The Poison Eaters and Other Stories (16 page)

And when she kissed their clean faces and bid them goodnight, she would call them Robert and Mary. Her lost children. The children that she had been enchanted to think they were.

Roiben did not remember pitying Clara then, although thinking back on it, he found her pitiable. He and Ethine were young and their love for her was too selfish to want anything more than to be loved best. They hated being called by another's name and pinched her in punishment or hid from her until she wept.

One day, Ethine said that she'd come up with a plan to make Clara forget all about Robert and Mary. Roiben gathered up the mushrooms, just as his sister told him.

He didn't know that what was wholesome to him might poison Clara.

They killed her, by accident, as easily as they had pulled the wings from the moth or stabbed the grasshopper. Eventually, their faerie mother came and laughed at their foolishness and staged a beautiful funeral. Ethine had woven garlands to hang around the neck of Clara's corpse and no one washed their cheeks, even when they got smeared with mud.

And although the funeral was amusing and their faerie mother an entertaining novelty, Roiben could not stop thinking of the way Clara had looked at him as she died. As if, perhaps, she had loved her monstrous faerie children after all, and in that moment, regretted it. It was a familiar look, one that he had long thought was love but now recognized as hatred.

Corny watched Val foam milk and wondered if he should go home. The crowd was starting to die down and they could probably close in an hour or two. He was almost exhausted enough to be able to crawl into bed and let his body's need for sleep overtake his mind's need to race around in helpless circles.

Then Corny looked up and saw Roiben on his feet, staring at some poor woman like he was going to rip off her head. Corny had no idea what the lady had said, but if the girl at the counter was any indication, it could have been pretty crazy. He left a customer trying to decide whether or not she really wanted an extra shot of elderflower syrup to rush across the coffee shop.

"Everything okay over here?” Corny asked. Roiben flinched, like he hadn't noticed Corny getting so close and had to restrain some violent impulse.

"This woman was telling a story about her ancestor,” Roiben said tightly, voice full of false pleasure. “A story that perhaps she read somewhere or which has been passed down through her family. About how a woman named Clarabelle was taken away by the faeries. I simply want to hear the whole thing."

Corny turned to the woman. “Okay, you two. Get out of here. Now.” He pushed her and her friend toward the door.

They went, pulling on their coats and looking back nervously, like they wanted to complain but didn't dare.

"As for you,” Corny said to Roiben, trying to keep from seeming as nervous as he now felt. His hands were sweating. “People are idiots. So she made up some ridiculous story? It doesn't matter. You don't need to do . . . whatever it is you're thinking of doing to her."

"No,” Roiben said and Corny cringed automatically.

"Please just let—” Corny started, but Roiben cut him off.

His voice was steely and his eyes looked like chips of ice. “Mortal, you are trying my patience. This is all
your
doing. Were I to merely turn my back, they would come for you, they would drag you through the skies and torment you until madness finally, mercifully robbed you of your senses."

"You're a real charmer,” Corny said, but his voice shook.

The door opened, bell ringing, and they both half-turned toward it.
He's looking for Kaye
, Corny thought. If she came through the door, she could charm Roiben into forgetting to be angry.

But it wasn't Kaye. Luis walked through the door with three college guys, backpacks and messenger bags slung over their shoulders. Luis took a quick look in Corny's direction, then walked to the table with them, dumped his bag.

"Come with me,” Roiben said quietly.

"Where are we going?” Corny asked.

"There are always consequences. It's time for you to face yours."

Corny nodded, helpless to do anything else. He took a deep breath and let himself be guided to the door.

"Leave him alone,” Luis said. Corny turned to find that Luis was holding Roiben's wrist. The welts in Luis's brown skin where the Night Court had ripped out his iron piercings, loop by loop, had healed to scars, but Luis's single cloudy eye, put out by a faerie because Luis had the Sight, would never get better.

Roiben raised one pale brow. He looked more amused than worried. Maybe he was angry enough to hope for an excuse to hurt someone.

"Don't worry about me,” Corny told Luis stiffly. “I'll be right back. Go back to your friends."

Luis frowned and Corny silently willed him to go away. There was no point in both of them getting in trouble.

