The Modern Faerie Tales Page 42

  Kaye thought of Nephamael, the last King of the Unseelie Court, choking on iron, and Corny stabbing him again and again.

  “I don’t think it’s that simple,” Kaye said. “I mean, it’s almost impossible to protect yourself from people, forget faeries.”

  “Yeah, I guess. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Corny said, and ended the call.

  “Okay.” She heard him hang up the phone.

  Kaye walked on, drawing her coat more tightly around her. She stepped into the cemetery and started up the snowy hill, muddy and grooved by the sleds that had gone over it. Her gaze strayed to where she knew Janet was buried, although from where Kaye stood, the polished granite stones looked the same with their plastic garlands and wet red bows. She didn’t need to see the grave for her steps to slow, weighed down by the memory like sodden clothes must have weighed down Janet’s drowning body.

  She wondered what happened when the baby cuckoo realized it wasn’t like its brothers and sisters. Maybe it wondered where it had come from or what it was. Maybe it just pretended nothing was wrong and kept on gulping down worms. Whatever that bird felt, though, it wasn’t enough to keep it from pushing the other chicks out of the nest.

  Cornelius Stone closed his cell phone against his chest and stood still for a moment, waiting for the regret to ebb. He wanted to go to the coronation, wanted to dance with the terrible and beautiful creatures of the Unseelie Court, wanted to gorge on faerie fruit and wake up on a hillside, scourged and sated. He bit his cheek until he tasted blood, but the yearning only rose with the pain.

  He sat down in the library aisle on carpeting so new it had a clean, chemical smell that was probably evaporating formaldehyde. Opening the first of the books, he looked at woodcuts and turn-of-the-century line art. He saw pictures of ponies with flippers that looked nothing like the kelpie that had murdered his sister. He leafed to an illustration of a ring of tiny cherubic faeries with red cheeks and pointy ears dancing in a circle. Pixies, he read. None of them resembled Kaye in the least.

  He tore each page carefully out of the binding. They were bullshit.

  The next book was no better.

  As he started ripping apart the third, an elderly man looked down the aisle.

  “You shouldn’t be doing that,” he said. He was holding a fat hardback western in one hand and squinted at Corny as though, even with his glasses, he couldn’t see him very clearly.

  “I work here,” Corny lied.

  The man looked at Corny’s scuffed biker jacket and his shaggy almost-a-mullet hair. “Your job is to rip apart perfectly good books?”

  Corny shrugged. “National security.”

  The guy walked away muttering. Corny shoved the rest of the books into his backpack and walked out the doors. Disinformation was worse than no information at all. Alarms clanged behind him, but he didn’t worry. He’d been to other libraries. The alarms didn’t do anything but make a pretty sound, like a church bell from the future.

  He started in the direction of the coronation hill. No, he wasn’t going to party with Kaye and her prince-of-darkness boyfriend, but that didn’t mean he had to stay home. None of those books could help with what he had planned, but he’d expected that. If he wanted answers, he was going to have to go right to the source.

  The servants didn’t like to let Kaye into the Palace of Termites. She could tell by the way they looked at her, as though she were only the scuff of her shoes, the dirt under her fingernails, the stench of coffee and cigarettes that clung to her clothes. They spoke grudgingly, eyes never meeting hers, and they led her through passageways as though their feet were made of lead.

  Here was the place to which she ought to belong, but instead the grim and fabulous court, the cold halls, and the ferocious denizens made her uneasy. It was all very lovely, but she felt self-conscious and awkward against such a backdrop. And if she did not belong here and she didn’t belong with Ellen, then she couldn’t think of any place left to belong.

