Tithe A Modern Faerie Tale Page 0,60

from me."

Kaye felt her face flood with heat. She just nodded.

"The question, of course, is whether you aided me in the forest for the reward of my name."

She stammered, the queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach intensifying. If that was what he thought, no wonder he was furious.

"There was no way I could have known what you were going to offer me. I just wanted to piss you off in the diner… and… I knew faeries don't like to give out their real names."

"One day, someone is going to cut that clever tongue of yours right out of your head," he said.

She bit her lower lip, worrying it against her teeth as he spoke. What had she expected—a declaration of love because of one halfhearted kiss?

Kaye looked at the steaming cup in front of her. She was sure that if she took a sip of that coffee, she would throw it up.

She needed a cigarette. Ellen's jacket was draped over the back of the chair, and she fumbled through it for a cigarette and a lighter. Lighting it despite Roiben's look of surprise, she took a deep drag.

The smoke burned her lungs like fire. She found herself on her knees on the linoleum floor, choking, the cigarette burning the plastic tile where it had fallen.

Roiben put the cigarette out with a twist of his boot and leaned forward. "What were you doing?"

"I smoke," she said, sitting on the floor. Eyes already watery from coughing could no longer hold back tears. It seemed stupid that this was the thing that would set her off, but she sobbed, feeling more like puking with nothing in her stomach than any crying she'd done.

"They're poison," he said incredulously. "Even Ironsiders die from those."

"I know." She pressed her face against her knees, wiping her cheeks against the faerie gown, wishing she'd let him leave when he'd wanted to.

"You're tired," he said with a long sigh that might have been annoyance. "Where do you sleep? You might consider glamouring yourself as well." His face was impassive, emotionless.

She smeared the tears on her cheeks and nodded. "Are you tired?"

"Exhausted." He didn't exactly smile, but his face relaxed a little.

They went up the stairs quietly. Her new senses were distracting. She could hear the whistling snore of her mother and the lighter, muffled breaths of her grandmother. Up the stairs, she could smell the woodchips and excrement of her rats, smell the chemical soaps and sprays in the bathroom, could even smell the heavy coating of oily dust that covered most surfaces. Somehow, each odor was more vivid and distinct than she could remember it being.

Ignore it, she told herself; things had been the same way the last time she had the heavy glamour removed. Just a perk to make up for the fact she couldn't touch half the metal things in the house and one drag on a cigarette could make her almost pass out.

They went into her bedroom and she turned the old-fashioned key to lock the door. There was no way she was going to be able to explain Roiben to her grandmother, glamour or no.

"Well, I saw your room," she said. "Now you get to see mine."

He waded through the mess to sit on the mattress on the floor. She dug through the garbage bags and found a musty green comforter riddled with cigarette burns for herself. The pink one she usually slept with was already piled on the mattress, and she hoped that it didn't smell too much like her sweat.

Roiben pulled off his boots, looking around the room. She watched his eyes settle first on the rat cage, then on the drifts of clothing, books, and magazines lining the floor.

"Kind of a dump, I guess." She sat down on the boxspring that still graced the frame of the white bed.

She watched him, stretching out on her mattress, fascinated by the way the compact muscles moved beneath his skin. He looked dangerous, even tired and bandaged and wrapped in her pink comforter.

"What did you do with her?" He looked up through silver lashes of heavy-lidded eyes.

"What?"

"The girl this room really belongs to—what did you do with her?"

"Fuck you," she said, so angry that for a minute she didn't even care that she was supposed to be convincing him how sorry she was.

"Did you think I would credit the tears of a pixie?" he asked, turning so that his face was hidden from her.

Unspoken slurs hung on her tongue like thistles, hurting