Rosemary and Rue Part 6

Devin leaned forward, putting his hands on the desk. "She was worse when she got here. The kid couldn't say two civil words to anyone, and now, well, she's just a little mouthy. She's a handful, but she does her share. They all do."

"There are always more kids, aren't there?" I said, looking at the wall behind his desk. He kept a giant bulletin board there, plastered with snapshots of every lost boy or girl that had ever come Home. I was in there somewhere, just another gawky teenager with badly cut hair, a bad att.i.tude, and no common sense to speak of. It was comforting to realize that no matter what happened to me, my picture would always be buried in the collage behind Devin's desk.

"Yes," he said, voice softening. "There are always more kids." How many had he seen die, or vanish, or just fade away? I left Home for Sylvester's Court, thinking it was better: Devin lost me, but at least he knew where I'd gone. How many of his kids just left and never came back at all?

And at the same time, how many of his kids did he bury in unmarked graves after the night-haunts had been and gone? So many changelings are like me, the stolen survivors of supposed childhood deaths. No one would miss them. No one would go looking. If I called one of the Courts in the Kingdom of Angels, and asked about a changeling Silene named John or a half Gremlin called Little Mike, would anyone know who I was talking about? I knew what Devin was. I'd always known. I needed to make sure I didn't forget it.

I knotted my fingers in my skirt, trying to banish that line of thought. This wasn't the time to dwell on it. Later. I could cry about it later, when Devin wouldn't see me. "We should probably get around to business. I'm sure you have other people that you need to see."

"What do you need?" he asked. I looked up, startled. He wasn't planning to barter: he was just going to give me whatever I asked for. That was what coming back from the dead had earned me. I'd belonged to him, and he'd given up on me, and then I came back to him-how could he refuse me?

It took me a moment to get my bearings. Finally, I said, "I need to know who killed Evening."

"Why?"

"So I can return the favor."

"If I knew who killed her, I'd kill them myself."

"It's not your job, Devin."

"So what makes it yours?"

I took a deep breath, and felt phantom thorns sc.r.a.pe against my skin. "Evening called me before she died. She knew what was coming; she knew they were coming to kill her."

He froze, flower-petal eyes narrowing. "She knew?"

"Yeah, she knew. I don't know why she didn't run."

"Maybe she didn't have time . . ." he said. "Did she tell you who she thought was coming for her? Or why they were coming?"

"No. If she knew, she didn't tell me. But she hired me to find them." It was technically the truth. He didn't need to know that she'd bound me, or how tightly the binding held. No one needed to know. "I'm on a case, Devin, and I can't quit when the person that hired me is dead."

"You can't get paid, either."

"I don't care." Money wasn't the issue anymore; survival was. "She was my friend, and I'm going to do this for her."

"Are you intending to follow her?" His tone was cold.

Fine: if that was how he wanted to play, that was how we'd play. It was his call. Manuel hadn't known the details, and I was betting Devin didn't know them either. "No," I said, curtly. "If I wanted to die, I wouldn't commit suicide by handing myself over to anyone that would slit a woman's throat with an iron blade."

Devin hesitated. "What?"

"Iron." It took a lot of effort to keep my tone level. "They shot her so she wouldn't run, and then they slit her throat." I swallowed the sudden taste of roses, forcing back the sensory memories of Evening's death. Ah, the glorious aftereffects of blood magic.

"How do you know . . ."

"I'm Amandine's daughter, remember?" I waved a hand, not needing to feign the irony in my voice as I said, "Just doing what comes naturally."

"Then you know who killed her," he said, leaning back in his seat.

"No, I don't. They hid it from me somehow, and I need to know. I'm not as familiar with this world as I used to be. It's been too long, and I need help."

"So why are you here? Why aren't you at the Queen's Court, going through all your precious pureblood contacts?" His voice was bitter. I frowned. He didn't approve when I "moved uptown," but this seemed more raw than it should have been. I'd left a long time ago. How long was he planning to resent me for it?

"I went to the Queen before I came here," I said, and held up a fold of water-stained silk, shaking it for emphasis. "Where did you think I got this fabulous dress? It used to be my second-best jeans. I had to announce the death."

"And you came here anyway? What, are you hedging your bets now?"

"No. She refused to help me." Devin frowned, motioning for me to continue. I sighed. "She threw me out, Devin. She wouldn't even let me tell her how Evening died."

"She threw you out? What did you say?"

