pierced through the air, sharp as the clang of a bell. "You sent for Silarial after all."

  Val whirled. Mabry stood in the courtyard, tendrils of hair caught by the breeze. All around them, Folk were staring. After all, here was a chance for gossip.

  Ravus's hand rested on the small of Val's back and she could feel the curl of nails against her spine. His voice was flat as he addressed Mabry. "Lady Silarial's mercy may be dreadful, but I have little choice but to throw myself on it. I know she came to talk to you—perhaps when she sees how unhappy you have been and how helpful you are, she will take you back to Court."

  Mabry's mouth bent into a wry smile. "We all must avail ourselves of her mercy. But now I want to do you a good turn for what you have done for me."

  Val reached into her back pocket to give back Mabry's comb, the tines of it poking her fingers as she drew it out. Seaweed-wrapped pearls and tiny doves from the inside of sand dollars clung to the crest of the comb. Looking at it, Val suddenly saw the mermaid, necklace coiling in ropes of pearls and shell birds, dead eyes staring forever up at Val while her hair floated along the surface of the water, bereft of a matched comb.

  Holding the comb in numb fingers, Val realized that it had come from a corpse.

  "Mabry gave me this," Val said.

  Ravus looked at it mildly, clearly not attaching any significance to it.

  "It came from the mermaid," Val said. "She took this from the mermaid."

  Mabry snorted. "Then, how is it that it came to be in your hand?"

  "She gave it—"

  Mabry turned to Ravus, interrupting Val smoothly. "Did you know she's been stealing from you—skimming off the top of your potions like a boggart drinks the head of cream off a bottle of milk?" Mabry snatched Val's arm, pushing up the sleeve so that Ravus could see the black marks inside the crook of her elbow, the marks that looked like someone had put out a cigarette in her flesh. "And look what she's been doing—stuffing her veins with our balm. Now, Ravus, you tell me who's the poisoner. Will you suffer for her mistakes?"

  Val reached her hand toward Ravus. He pulled back.

  "What have you done?" he asked, tight-lipped.

  "Yes, I shot up the potions," Val said. There was no point in denying anything now.

  "Why would you do that?" he asked. "I thought it was harmless, just something to keep the Folk from pain."

  "Never… it gives you… it makes humans… like faeries." That wasn't it, not exactly, but his face already said, You didn't mind that I was monstrous because you are a monster.

  "I had thought better of you," Ravus said. "I had thought everything of you."

  "I'm sorry," Val said. "Please, let me explain."

  "Humans," he said, the word soaked with repugnance. "Liars, all of you. Now I understand my mother's hate."

  "I might have lied about that but I'm not lying about the comb. I'm not lying about everything."

  He grabbed Val's shoulder, his fingers so heavy she felt as if she was held by stone. "Now I know what you saw in me to love. Potions."

  "No!" Val said.

  When she looked up at Ravus's face, there was no
thing there that was familiar, nothing that was kind. His clawed thumb pressed against the pulse of her throat. "I think it is time that you were gone."

  Val hesitated. "Just let me—"

  "Go!" he shouted, pushing her away from him and curling his fingers into a fist so tight that his claws cut the pads of his own hand.

  Val stumbled back, her throat stinging.

  Ravus turned to Mabry. "Say that you feel revenged on me. At least tell me that."

  "Not at all," Mabry replied with a sour smile. "I did you a good turn."

  Val went, retracing her steps along the path, through the wall of fog, the woods and up to the castle, her eyes blurry and her heart aching. There, watching the distant flicker of the city lights, Val thought suddenly of her mother. Was this how she had felt, after Tom and Val were gone? Had she wanted to go back and change everything, but lacked the power?

  Crawling along the rocks, Val saw the red tip of Ruth's clove cigarette before she saw the rest of their makeshift camp. Ruth stood up when Val got close. "I thought you left me again."

  Val looked over at Lolli and Luis, curled up together. Luis looked different, his eyes circled darkly and his skin pale. "I just went for a walk."

  Ruth took another long drag, the end of her cigarette sparking. "Yeah, well, your friend Dave just went for a walk, too."