"You're not getting him without a fight,” Luis said quietly.

"I mislike your tone,” said Roiben, pulling his wrist free with a sudden twist of his arm. “Cornelius and I have some things to discuss. It's naught to do with you."

Luis turned to Corny. “You told him about the ad? Are you an idiot?"

"He figured it out for himself,” Corny said.

"Is that all, Luis? Have we your permission to go outside?” Roiben asked.

"I'm going with you,” Luis said.

"No you're not.” Corny shoved at Luis’ shoulder, harder than he'd intended. “You're never around for anything else, why be around for this? Go back to your friends. Why don't you go study with them or whatever you do? Go back and admit you're sick of me already. I bet you never even told them you had a boyfriend."

Luis blanched.

"That's what I thought,” Corny said. “Just break up with me already."

"What's wrong with you?” asked Luis. “Are you really going to be pissed off at people who you've never met—just because I go to school with them? You hate them, that's why I don't tell them about you."

"I hate them because they're what you want me to be,” Corny said. “Nagging me to register for classes. Wanting me to stay clear of faeries even though my best friend is one. Wanting me to be someone I'm never going to be."

Luis looked shocked, like each word was a slap. “All I want is for you not to get yourself killed."

"I don't need your pity,” Corny said and pushed through the door, leaving Roiben to follow him. It felt good, the adrenaline rushing through his veins. It felt like setting the whole world on fire.

"Wait,” Luis called from behind him. “Don't go."

But it was too late to turn back. Corny walked out of the warm coffee shop, onto the sidewalk and then turned into the mouth of the dark, stinking alley that ran next to Moon in a Cup. He heard Roiben's relentless footsteps approaching.

Corny leaned his forehead against the cold brick wall and closed his eyes. “I really screwed that up, didn't I?"

"You said that you envied what you feared and hated what you envied.” Roiben rested his long fingers on Corny's shoulder. “But it is as easy to hate what you love as to hate what you fear."

Roiben leaned against the wall of the alley, unsure of what else to say. His own rage at himself and his memories had dulled in the face of Corny's obvious misery. He had already come up with a vague idea for a fitting punishment, but it seemed cruel to do it now. Of course, perhaps cruelty should be the point.

"I don't know what's wrong with me,” Corny said, head bent so that Roiben could see the nape of his neck, already covered in gooseflesh. Corny had left Moon in a Cup without his jacket and his thin T-shirt was no protection against the wind.

"You were only trying to keep him safe,” Roiben said. “I think even he knows it."

Corny shook his head. “No, I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to hurt him before he got a chance to hurt me. I'm ruining our relationship and I just don't know how to stop myself."

"I'm hardly the person to advise you,” Roiben said stiffly. “Recall Silarial. I have more than once mistaken hate for love. I have no wisdom here."

"Oh, come on,” Corny said. “You're my best friend's boyfriend. You must talk to her sometimes—you must talk to her like this."

"Not like this,” Roiben said, not without irony. But in truth the way that Corny was speaking felt dangerous, as though one's feelings might only continue to work if they remained undisturbed.

"Look, you seem grim and miserable most of the time, but I know you love her."

"Of course I love her,” Roiben snapped.

” How can you?” Corny asked. He took a deep breath and spoke again, so quickly that the words tumbled over one another. “How can you
trust
someone that much? I mean, she's just going to hurt you, right? What if someday she just stops liking you? What if she finds someone else—” Corny stopped abruptly, and Roiben realized he was frowning ominously. His fingers had dug into the pads of his own palms.

"Go on,” Roiben said, deliberately relaxing his body.

Corny ran a hand through his dyed black hair. “She's going to eventually get tired of putting up with you never being around when the important stuff is going on, never changing while she's figuring out her own life. Eventually, you'll just be a shadow."

Roiben found that he'd been clenching his jaw so tightly that his teeth ached. It was everything he was afraid of, laid before him like a feast of ashes.

"That's what I feel like I'm like. Going nowhere while Luis has gone from living on the street to some fancy university. He's going to be a doctor someday—a real one—and what am I going to be?"