"Just that Evening was gone. I recited the proper death announcements and everything-I didn't miss a step, but she flipped out." My frustration was spilling over into my voice. "I don't know what's going on there. Her reaction wasn't entirely sane."

"Do you think she did it?"

I paused, considering this for a long moment before I said, "No. It's not like I could touch her if she had, and she freaked out way too much for it to be purely guilt. It could have been someone close to her, I guess, but I don't think so. I think she's just . . . I think there's something wrong with her."

"So there's no help from that quarter. Where else can you go?"

"Shadowed Hills. I can beg Sylvester-but you know he hasn't got any real power in this city." I was b.u.t.tering him up. He probably knew it, and I didn't care. If putting Sylvester down made him more likely to help me, I'd do it. I'd hate it, but I'd do it.

He sagged in his chair, shaking his head. "You need my help."

"Yes. I need your help. There isn't anyone else."

"I can't give you this one for free, Toby. If there's someone out there that's desperate enough to use iron . . ."

"I never asked for a freebie, remember? You offered." So he was taking it back? Somehow, I wasn't surprised. This was more than a favor to a friend: this was a matter of life or death-most likely death-and that sort of thing is too expensive to just give away.

"It'll cost you."

"I can pay."

He looked at me steadily. I looked back, starting to realize just how much of a difference the last fourteen years had made in him. You can only fight the good fight for so long. Devin gave up a long time ago. "Are you sure?" he said. For a moment, I couldn't find an answer.

Then I remembered Evening sprawled on the floor of her apartment, with a second mouth where her throat should have been. "I'm sure."

After a pause that felt longer than those missing years, he nodded. "Done. I'll send some kids to your place in the morning to check in and make sure you remember your part in the deal."

Oh, I remembered. How could I ever forget? I'd dealt with this devil before; he had my signature under lock and key in his personal files. I didn't sign in blood-he would never have been so gauche-but he trusted the power of my given word to bind me. He trusted, and he was right. I'd pay for any information he brought me, I'd pay for anything his kids did for me, and if he helped me find what I was looking for, I'd pay double. He liked me. I knew enough about what happened to people he didn't like when their bills came due to hope he'd never stop liking me.

"Tomorrow morning doesn't work," I said. "I have to go to Shadowed Hills and talk to Sylvester. Tomorrow night's the soonest I'll be ready for them."

"At least let me have someone escort you home."

I rubbed my forehead with one hand. "Devin, I'm exhausted, and exhausted means I can't deal with your kids right now. I need to get some sleep, or I'm not even going to be able to handle Sylvester."

"If he has no power, why are you going to see him?"

"Because," I replied, looking down at my silk-clad legs so that I wouldn't have to see his expression. "He's still my liege, and I'm embarking on a murder investigation. I don't have to ask for his help, but I have to tell him before I endanger myself."

I could feel Devin watching me. "You can break your fealty. He's done you no favors."

"Please. Don't ask me for that." I glanced up again. "Not yet." Oath breaking is almost expected from a changeling. That's why I've never done it. Sylvester would release me if I asked him, and I never will, because it would just prove all the things that have ever been said about my kind. I might regret my promises, but I keep them.

Devin looked at me for a moment, expression flat, before he sighed. "Have it your way-I know better than to argue with you." He opened the top drawer of his desk, pulling out something the size of a deck of cards and shoving it toward me. "Take this."

"What is it?" I asked, picking it up.

"Cell phone. I keep spares on hand for just this sort of thing." Devin's nod was small, but satisfied. Purebloods respond to change slowly, if at all. Flexibility and adaptation were changeling traits. If he still had them, he was doing just fine.

After the night I'd had, I would have said there was nothing left that could shake me. I definitely wouldn't have placed my bets on a little plastic box that weighed no more than a few ounces, keys hidden by a flip-down front that made it look like something out of Star Trek Star Trek. Suddenly numb, I lifted my head and stared at Devin.

Fourteen years is no time at all in Faerie. It's the blink of an eye, it's the turning of a single tide. There have been b.a.l.l.s that lasted longer than that, waltzes and banquets that stretched on for decades. The mortal world, though . . . the mortal world doesn't work that way. The phone I used to talk to Cliff for the last time before I vanished weighed almost a pound. It was ugly and clunky and almost impossible to lose. This was a sleek, streamlined accessory, the sort of thing every person on the street would carry. It was the future, condensed into something solid. I'd been able to handle it when it was just the humans carrying the things; I could pretend that Faerie, at least, had stayed the same. But it hadn't. Nothing had.