  Val thought about the revel and wondered if Dave had been there, another sweet tooth, wandering dazed among capricious masters.

  "I… I," Val sat down, overwhelmed, and covered her face with her hands. "I fucked up. I really, really fucked up."

  "What do you mean?" Ruth sat down next to Val and put her arm over her shoulder.

  "It's too hard to explain. There are faeries, like real Final Fantasy faeries, and they've been poisoned and this stuff I've been taking—it's kind of a drug, but it's kind of magic, too." Val could feel tears trickle over her face, and swiped at them.

  "You know," Ruth said, "people don't cry when they're sad. Everyone thinks that, but it's not true. People cry when they're frustrated or overwhelmed."

  The mermaid's comb was still in Val's hand, she realized, but she'd been clutching it so tightly that it had broken into pieces. Just thin sheets of shell, nothing more. No reason to think it proved anything.

  "Look, I'll admit you sound a little crazy," Ruth said. "But so what? Even if you are completely delusional, we still have to work out your delusion, right? An imaginary problem needs an imaginary solution."

  Val let her head fall onto Ruth's shoulder, relaxing in a way she hadn't relaxed since before she'd seen her mother and Tom and maybe before that. She'd forgotten how much she loved talking to Ruth.

  "Okay, so start at the start."

  "When I came to the city, I was just operating on autopilot," Val said. "I had tickets to the game, so I went. I know it sounds insane. Even when I was doing it, I thought it was crazy, like I was one of those people who kills their boss and then sits back down at their computer to finish reports.

  "When I ran into Lolli and Dave, I just wanted to lose myself, to be nothing, to be nothingness. That sounds all wrong and dumb, I know."

  "Very poetic," Ruth smirked. "Kind of goth."

  Val rolled her eyes, but smiled. "They introduced me to some faeries and that's the part where everything stops making sense."

  "Faeries? Like elves, goblins, trolls? Like the ones on Brian Froud panties at Hot Topic?"

  "Look, I—"

  Ruth held up her hand. "Just checking. Okay, faeries. I'm going with it."

  "They have trouble with the iron, so there's this stuff that Lolli calls Nevermore. Never. It keeps them from getting too sick. Humans can… take it… and it makes you able to create illusions or to make people feel the way you want them to. We were doing deliveries of it for Ravus—he's the one that makes the Never—and we would take some for ourselves."

  Ruth nodded. "Okay. So Ravus is a faerie?"

  "Something like that," Val said. She could see a laugh in Ruth's eyes and was grateful when it didn't move to her lips. "Some of the Folk died of poison and they blamed Ravus. I think this comb came from one of the dead faeries and Mabry had it and I just don't know what that means.

  "Everything is so crazy. Dave turned that cop into a dog on purpose and Mabry told Ravus we were stealing from him so he thinks I had something to do with the deaths and I haven't had Never in two days and my whole body hurts." It was true, the aches had started up again, the pain dim but growing, the temporary reprieve of faerie fruit not enough to keep her veins from clamoring for more.

  Ruth squeezed Val's shoulders in a sideways hug. "Shit. Okay, that's crazy. What can we do?"

  "We can figure it out," Val said. "I have all these clues; I just don't know how they fit together."

  Val looked at the remains of the comb and thought of the mermaid again. Ravus had said rat poison killed the faerie, but rat poison was a dangerous and unlikely substance for a faerie poisoner to use, especially an alchemist like Ravus. And why would he want to kill a bunch of harmless faeries?

  A human could have done it. A human courier was expected, not at all suspicious.

  Val remembered the first delivery she'd ever been on and the bottle of Never Dave had unstoppered, breaking the wax. Shouldn't Mabry have been worried? With all the poisonings, wasn't that like taking an aspirin with the safety seal broken? The only way that anyone would do that was if they already know who the poisoner was or if they were the poisoner themselves.

  And Mabry had known that Val was using. Someone was telling her.

  "But why?" Val said out loud.

  "Why what?" asked Ruth.

