Authors: Seanan McGuire
Rosemary and Rue (12 page)
If Devin had just wanted me for my body, he would have used me up and thrown me away, and no one would have been able to stop him. I’ve seen changelings better than me get destroyed by the border world. Mortal drugs don’t have anything on their fae equivalents, and Faerie offers a lot of ways for the innocent to get themselves killed. I was lucky; Devin wanted me for the cachet of having me. My mother wasn’t nobility, but she was a celebrity of sorts, the strongest blood-worker in the Kingdom, a friend to Dukes and more. No one ever thought she would bear a changeling. And Devin was the one who took me away from her.
I was his lover and his pet and his favorite toy, and he let me have my temperamental little ways, because it was all paid for when he got to walk into a pureblood party he’d bartered an invitation to attend with me on his arm. He gave me what I needed to survive on the outskirts of the mortal world; a birth certificate, lessons in mortal manners, a place to stay. I paid my keep with the shame I let him bring to the people who loved me, and I tried to tell myself it was worth it.
Maybe I was addicted to him; to the way he looked at me, and the way he touched me, and the way he made me feel like I was something more than just another half-breed. He hurt me, but everything I knew told me I deserved it. I never told him no. I never wanted to. Everything I let him do, everything I did, was of my own free will.
When Sylvester got me knighted, leaving Home was part of the price. I agreed without hesitation, and I only saw Devin twice after that. Once on the day I told him I was leaving, and once . . .
I yanked my attention back to the road. The streets were getting worse as I drove, squalor giving way to decay. My destination was at the heart of the rot, in a place where only the people with nowhere else to go ever went. It wasn’t a place for children—it was never a place for children—and maybe that’s why we flocked there, gathering in a dying Neverland ruled by a man who was more Captain Hook than Peter Pan. “You’ll be back,” Devin said on the day I left him, with my wrists still scraped and my lips stinging, and he was right, because here I was. Coming Home.
The building I parked in front of looked abandoned, but was probably home to twenty people after the sun went down. The air seemed even colder now that I was inland. I gathered my damp skirts around myself, shivering as I locked the car door. Nothing had really changed. The wrappers in the gutter had different logos and the music thumping in the background had a different tone, but the eyes of the people who watched from doorways and windows, taking my measure as I passed, were just what they’d always been: hungry, angry, and hopeful. They all needed something, and every one of them was hoping I’d be the one to provide it.
Catcalls and insults followed me down the block to a tiny, nondescript storefront wedged between a crumbling motel and an all-night massage parlor. I paused, feeling like I was falling backward through time. It was all exactly the same, even down to the old miasma of pleasure, pain, and promises, as falsely alluring as a call girl’s perfume. There were no tricks required to get inside, because Devin wanted you to come in. It was getting out that would be the hard part.
The big front window was blocked off with graffiti-covered plywood, and a simple brass sign was mounted over the door. HOME: WHERE YOU STOP. That sign never tarnished or got dirty, and it served as the focus for a misdirection spell so powerful that I’d never seen a human glance toward the building, much less the door. Devin said he bought it from a Coblynau pureblood, trading the sign and its enchantment for nothing but an hour in his arms. I called him a liar the first time he told me that. Coblynau are ugly, lonely people who love metal more than they love air, and the promises you have to make to get a blade or bracelet of their crafting are dear enough that I couldn’t see him winning so much as a ring.
It didn’t take long for me to realize he hadn’t been lying. Casually turning someone else’s needs to his own advantage was exactly the sort of thing Devin did best. He stole whatever he wanted, sharing his ill-gotten gains with his children, the empty-eyed girls and damp-palmed boys who came to him praying he’d have the answers. Now here I was again, praying for the same thing.
I opened the door and stepped inside.
The main room at Home was large and square, littered with ancient furniture and lit by a scavenged electrical generator that powered two refrigerators and an antique jukebox as well as the overhead lights. Heavy metal blared from the jukebox at a volume high enough to almost vibrate the floor. The air smelled like smoke, vomit, stale beer, and yesterday’s desires; all the things I left behind when I went off to live in a different, cleaner world.
