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She thought of the faeries she had known when she was a child—impish, quick things—no mention of wars or magical arrows or enemies, certainly no deception. The man bleeding in the dirt beside her told her how wrong her perceptions of Faerie had been.
“Were I you, I would stay clear of the Folk in the future. We are a capricious people, with little regard for mortals.”
Kaye pulled lightly on the acorn cap, and it came loose. Inside the nutshell, all the meat was gone, leaving an empty space where a slip of paper was coiled. Kaye removed it carefully and read the message written in a pinkish red ink: “Do not talk to the black knight anymore. tell no one your name. everything is danger. Gristle is gone. We need your help. meet you tomorrow night. LL&S”
Corny frowned. “I thought you were Japanese.” She shrugged. “My dad was part of some glam-goth band my mother worshipped in high school. I never met him. It was a groupie thing.”
She stopped flipping and stared at the picture. The blond’s head was thrown back in either ecstasy or terror as the villain licked one of his nipples. She looked up at Corny and held out the book. “Let me guess… this is shonen-ai?”
“That’s my third question: What is your full name?” She didn’t know what she had done, not really. She only knew that she was forcing him to do something he didn’t want to do, and that suited her fine.
“Once, there were two nearby low courts, the bright and the dark, the Seelie and the Unseelie, the Folk of the air and the Folk of the earth. They fought like a serpent devouring its own tail, but we kept from their affairs, kept to our hidden groves and underground streams, and they forgot us.
“They brought back the Tithe, the sacrifice of a beautiful and talented mortal. In the Seelie Court they may steal away a poet to join their company, but the Unseelie Court requires blood.
It was staggering to Kaye to realize that there might be another Kaye Fierch, the real Kaye Fierch, off somewhere in Faerie. “You said… glamoured. Does that mean I don’t look like this?”
The magic on you is the strongest I have seen, Kaye. It protects you even from the touch of iron, which burns faerie flesh. I know you to be a pixie because I saw you when you were very small and we lived in Seelie lands. The Queen herself asked us to look after you.” “But why?” Something about the Thistlewitch’s story bothered Kaye. It made her wonder just whose plan they were executing.
“The ways of removing faerie magic are many. A four-leaf clover, rowan berries, looking at yourself through a rock with a natural hole. It is your decision to make.”
“Well, are there instances there where it drowns people without them getting on its back?” “No, but then the stuff I’m finding isn’t all that comprehensive.” “I’m going to try it. I’m going to talk to the kelpie.”
“I wonder about death, I who may never know it. It looks much like ecstasy, the way they open their mouths as they drown, the way their fingers dig into your skin. Their eyes are wide and startled and they thrash in your hands as though with an excess of passion.”
“Lutie said something about the opening to the Unseelie Court being in a brown patch of grass, but practically the whole hill is covered with brown grass.” “Maybe the patch is bare by now.” Kaye knelt down next to Corny and cupped her ear to the ground. There was faint music. “Listen. You can hear it.”
“I’m not allowed here? It doesn’t seem like there’s a guest list.” Roiben’s eyes darkened at that, and his voice dropped very low. “The Unseelie Court delights in guesting spies for the solitary fey. We so seldom have volunteers for our amusements.”
“Leave through here,” he said, showing her an earthen tunnel that was not the one she had come through. This one was hidden by a chair and closer to the giant. “But you must do it quickly. Now. Before someone sees me speaking with you.” “Why?” Kaye asked. “Because they might assume that I had taken a liking to you. Then they might assume that it would be amusing to see my face while I hurt you very badly.”
He had read stories like this—men and women waking on a hill that never opened for them again. Angrily, he wondered if Kaye was there still, dancing to distant flutes, forgetting that he’d ever tagged along.
“I woke up outside the hill this morning. I figured that you’d ditched me and I was going to do a Rip Van Winkle and find out that it was the year 2112 and no one had ever even heard of me.”
“So what you’re telling me is that you got him to kiss you once on the lips and once on the ass.”
What’s next on the faerie agenda?” Kaye shrugged. “I get sacrificed, I guess.” “Great. When is that?” Kaye shook her head. “Samhain, that’s Halloween, right? Probably at night.”
Human, her mind whispered. They’re all human and you’re not. She shook her head. She didn’t like where those thoughts took her. It was alien enough that she hadn’t been in a high school in years.
You can break a thing, but you cannot always guide it afterward into the shape you want.
Of the Host of the Unseelie Court are many unconcerned by blood and death, save as amusement. But the Host is more than a scourge. Nicnevin rules over ancient secrets, buried in the bowels of warrens and fens. The twilight holds as many truths as the dawn, perhaps more, since they are less easily perceived.
Then she opened the door. Ellen looked at her and then looked beyond her at Roiben. “Kaye—” “It’s Halloween, mom,” Kaye said, pitching her voice in a low whine. “Who’s he?” “Robin. We got too fucked up to drive anywhere. Don’t look at me like that—we didn’t even sleep in the same bed.”
A Popcorn Park Zoo representative was speaking at a press conference. The white-haired man was polishing his glasses methodically, nearly in tears as he explained how it was difficult to tell what animal had escaped, since this morning all the animals had been found in the wrong cages. The tigers had eaten several of the llamas before they could be separated. The deer had been in a bird enclosure, panicking in the small space. He suspected PETA.
Beside Janet danced a disturbingly familiar gray-skinned boy. Kaye pushed brutally through the crowd, knocking people aside with her elbows just in time to see Janet smile up at the kelpie and let him lead her off the edge of the pier.
White horses grazed in the meadow, the silver bells on their collars tinkling when they raised their heads. Knotted apple trees still hung heavy with a late-fall harvest of fruit. The air was warm and sweet with the promise of spring and new growth. Denizens of the Seelie Court were spread over the field, silken blankets spread out with Folk sitting or lying on them.