  It had been nearly two months since Roiben had assumed the title of Unseelie King, but a formal coronation could only occur on the darkest day of winter. After tonight he would be the true Lord of the Night Court, and with the title would come the resumption of the endless war with the Seelie fey. Two evenings past he’d woken Kaye by climbing a tree, tapping against her bedroom window, and drawing her out to sit on the frozen lawn. “Stay Ironside for a time after I’m crowned,” he’d told her. “Lest you be dragged into more danger.” When she’d tried to ask him for how long or how bad he thought it was going to get, he’d kissed her quiet. He’d seemed restless, but wouldn’t say why. Whatever the reason, his restlessness had been infectious.

  She followed the shuffling feet of a hunchbacked steward to the doors of Roiben’s chambers.

  “He will be with you soon,” the steward said, pushing open the heavy door and stepping inside. He lit several fat candles along the floor before retreating silently. A tufted tail dragged behind him.

  Roiben’s rooms were largely unfurnished, the walls an expanse of smooth stone broken up by stacks of books and a bed covered in a brocade throw. There were a few other things, farther inside—a jade bowl of washing water, a wardrobe, a stand with his armor. The chamber was formal, austere, and forbidding.

  Kaye dropped her coat onto the end of the bed and sat down beside it. She tried to imagine living here, with him, and failed. The idea of putting a poster on the wall was absurd.

  Reaching over, she pulled a bracelet from one of the pockets of her coat, cupping it in her hand. A thin braid of her own green hair, wrapped in silver wire. She’d hoped to surprise him before the ceremony started, hoped that even if she couldn’t see him for a while, he’d keep it with him, like storybook knights wore their ladies’ tokens when they rode into battle. Lutie and Armageddon had even gone ahead to the hall so that she’d have a moment alone in which to present it.

  Next to the grandeur of the room, though, her gift now seemed ugly and homemade. Not worthy of a King.

  There was a sound like the clatter of hooves in the hall and Kaye stood, pushing the bracelet back into the pocket of her coat, but it was only another glowering servant, this one bringing a glass of spiced wine as thick and red as blood.

  Kaye took the glass and sipped at it politely, then set it down on the floor as the servant left. She flipped through a few books in the flickering candlelight—military strategy, Peasepod’s Ballads, an Emma Bull paperback she’d loaned him—and waited some more. Taking another sip of wine, she stretched out at the end of the bed, wrapping the brocade cloth around her.

  She woke suddenly, a hand on her arm and Roiben’s impassive face above her. Silvery hair tickled her cheek.

  Embarrassed, she sat up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She had slept restlessly, and the coverlet was half on the floor, soaking up spilled wine and melted candle wax. She didn’t even remember closing her eyes.

  A scarlet-clad servant bearing a long cloak with black opal clasps stood in the center of the room. Roiben’s chamberlain, Ruddles, was near the door, his mouth overfull of teeth in a way that made him seem as though he wore an unpleasant grin.

  Roiben frowned. “No one told me you were here.”

  She wasn’t sure if that meant that he wished someone had or that he would have preferred her not to be there at all. Kaye slung her coat over her arm and stood up, her cheeks hot with shame. “I should go.”

  He stayed seated on the wreckage of his bed. The scabbard on his hip touched the floor. “No.” He gestured to the servant and Ruddles. “Leave us.”

  With shallow bows, they departed.

  Kaye remained standing. “It’s late. Your thing is going to start soon.”

  “Kaye, you have no idea what time it is.” He stood and reached for her arm. “You’ve been asleep.”

  She stepped back, clasping her hands together, pressing her nails into her palm to keep calm.

  He sighed. “Stay. Let me beg your forgiveness for whatever it is I’ve done
.”

  “Stop it.” She shook her head, talking faster than she was thinking. “They don’t want you to be with me, do they?”

  His mouth curved into a bitter smile. “I am forbidden nothing.”

  “No one wants me here. They don’t want me near you. Why?”

  He looked startled, ran a hand through silver hair. “Because I’m gentry and you’re . . . not,” he finished awkwardly.

  “I’m low class,” she said dully, turning her back to him. “Nothing new there.”