Devin saw the confusion in my eyes, because he smiled a small, hurtful smile, saying, "It wouldn't have happened if you'd stayed here," before he turned to press the b.u.t.ton for the intercom. The equivalent b.u.t.ton in the main room was set in the wall, under gla.s.s. I'd only seen the intercom from the main room used twice. Once it was a prank, and the kid that did it wound up beaten within an inch of his life by half a dozen of the bigger kids. The other time it was because Julie had been hurt so badly that we didn't know how to put her together again, and even then we hesitated, afraid of the consequences. No one bothered Devin without good reason.

"Dare, I need you to come back here and escort Ms. Daye to her car. Now," he said. If Dare was in the bar, she'd come. If she wasn't, someone else would come in her place, and she'd be in a world of trouble.

Lucky for her, she hadn't stepped out for a cigarette. The door opened a few minutes later, revealing a very nervous Dare and her slightly more relaxed older brother. Neither looked happy. That was my fault, but I was still too stunned to really care. I hadn't known what Evening had meant to these people. I would never have guessed-I would never even have dreamed-and I should have known. What happened to the world while I was gone? How much needed to change before the most arrogant pureblood I'd ever known could come to a place like Home and earn that much respect?

"Sir," said Dare, bending in what looked like a six-year-old's approximation of a curtsy, "you need me to take Ms. Daye to her car?" Her accent was substantially lighter when she was speaking to Devin. The bruise on her cheek was flowering now, turning purple and gold.

Devin narrowed his eyes. I used to try guessing how much of The Look was real and how much was an act before I realized it wasn't important. It worked. That was what mattered. Devin might lie to you, but he always got results. "That was why I called you, Dare. You can hear, can't you?"

She cringed. Manuel turned to me, pleading with his eyes. I just shrugged. Devin used the same look and the same lines on me, once; I wasn't foolish enough to try undermining his authority with someone who still believed they meant something. Dare gave him all the power he had over her. Once she grew up enough to figure out that Devin could only control her as long as she let him, she'd be fine, and if she never grew up that much, she belonged at Home, where someone else would take care of the real world and she could take care of the ch.o.r.es.

"Yes, sir," Dare said, straightening. "I can hear, sir. I'll take her to her car right away, it's just outside, and then I'll come back and wait, just like I'm supposed to."

Devin settled back in his chair with a nod. I'd have been scared of him if I hadn't known him so well-and knowing him like I did, I was terrified. He was putting on this little show for my benefit, reminding me that he was in charge and his word was law. He was always putting on the show for someone's benefit, even when no one else was there. Playing mind games with Devin was like playing with dynamite: someone always got hurt in the end. I was hoping like h.e.l.l that it wouldn't be me.

"Good girl, Dare," he said. She preened under the praise. I think all kids are hungry for a kind word, not just the lost ones that wind up drifting into places like Home. They all react the same way when they're given the validation they need, locking fear and love together so tightly that they never even notice the moment when they grow up.

Dare turned to me, apple-green eyes wide, and said, "I'll show you to your car now, Ms. Daye. You'll follow me?" Manuel watched from behind her. It was hard to face both sets of eyes at once: the color was too bright, too needy.

"Yeah," I said finally, giving in to the unspoken plea in Manuel's eyes. "I'll follow you."

She smiled-the first honest expression I'd seen on her face-and led me away. I could hear Devin making a soft, almost smothered sound as the door swung shut behind us, but I couldn't tell whether he was laughing or crying. For all I knew, all I still know, he may have been doing both.

EIGHT.

THE REST OF DEVIN'S KIDS WERE still at the front of the bar. They watched warily as Dare and Manuel escorted me out. I didn't say anything, and neither did they; we didn't have anything to say. I'd been in their position, and I'd gotten out. From my perspective, they were being used, and from their perspective, I was just a sellout. I think we were all glad when I got into my car and pulled away, leaving Home, and the two golden-haired figures on the curb, to dwindle in the distance. Maybe there's something to Devin's little sign after all: every time I think I'm free of that place, it finds a way to pull me back in.

The sky was still dark; dawn was hours away. I'd been awake less than half the night, and I was so tired I could barely see straight. Multiple confusion spells, a major act of blood magic, an encounter with an angry monarch, and a trip Home all inside of six hours will do that to me.