A handful of teens lounged around the otherwise deserted room like the casual ornamentation they were. I didn’t know any of them, but I recognized them on sight because they were Devin’s kids, and so was I. Our fellowship went deeper than our faces. It went all the way down to our bones.
How many of you is he fucking?
I wondered, and was immediately ashamed. Front room duty was always the hardest. You had to stay alert without seeming to pay attention, and no matter how long you had to sit there, you didn’t dare fall asleep. I hated it. You were a visible challenge to anyone who felt like calling Devin out for some real or imagined sin, but you couldn’t say no and you couldn’t leave once you’d been told to stay.
I wondered, and was immediately ashamed. Front room duty was always the hardest. You had to stay alert without seeming to pay attention, and no matter how long you had to sit there, you didn’t dare fall asleep. I hated it. You were a visible challenge to anyone who felt like calling Devin out for some real or imagined sin, but you couldn’t say no and you couldn’t leave once you’d been told to stay.
These new kids could so easily have been the ones I remembered, only changed by updates in teenage fashion. They were all changelings, and not one of them was wearing even the most basic human disguise. There was a calculated reason for that; seeing them as soon as you entered told you that when you were Home, you came as you were. It made the edges of my own illusion itch, like a coat that didn’t quite fit. I wouldn’t take it off yet, though. Not until I’d seen Devin.
Four kids were in view, which meant there were at least three more I hadn’t spotted. A boy and girl who looked too alike to be anything but siblings sat near the jukebox, their sharply pointed ears and glossy gold hair marking them as descendants of the Tylwyth Teg. A half-Candela girl with pale green eyes leaned against the wall by the door, juggling globes of dim light, and a boy with hedgehog spines instead of hair squatted in the corner, a clove cigarette dangling from his lips.
All four had turned to watch as I entered, an inquiring band of Lost Children studying the grown-up who had wandered into their territory. Maybe I used to be one of them, but they didn’t know me. For once, this proof of my escape didn’t make me feel any better.
“Nice dress,” said the Candela. The room erupted in snickering. I stayed where I was, waiting for it to die down.
Knowing Devin’s kids, they were all armed and ready to jump me at the first sign of trouble. That was fine. I hadn’t come to Home looking for a fight, but starting a small one would get me to Devin faster. Protocol said I should be polite: introduce myself, make nice, put up with whatever crap they handed me, and ask if I could see Devin before the end of the night. Maybe they’d even let me, if I was nice enough. But I was tired and Evening was dead, and I didn’t have the time or the patience to play at pleasantries.
The brother of the paired changelings looked like he was the oldest one in the room, if only by a year or two. That made him the point man. I walked toward the pair, and they looked back at me, expressions not betraying any interest in who I was or what I was doing there. Never be the first one to show that you care; that kind of weakness can get you killed.
“I need to see Devin,” I said. Now that I was closer, I could see that their eyes were the glaring neon green of pippin apples. Faerie is anything but stinting in the colors it uses.
The brother blinked, obviously expecting something subtler. Good. If he was off balance, he was more likely to give me what I wanted. Unfortunately, it was his sister who spoke, flicking her bangs out of her eyes as she announced, “That’s not gonna happen.”
Her accent was a mixture of inner-city Spanish and downtown punk so thick it verged on parody and a perfect complement to her overdone makeup, rat’s nest hair, and seemingly permanent sneer. She could have been pretty, if she’d been willing to gain twenty pounds and stop trying so hard, but as it was, she looked like a cross between Twiggy’s younger sister and every downtown whore I’d ever seen. There was no way she was more than fourteen.
Of course, that was looking at her from a mortal perspective. I looked sixteen when I came to Devin, and I always did my best to look even younger when I had to do bar duty. It helped if they underestimated you. So she might have been older than she looked . . . but I saw her as fourteen, and the way she held herself told me I was pretty close to right.
“Sorry, lady, but you can go home now,” she continued. “He’s busy.”
I sighed inwardly. I hadn’t been underestimating her; she was as young as she looked, and she had no idea what she was messing with. I narrowed my eyes, glaring, and she licked her lips, fixing me with what was probably meant to be a languid sneer. I managed not to laugh. Instead, I shook my head, and repeated, “I need to see Devin. Now, please.”
