would’ve,” he muttered as he twisted the knob. It was never locked. Without Daisy here, there was no reason. He couldn’t have cared less if someone stole anything inside; her few bits of jewelry were under a chantment and safe enough. “If she’d wanted one.”
The living room looked like a tornado had hit it. Clothes, fast-food wrappers, the television with its big blank hole in the screen—his fist still smarted a little, remembering that night. It had made him stop bringing hard liquor home.
A low glow came from the kitchen—they always left that light under the cupboards on, since Daisy was so frightened of the dark. He never turned it off now; it was the only thing that greeted him. The whole place smelled dusty, sour, like nobody in here breathed the air.
Like an open grave.
He slapped the quirpiece down on the counter next to a stack of plates slowly congealing together. He’d long since stopped washing them, only occasionally rinsing off a spoon if he needed it.
The fridge was bare and white inside. Not even a bottle of beer. He’d found out the milk was turned this morning, and revulsion crested inside him again as he thought of it.
Milk turned. Means the sidhe’ve been around. Or just that I left it in there for a month.
He swung the fridge door closed. Stood in the half-dark, emptiness pressing against him from every side. It was a struggle not to find something to break before he trudged back to the bedroom, his shoulders aching and the rest of him shaking with tired rage.
FOR THAT WHICH MATTERS
12
She spread her fingers against the skinny, age-blackened door. A slight tingle against her palm told her he was home, and she pushed just a little. The wood flexed, trembling, and she stepped through it like the curtain of seeming it was.
“Stone! What are you doing here?” He looked stretched, with a wight’s long fingers and lean hungry face; no matter how much he ate, Parsifleur Pidge would never fatten. His skin was old bark, complete with moss in the crags, and his hole was dank and stuffed with odds and ends.
“I wish to leave an item in your care.” Robin didn’t dare give him more. Confusion would help her here.
She dug in her pocket, ignoring Parsifleur’s cry of dismay.
The glass ampoules were there, a quick sparkle against her fingers. The amber fluid inside them coruscated, and she glanced at the Twisted woodwight, who was rubbing his twiglike hands together. Outside his hole, there was a rumble—the subway, a giant dozing worm-beast who occasionally dreamed.
Parsifleur’s blue-sheened eyes were wide and wet, and the bright rags hanging on his wasted frame quivered. It could be that her visit made him concerned.
Or it could be something else.
“You may cripple over the border and take these to Summer Herself for a reward, Pars.” The smile skinning her lips back wasn’t nice, but it was certainly gleeful. “Aren’t you happy about that?”
“Don’t want to. Don’t want you here. Go away.” He was actually wringing his hands, and Robin’s skin rippled into gooseflesh.
She did not feel the cold, much—no Half did short of deep-ice or a steppe’s keening, once they had breached Summer or Unwinter’s borders or discovered the warming breath. So it was something else, and Robin stilled. The music under her thoughts did not dim, but it took on a sonorous quality she did not quite like. While she watched Parsifleur’s uneasy fidgets, the feeling grew worse.
“Please,” the Twisted sidhe half moaned. “Don’t stay. Always trouble following on your wings, and warrior I am not.”
“I return so often because you’re trustworthy, Pidgins.” But you may not be. “Keep this for me, and it shall be good night, Stone bless, and good riddance.”
“I’ll not!” His skin creaked, moss shivering free as he lunged. He spread himself against the door, skinny arms wide and thin legs braced. “Go. Flee. Not this way. Other way.”
Right into the arms of whoever visited thee before me, Parsifleur? She shook her head, a single curl falling in her face and tossed away by the motion. The small package burned against her fingers. “Now, why would I wish to go into the dark, Pidgie?”
For the other road from his hole was into the subway’s maze. The cold iron there was perhaps why he had twisted as he had, but she did not care enough to barter for such information. It was enough that he couldn’t use chantment against her, being Twisted, and besides, she often brought