Once I was far enough from Home to feel like I could stop the car without Devin's kids coming knocking at the window, I pulled over to the side of the road and threw the cell phone onto the pa.s.senger seat. It landed without a sound. Putting my forehead down against the wheel, I closed my eyes. I only needed a few seconds. Just long enough for me to collect my thoughts and swallow the taste of roses before it could rise up and overwhelm me. Then I could start moving again.

Something knocked on the window.

I raised my head. Either the fog had rolled in with phenomenal speed or there was something strange going on; the world outside the windshield was solid gray, making it an interesting but useless watercolor study. The knocking came again as I scanned for signs of movement. This time it was coming from the back of the car. I whipped around, catching a blurred glimpse of something roughly the size of my cats before it vanished again. Great. I was cold, exhausted, and cursed, and now I was being hara.s.sed by something that moved too fast to see. That's always how I like to spend my time.

Moving slowly to keep from startling whatever it was, I opened the door and slid out of the car. Almost immediately, I wished the queen hadn't seen fit to turn my coat into a thin silk ball gown, and that I hadn't abandoned the habit of keeping an emergency change of clothes in the trunk when I decided to retire from my previous line of work. Shivering, I scanned the area. There was no one there. The dim streetlights barely made a dent in the fog.

"h.e.l.lo?" The air caught my voice, echoing it back to me. That was strange. Most street corners don't have the sort of acoustics that echo. "h.e.l.lo?" I called again. The echo was stronger this time-something was bouncing my voice back at me. Oh, that was so so not what I needed. The mist was too thick to be natural. A lot of Faerie's creatures of the night have started taking their special-effects tips from horror movies during the last few decades, and that meant I could be dealing with something nasty. not what I needed. The mist was too thick to be natural. A lot of Faerie's creatures of the night have started taking their special-effects tips from horror movies during the last few decades, and that meant I could be dealing with something nasty.

Of course, it could also be something that just really liked fog. Either way, it wasn't the only one that could use the stuff. Reaching out with both hands, I dug my fingers into the gray, pulling it toward me. I've never been good at shadow-weaving or fire-work, but give me a thick veil of water vapor and I can manage the basics. This time my aim was clarity: water's excellent for scrying, and fog is just water that's forgotten its beginnings.

My head started to pound as I yanked, gathering fog between my hands until I had a sphere the size of a basketball. That was a good sign. If my headache was getting worse, the spell was probably working. I pressed the sphere into a disk, muttering, "Please do not adjust the horizontal. Please do not adjust the vertical. We have control of what you see ..." The air on the other side of my captive fog began to clear, until I was holding what had effectively become a portable window through the gray. My headache flared before dimming to a slow, grinding ache. It wasn't comfortable, but I'd had worse. I could deal.

Holding the disk at arm's length, I began turning in a slow circle. I spotted my quarry on the second turn: a creature the size and shape of a small cat crouching on the roof of my car, covered in short, soft-looking pink and gray thorns. Shorter thorns ran down its ears and muzzle, making it look like the b.a.s.t.a.r.d child of a house-cat and a rosebush. It looked small, harmless, and completely out of place. Rose goblin. Not one of Faerie's bigger or badder inhabitants. You don't usually see them in an urban setting.

It rattled its thorns as it saw me looking at it, and it whined in the back of its throat; a grating, almost subsonic sound. The fog swirling around it smelled like dust and cobwebs. That was another oddity. Rose goblins normally smell like peat moss and roses, and while they have a few parlor tricks, fog-throwing isn't one of them. Whatever spell had created this fog was attached to the goblin, but the goblin wasn't casting it.

"What are you you doing here?" I asked, trying to keep my voice level and soothing. Someone must have wrapped this goblin in magical fog and sent it after me, and that meant whoever it was, they were either clever enough to bind the goblin into following through or really desperate. Rose goblins don't make good messengers for anyone who doesn't have a solid way of controlling them. They're about as intelligent as the cats that they resemble, but they're related to the Dry ads, and they share the Dryad flightiness. If you send a rose goblin on an errand, you'd better have something following to make sure it remembers to come doing here?" I asked, trying to keep my voice level and soothing. Someone must have wrapped this goblin in magical fog and sent it after me, and that meant whoever it was, they were either clever enough to bind the goblin into following through or really desperate. Rose goblins don't make good messengers for anyone who doesn't have a solid way of controlling them. They're about as intelligent as the cats that they resemble, but they're related to the Dry ads, and they share the Dryad flightiness. If you send a rose goblin on an errand, you'd better have something following to make sure it remembers to come back back.