“So why do you need to see the boss-man?” she drawled. Her accent was starting to get on my nerves. “I don’t think he’s expecting you. I think you’re trying to sneak in while he’s not looking.”
Well, she was smart enough to guess my motives. Not that it was going to do her much good, since I wasn’t planning to let her stop me. “Does it matter?” I replied. “I need one of you—I don’t care which—to tell Devin that Toby’s here, and she needs to talk to him right away.”
The girl smirked, obviously thinking I would back down. “I think you should go sit down for a while.”
Was I ever that young or that stupid? That young. Maybe. “I think you should go tell Devin that I’m here.”
“Really? Because I’m thinking . . . no. I think you’re gonna sit, and he’ll see you in an hour. Two, maybe. It’s really no difference to him, lady.” She started to turn away. I grabbed her arm, twisting it up behind her back. She yelped, trying to wrench herself free. “Hey! Crazy bitch!”
Her brother tensed, but didn’t move to help her. Clever boy. “That’s right, I am a crazy bitch,” I said, tightening my grip. “Maybe we should start over. My name’s October Daye. Does that ring any bells?”
Her eyes widened. “Uh . . .” she said, in a voice that was suddenly much softer, and almost devoid of an accent. “Daye? Like the fish lady?”
“Yes, very much like the ‘fish lady.’ Exactly like the ‘fish lady,’ actually. Do you know what happens when you mess with someone who’s known your boss as long as I have? I worked for him before you were born. Do you think he’ll like hearing how much trouble I had getting in?” She paled, trying to yank away. I almost felt sorry for her—almost—but when you’ve just been dragged back into fae politics against your will, been cursed, and lost a friend all in one night, “sorry” isn’t high on your list of priorities. “I don’t think you’d enjoy his reaction. What’s your name?”
“Dare, ma’am, my name’s Dare,” she said, stumbling over her own words. She looked like she’d just stepped outside to find Godzilla on the lawn. I wasn’t sure which worried me more—that I’d made her look that way, or that I was enjoying it.
“Well, Dare, I have an idea,” I said, and released her arm. She backed out of reach. “You go tell Devin that I’m here, and I’ll forget about this little chat. Do you like that idea?” She nodded rapidly. I smiled. “Good. Run along, then. Shoo.”
She turned and ran for the back of the room, leaving a trail of glitter in the air behind her. It dissolved as it drifted toward the ground. I raised my eyebrows. Pixie-sweat. Some of Devin’s new flunkies had one of the pixie breeds in the woodpile; that was interesting. The Small Folk don’t interbreed much with humans, and their blood tends to run thin when they do. When you combined that with the Tylwyth Teg blood indicated by their hair and eyes, well, somebody in the family tree sure got around.
I breathed in quickly, “tasting” the wake of her departure against the innate knowledge of the fae races that I inherited from my mother. She tasted of Piskie. That made more sense; they were size-changers, after all, as well as being natural thieves, which would naturally have drawn their descendants to a place like Devin’s.
The brother was watching me, expression caught somewhere between awe and terror. I quirked a brow. “Yes?”
He flinched. I found that strangely satisfying. I guess having people die doesn’t bring out the best in me. “You’re October Daye,” he said. His voice was more lightly accented than his sister’s, reinforcing the idea that she was exaggerating for effect.
“Yes,” I said, resisting the urge to add anything else. Considering the look he was giving me, he might turn and run. That would upset Devin, and I didn’t need Devin mad when I was already in his domain uninvited, looking for favors.
“You knew the Winterrose,” the boy said, in an almost mournful tone.
I paused, reappraising him. He was taller than I was, with that thin, lanky teenage build that always seems to fill out while you aren’t watching. Overall, he looked like a movie producer’s idea of a street thug—too clean, with unnaturally golden hair bundled into a rough ponytail and his too-green eyes softened by an almost puppy dog expression. Only the pointed ears broke the image, making it seem more like he’d escaped from a game of Dungeons & Dragons than from the set of the latest teen drama. I wouldn’t have put him at more than sixteen, maybe seventeen, if you stretched the truth and squinted. “What’s your name, kid?”
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