  Val stood up and paced on the rock. "I'm thinking. What's the result of the poisonings? Ravus gets in trouble!"

  "So?" Ruth asked.

  "So Mabry wants revenge on him," Val said. Of course: Revenge for the death of her lover. Revenge for her exile.

  Mabry then. Mabry and a human accomplice. Dave was obvious, since he'd been the one that didn't bother to disguise that he was skimming Never from Mabry, but what reason did he have to kill faeries?

  It could have been Luis. He hated faeries for what they'd done to his eye. He wore all that metal to protect himself. And he was using the Never, as the marks under his knee proved, even if he denied it. But for what if he couldn't see glamour? And why didn't he care that Dave had gone missing? Why pick now to hook up with Lolli when she'd wanted him for longer than Val had known her? He was so unworried. It was as though he knew where his brother was.

  Val stopped at that thought.

  "This is what we have to do," Val said. "We have to go to Mabry's house while she's still at the revel and find proof that she's behind the poisonings." Proof that would convince Ravus that she was innocent and proof that would convince the others he wasn't the poisoner at all. Proof that would save him so that he would forgive her.

  "Okay," said Ruth, shouldering her backpack. "Let's go help your imaginary friends."

  Chapter 11

  Strike a glass, and it will not endure an instant; simply do not strike it, and it will endure a thousand years.

  —G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

  Val and Ruth made it to Riverside Park in the cold hours before dawn. The sky was deep dark and the streets were hushed. Val's heart beat rabbit-fast, adrenaline and muscle cramping keeping her from noticing the chill air or the late hour. Ruth shivered and wrapped her monster-fur coat tighter as the wind blew up off the water. Her cheeks were streaked with makeup, smudged by tears and careless hands, but when she smiled at Val, Ruth looked like her old, confident self.

  The park itself was mostly empty, with a small group of people huddled near one of the walls, one of them smoking what smelled like a joint. Val looked down the row of apartment buildings across from the park, but none of them was quite right. She picked out the clogged fountain she'd stood at days earlier, but when she looked across the street, the door facing her was the wrong color and there was a metal grate over the windows.
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br />   "Well?" Ruth asked.

  Val shifted her weight. "I'm not sure."

  "What are we going to do if you find it?"

  Looking up, Val saw a gargoyle in a place slightly different from where she remembered, but the stone monster was enough to convince her that the house she was looking at had to be Mabry's. Perhaps her memory was just off.

  "Watch for anyone coming," Val said, starting to cross the road. Her heart thundered in her chest. She had no idea what she was getting them into.

  Ruth hurried after her. "Great. Lookout. I'm a lookout. Another thing to put on my college applications. What do I do if I see someone?"

  Val looked back. "I'm not sure, actually."

  Staring at the building for a long moment, Val grabbed hold of one of the gutter rings on the downspout and hoisted herself up the wall. It was like climbing a tree, like climbing a rope in gym class.

  "What are you doing?" Ruth called, her voice shrill.

  "What did you think I needed a lookout for? Now shut up."

  Val climbed higher, her feet pushing against the brick of the building, her fingers digging into the loops of metal as the gutter groaned and dented under her scrambling weight. As she reached for a windowsill, she found her hand in the mouth of a gargoyle, its chicken-bred-with-terrier face tilted to one side, eyes wide with surprise or excitement. She snatched her fingers back moments before the stone teeth snapped closed. Off balance, she kicked at the air for a moment, her full weight on the gutter and her one hand. The aluminum bent, tearing free of the supports.

  Val jammed her foot into the brick and heaved hard, jumping and scrambling to catch the ledge. She heard a high-pitched squeak from below as she grabbed hold of the windowsill. Ruth. For a moment, she just hung on, afraid to move. Then she pulled herself up along the molding and pushed the window. It stuck and for a moment, she was afraid it was locked or painted shut, but she pushed harder and it gave. Climbing inside, past the tangled curtains, Val found herself in Mabry's bedroom. The floor was gleaming marble and the bed was a curving canopy of willow branches, piled with rumpled silks and satins. One side of the bed was clean, but the other was dusted with dirt and brambles.