"Hey, little guy," I said, letting go of the disk of fog and stepping toward the car. The goblin wouldn't be able to disappear as long as I didn't take my eyes off it. Rose goblins are purebloods, but they're not strong ones, and even a changeling has a good chance of keeping hold of them. It whined again, flattening itself against my car until it was basically a doormat made of spines. I stopped, raising my hands. "I won't hurt you. I'm a friend of Luna's. You know Luna, don't you? Of course you know Luna, all the roses know her . . ."

The rose goblin stopped whining, watching me with wide, gleaming eyes. Good. Some flower spirits are more closely tied to their origins than others, and rose goblins tend to cling to the plants that birth them. I meant what I said: I've never met a rose that didn't know Luna Torquill. Being a legend to the flowers must be interesting. It certainly keeps her busy during pruning season. I took another step forward. "Are you okay?"

The goblin sat up, whining in the back of its throat again. Rose goblins can't talk. That makes getting information out of them an adventure all its own.

"You don't look hurt." I leaned forward, offering my hand. The whining stopped, replaced by something like a purr as it arched its back against my fingers. Rose goblins are built like porcupines-if you rub them the right way, you don't have to worry about the spines. They're sort of like people in that regard, too. "Aren't you a friendly little guy?" It was kind of cute, really.

Opening its mouth, it displayed a fine set of needle-sharp teeth. "Nice." It hissed. "Not so nice. What's up?" It crouched away from my hand, rattling its spines, and arched its neck. Something red was wound around its throat. "Hey-what've you got there?"

Purring again, it tilted its head to show me the red velvet ribbon tied around its neck. Something silver was hanging from it. I reached down and twisted the ribbon carefully free, slipping it over the rose goblin's head. The goblin stayed still, purring encouragingly the whole time, but even with this token a.s.sistance I p.r.i.c.ked myself five times before I pulled away, clutching the ribbon in my hand.

I knew the key before I saw it: my hand remembered the weight of it, even though I'd never held it before. The image of a sprite with wings like autumn leaves darting out of Evening's window, paid for its service in blood, flashed across my mind. I hadn't been there, but I remembered. Blood has power in Faerie, and that power is greater when the blood is given freely. Only the Daoine Sidhe can ride its memories, but other races can use it in other ways-everyone needs a little bit of death. That sprite would have been able to mimic Evening's magic for at least a night, and maybe longer. Long enough to make some smaller bargains of its own.

Faerie's smaller citizens have their own culture and their own customs. Most of us are almost human one way or another: almost human-sized and almost human-minded. The smaller folks never acquired that "almost" and they scorn and resent the rest of us for having it. They don't wear suits, get mortgages, or attend PTA meetings. They haunt the garden pathways, living in the s.p.a.ce between what the eye sees and what it chooses to ignore, and they never pretend to be anything that they aren't. I guess that makes it harder to forget what they really are, and what they are is inhuman . . . and greedy. I had no trouble believing that the sprite Evening paid would have commandeered a goblin to finish the deal without endangering itself.

The rose goblin started grooming itself as I pulled my hand away, washing the s.p.a.ce between its front claws like a cat. I spent a moment watching it before looking down at the key. It was carved silver, covered in so many rings of ivy and roses that it was barely recognizable as a key, but it knew its nature: it knew what it was meant to do. The roses on the shaft never neared the teeth. They wouldn't interfere. It was warm and heavy in my palm, and it gave off a pale light that colored the mist around it. I got the feeling that there were very few doors it couldn't open. I just hoped it could handle the ones ahead.

The taste of roses was suddenly cloying on my tongue, surging back in tandem with the p.r.i.c.kle of phantom thorns. If logic hadn't already told me the key was important, the sudden strength of Evening's curse would have. It was a clue, and her final gift to me. She gave me a job to do, one that might still involve the dubious privilege of dying in her service. She might also have given me the key to my own salvation.

"So where do we go now?" I asked, looking back to the car.

The rose goblin was gone, and the fog it brought with it was already thinning. I bit back a curse and bit my tongue at the same time, hissing to keep myself from shouting. The goblin was my one potential link to the lock that fit the key, and I'd been dumb enough to take my eyes off it. It was probably gone the second I looked away. Just great. Leaning against the car, I closed my eyes. The metal was freezing on my back and shoulders, but at least it stood a shot at easing my headache. I hoped so, anyway.