  Roiben’s boots tapped against the stone as he walked behind her and pulled her against his chest. His head rested in the crook of her neck, and she felt his breath as he spoke, his lips moving against her skin. “I have my own thoughts on the subject. I care nothing for the opinions of others.”

  For a moment, she relaxed into his touch. He was warm and his voice was very soft. It would be easy to crawl back under the coverlet and stay. Just stay.

  But Kaye turned in his arms instead. “What’s the big deal about you slumming?”

  He snorted, one of his hands lingering on her hip. He was no longer looking at her; his stare focused on the cold stone floor, the same gray as his eyes. “It is a weakness. My affection for you.”

  She opened her mouth to ask another question, and closed it again, realizing he’d answered more than she’d asked. Perhaps that was the reason that the servants didn’t like her, perhaps it was the reason that courtiers sneered at her, but it was also what he believed. She could see it in his face.

  “I really should go,” she said, pulling away. She was relieved to find that her voice didn’t catch. “I’ll see you out there. Break a leg.”

  He released her from the cradle of his arms. “You cannot stand on the dais during the ceremony nor walk in the procession. I do not want you to be taken for part of my court. Above all, you must not swear fealty. Promise me, Kaye.”

  “So, I’m supposed to act like I don’t know you?” The door was only a few steps across the floor, but she was conscious of each one. “Like you don’t have any weaknesses?”

  “No, of course not,” he said, too quickly. “You are the only thing I have that is neither duty nor obligation, the only thing I chose for myself.” He paused. “The only thing I want.”

  She let a small teasing smile creep onto her face. “Really?”

  He snorted, shaking his head. “You think I’m being absurd, don’t you?”

  “I think you’re trying to be nice,” said Kaye. “Which is pretty absurd.”

  He walked to her and kissed her smiling mouth. She forgot about his sullen servants and the coronation and the bracelet she hadn’t given him. She forgot about anything but the press of his lips.

  2

  There shall be plates a-plenty,

  And mugs to melt the chill

  Of all the grey-eyed people

  Who happen up the hill.

  —EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY, “TAVERN”

  Silarial had not openly moved against Roiben these two long months between Samhain and Midwinter’s Eve, and he began to wonder what she intended. The dark, cold months were considered an unlucky time for the Seelie Court to strike, so perhaps she only waited for the ice to melt into spring, when she would have every advantage. Still, he could occasionally believe that she had considered renewing the truce between the Bright and the Night Courts. Even with her greater numbers, war was still costly.

  “The envoy from the Seelie Court is here, my Lord,” Dulcamara repeated, the silver soles of her boots ringing with each step. Roiben heard “Lord” echo off the walls again and again, like a taunt.

  “Send him in,” Roiben said, touching his mouth. He wondered if Kaye was already in the hall, if she was alone.

  “If I might presume to inform, the messenger is a she.”

  Roiben looked up with sudden hope. “Send her in, then.”

  “Yes, my Lord.” The envoy stepped out of the way, letting the faerie woman come forward. She was dressed in glacial white cloth, with no armor whatsoever. When she looked up at him, her silver eyes gleamed like mirrors, reflecting his own face.

  “Welcome, little sister.” The words seemed to steal his breath as he spoke them.

  Her hair was cropped close, a white halo around her face. She bowed and did not lift her head.

  “Lord Roiben, my Lady sends you her greetings. She is saddened that she must fight against one of her own knights and bids you reconsider your rash position. You could even now renounce all this, surrender, and return to the Bright Court.”

  “Ethine, what happened to your hair?”

  “For my brother,” she said, but still did not look at him as she spoke. “I cut it when I lost him.”

  Roiben just stared at her.

  “Have you any message?” Ethine inquired.

  “Tell her I will not reconsider.” His voice was clipped. “I will not step down and I will not surrender. You may say to your mistress that having tasted freedom, her service no longer tempts me. You may tell her that nothing about her tempts me.”

  Ethine’s jaw clenched as though she were biting back words. “I am instructed to remain for your coronation. With your leave, of course.”

