Tithe A Modern Faerie Tale Page 0,65

was a pixie."

"You are a pixie."

"He was there that night—the one when you didn't know it was me—and when I left, he… met… Nephamael."

Roiben's eyebrows shot up at that.

"Corny was totally out of his head. Nephamael hurt him, and he… liked it. He wanted to go back."

"You left a friend—a mortal—under the hill… alone?" He sounded incredulous. "Are you completely heartless? You saw what you were leaving him to."

"You made me leave! I couldn't get back in. I tried."

"I thought we were going to be honest with one another. What manner of honesty is this?"

She felt completely miserable.

"Do you know who Nephamael is?"

She shook her head, dread creeping over limbs, making her feel heavy, making her want to sink to the floor. "He… he's the one that put the enchantment on me and who took it off."

"He was once the best knight in the Unseelie Court—that is, before he was sent to the Seelie Court as part of the price for a truce. He was sent there, and I was sent to Nicnevin."

Kaye just stood, stunned, thinking about the conversation she had overheard between Nicnevin and Nephamael. Why hadn't she deduced that? What other meaning could there have been? "So Nephamael still serves Nicnevin?"

"Perhaps. It seems more likely that he serves only himself. Kaye, do you know who concocted the plan to sabotage the Tithe?"

"You think it was Nephamael?"

"I don't know. Tell me, how did your friends become aware you were a pixie when not even the Queen of the Unseelie Court could see through your glamour?"

"The Thistlewitch said she remembered when I got switched."

"Now, how is it that they know Nephamael?"

"I don't know."

"We lack some piece of information, Kaye."

"Why would Nephamael want to make trouble for Nicnevin?"

"Perhaps he sought revenge for being sent away. I doubt he found the Seelie Court to his taste."

She shook her head. "I don't know. I have to get Corny."

"Kaye, if what you say is true, you know that he may well no longer be alive."

She took a sharp, shallow breath. "He's fine," she said.

Chapter 12

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"And for those masks who linger on

To feast at night upon the pure sea!"

—Arthur Rimbaud, "Does She Dance"

She'd only ever brought one other person to the Glass Swamp. The summer when she was nine and Janet had taken to constantly teasing her about her imaginary friends, Kaye had decided that she was going to prove they were real once and for all. Janet had stepped on a half moon of bottle glass, cutting through her sneaker and jabbing into her foot on the way to the swamp. They'd never even made it down the ridge.

It had not occurred to her until now to suspect that Lutie or Spike or even poor, dead Gristle had something to do with that.

Darting lights were easily visible from the street, and shouts carried through the still air. She couldn't hear the voices well enough to discern whether they were about to stumble down into a bunch of kids drinking beer or into something else.

Roiben was all in black—jeans and T-shirt and long coat that all must have been conjured up from moonbeams and cobwebs because she was sure they didn't come from any of the closets in her grandmother's house. He had pulled the top part of his hair back, but the shock of white somehow made him seem even more inhuman when he was dressed in modern clothes.

She wondered if she looked inhuman too. Was there something about her that warned people off? Kaye had always assumed that she was just weird, no more explanation necessary. Looking at him, she wondered.

He glanced toward her without turning his head and raised his eyebrows in a silent query.

"Just looking at you," she said.

"Looking at me?"

"I… I was wondering how you did that—the clothes."

"Oh." He looked down, as though he'd only then given a thought to what he was wearing. "It's glamour."

"So what are you really wearing?" The words left her mouth before she could consider them. She winced.

He didn't seem to mind; in fact, he flashed her one of his brief smiles. "And if I said nothing at all?"

"Then I would point out that sometimes, if you look at something out of the corner of your eye, you can see right through glamour," she returned.

That brought surprised laughter. "What a relief to us both then that I am actually wearing exactly what you saw me in this afternoon. Although one might point out that in that outfit, your last concern