Roiben nodded slowly. He'd forgotten they were talking about Corny and Luis.

"So how do you do it?” Corny demanded. “How do you love someone when you don't know if it's forever or not? When he might just leave you?"

"Kaye is the only thing that saves me from myself,” Roiben said.

Corny turned at that and narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?"

Roiben shook his head, unsure of how to express any of his tangled thoughts. “I hadn't recalled her in a long time—Clara. When I was a child, I had a human nurse enchanted to serve me. She couldn't love me.” Roiben hesitated. “She couldn't love me, because she had no choices. She wasn't free to love me. She never had a chance. I too have been enchanted to serve. I understand her better now."

He felt a familiar revulsion thinking of his past, thinking of captivity with Nicnevin, but he pushed past it to speak. “After all the humiliations I have suffered, all the things I have done for my mistresses at their commands, here I am in a dirty human restaurant, serving coffee to fools. For Kaye. Because I am free to. Because I think it would please her. Because I think it would make her laugh."

"It's definitely going to make her laugh,” Corny said.

"Thus I am saved from my own grim self,” Roiben said, shrugging his shoulders, a small smile lifting his mouth.

Corny laughed. “So you're saying the world is cold and bleak, but infinitesimally less bleak with Kaye around? Could you
be
any more depressing?"

Roiben tilted his head. “And yet, here you are, more miserable than I."

"Funny.” Corny made a face.

"Look, you can make someone appear to love you,” Roiben said as carefully as he had put the jagged piece of broken china on the counter. “By enchantment or more subtle cruelties. You could cripple him such that he would forget that he had other choices."

"That's not what I want,” Corny said.

Roiben smiled. “Are you sure?"

” Are
you
? Yes, I'm sure,” Corny said hotly. “I just don't want to keep anticipating the worst. If it's going to be over tomorrow, then let it be over right now so I can get on with the pain and disappointment."

"If there is nothing but this,” Roiben said. “If we are to be shadows, changeless and forgotten, we will have to dine on these memories for the rest of our days. Don't you want a few more moments to chew over?"

Corny shivered. “That's horrible. You're supposed to say that I'm wrong."

"I'm only repeating your words.” Roiben brushed silver hair back from his face.

"But you believe them,” said Corny. “You actually think that's what's going to happen with you and Kaye."

Roiben smiled gently. “And you're not the fatalist you pretend. What was it you said?
More afraid equals more of a jerk
. You're afraid, nothing more."

Corny snorted a little when Roiben said
jerk
.

” Yeah, I guess,” he said, looking down at the asphalt and the strewn garbage. “But I can't
stop
being afraid."

"Perhaps, then, you could address the jerk part,” Roiben said. “Or perhaps you could tell Luis, so he could at least try to reassure you."

Corny tilted his head, as if he was seeing Roiben for the first time. “You're afraid, too."

"Am I?” Roiben asked, but there was something in Cornelius's face that he found unnerving. He wondered what Corny thought he was looking at.

"I bet you're afraid you'll start hoping, despite your best intentions,” Corny said. “You're okay with doom and gloom, but I bet it's really scary to think things might work out. I bet it's fucking terrifying to think she might love you the way you love her."

"Mayhaps.” Roiben tried not to let anything show on his face. “Either way, before we go back inside I have a geas to place on you. Something to remind you of why you ought keep secrets secret."

"Oh come on,” said Corny with a groan. “What about our meaningful talk? Aren't we friends now? Don't we get to do each other's nails and overlook each other's small, amusing betrayals?"

Roiben reached out one cold hand. “Afraid not."

Kaye was sitting on the counter of Moon in a Cup, looking annoyed, when Corny and Roiben walked back through the doors. Catching sight of them, her expression went slack with astonishment.

Luis, beside her, choked on a mouthful of hot chocolate and needed to be slapped several times on the back by Val before he recovered himself.

Cornelius's punishment was simple. Roiben had glamoured him to have small bone-pale horns jutting from his temples and had given his skin a light blue sheen. His ears tapered to delicate points. The glamour would last a single month—from one fat, full moon to the next. And when he made coffee, he would have to face all those hopeful faerie seekers.