  “I am always glad of your company,” he said.

  She left the hall without waiting for his dismissal. As his chamberlain walked into the room wearing a wide and toothy grin, Roiben tried not to see it as an ill omen that of late he was better at pleasing those he hated than those he loved.

  Cornelius leaned back against the rough bark of an elm tree just inside the cemetery. He tried to concentrate on something other than the cold, something other than the iron poker clutched in one bare hand or the fishing wire in the other. He had turned his white clothes inside out just in case some of the shit from the books worked, and he’d rubbed himself down with pine needles to disguise his smell. He hoped, in the gray and starless night, it would be enough.

  No matter how ready he had told himself he was, hearing faeries shuffling through the snow filled him with panic. He didn’t really think the poker was much of a defense against the legions of the Unseelie Court. All he could do now was hold his breath and try not to shiver.

  They were gathering for the first coronation in more than a century. Everyone who was anyone in Faerie would be there. Corny wished Kaye were crouched in a snowbank with him tonight, not under the hill at the faerie ball. She always made crazy plans seem like they were going to work, made it seem like you could figure out the un-figure-outable. But to get Kaye to come, he would have had to tell her what he was doing, and there was no way that would have gone well. Sometimes he forgot she wasn’t human, and then she would look at him with something alien in her eyes, or smile with a smile far too wide and too hungry. Even though she’d become his best friend, she was still one of them. He was better off working alone.

  Corny repeated that thought to himself silently as the first of the faerie processional passed. It was a group of trolls, their lichen green limbs as long and gnarled as branches. They kicked up snow as they passed, growling to one another softly, hooked noses scenting the air like hounds’. Tonight they did not bother with disguises.

  A trio of women followed, all dressed in white, their hair blowing around them even though there was no wind. They smiled secret smiles at one another. As they passed, oblivious of him, he saw that their curved backs were as hollow and empty as eggshells. Despite the filmy gowns they wore, they appeared to not mind the cold.

  Horses wound their way up the hill next, their riders solemn and quiet. Corny’s eye caught on the shock of red berries encircling dark hair. He could not stop himself from staring at the rich and strange patterns of the clothes, the shining locks, and the faces, so handsome that just looking made him ache with longing.

  Corny bit his lip hard and forced his eyes shut. His hands were trembling at his sides and he was afraid that the clear plastic fishing wire would pull up through the snow. How many times would he be caught off guard like this? How
many times could he be made a fool?

  Keeping his eyes closed, Corny listened. He listened for the snap of branches, the scrunching of snow, the whispered snatches of conversation, the laughter that was as lilting as any flute. He listened for them to pass, and when they had, he opened his eyes at last. Now he just had to wait. He was betting that no matter what the party was for, there were always latecomers.

  It took only a few more minutes for a troop of short gray-clad elves to come up the hill. Hissing impatiently at one another, they waded through the snow. Corny sighed. There were too many for him to be able to do what he’d planned, and they were too large, so he waited till they passed.

  A smallish faerie tramped behind them, hopping in the long footfalls of the trolls. Clad in scarlet with a half-pinecone hat, its black eyes glittered like an animal’s in the reflected light. Corny clutched the handle of the poker tighter and took a deep breath. He waited for the little faerie to take two hops more, then Corny stepped out of the trees and in one swift movement thrust the poker against the faerie’s throat.

  It shrieked, falling prone in the snow, hands flying to cover where the iron had touched it.

  “Kryptonite,” Corny whispered. “I guess that makes me Lex Luthor.”

  “Please, please,” the creature wheedled. “What does it want? A wish? Surely a little thing like myself would have too small wishes for such a mighty being.”

  Corny jerked hard on the thin fishing wire. An aluminum crab trap snapped together around the faerie.

  The little creature screeched again. It scrambled from side to side, breathing hard, clawing at any small gaps, only to fall back with a yowl. Corny finally permitted himself to smile.