the sudden sense that he wasn’t alone filling his head with tingling danger-heat.
He sat up in one motion, the lance sending jabbing warnings up his arms. The bedroom was deserted, as always, but there was…
He sniffed, cautiously. Recognized the salt and crisp goodness.
Bacon? And a woman’s voice, speaking softly. A crackling.
Jeremiah shut his eyes. Rubbed at his face again. He didn’t dare to think her name.
He stepped blindly into his boots, stood up from the frowsy bed and its yellowed sheets, moved down the short hall floored with cheap nylon carpet. Daisy’s sewing room opened off to the side; she’d sometimes talked about what would happen if she caught pregnant. They would turn the sewing room into a nursery, blue for a boy or pink for a girl. He would train the child to be free sidhe—though he never told his wife so—and she would quit her job at the restaurant; he’d go for management so she could stay home or just simply glamour what they needed. He might even tell her, after a while, what he was.
The living room was full of sunlight, too. The French door to the back was wide open, the clawed and broken screen pulled to. The smell of a hot griddle rode the golden air.
The living room was still a mess of trash bags and dirty clothes, but she was down on her knees, the blue dress pooling on harsh orange-patterned nylon. Slim, delicate fingers patted at the hole in the television’s face, and her hair was a glory of reddish curls. Her soft speech sharpened a little; cracks and slivers of glass eased together seamlessly.
It was no mortal tongue. Pure sidhe, the Old Language falling from her mouth like rain. Chantment.
Other glass slivers hopped up, melding themselves into the hole. It shrank, a reversal of anger, and she kept patting as if the television were a small shivering animal needing to be soothed. Her shoulders were pale flawless cream, and the coffeemaker clicked on in the kitchen. It began to gurgle and sigh, providing a counterpoint to her soft melody.
His mouth was dry.
The last sliver of glass hopped obediently from under the couch. How had it gotten there, of all places? It whooshed across the room like a dart, and she smoothed it in. Then she ran her palms down the huge, ancient television’s curved face, stroking. The almost-smoky fragrance of sidhe magic blended with the sudden good smell of coffee and the outright-luscious reek of bacon, and the glass screen flickered once. A moonlit flash, and she peeled her hands away with a half-pained flick of those long, pretty fingers. Unpainted nails, soft skin, and as she glanced toward the kitchen those reddish curls bounced and slid.
She rose, and the blue dress fell. Barefoot, her calves shaped like a dancer’s. Muscle moved smoothly under that satin skin as she reached the kitchen, and Jeremiah made a sound deep in his throat.
He couldn’t help himself.
“You’re up.” A husky contralto, not Daisy’s sweet cracked soprano. The coffeemaker gurgled afresh, in counterpoint. “I thought you’d sleep later. But the salt pork must have called you.”
He picked his way across the living room. She moved in the kitchen, and there was a hiss of something hitting the griddle. Dishes dried on a rack next to the sink, and the stove was scrubbed gleaming-clean, as if Daisy had just stepped away.
The sidhe—she had to be mortal-Tainted, like Jeremiah himself—picked up Daisy’s plastic turner, the exact one she always used for pancakes. Her slim shoulders were stiff, as if she expected him to shout. Her free hand, resting on the pale blue counter, curled into a half-fist.
He found words, finally. “Who. The hell.”
“Robin.” She half-glanced over her shoulder. A slice of pale perfect cheek, a glimpse of her aristocratic nose. A dimple, just as quickly lost as she turned back to the griddle. It was a huge, balky electrical thing, easily older than Daisy. “Robin Ragged, if you’re feeling formal.”
The kitchen window let in a hot bar of spring sunshine. It burnished her naked shoulder, and Jeremiah’s throat was dry as the Mojave. In this light, no mortal-Tainted glamour would hold up completely. He would see her face when she turned to him. Leaden, he waited.
“I thought this was the least I could do.” She flipped the pancakes expertly. Reached up and opened the cupboard for a flowered plate. She’d washed dishes, too; not a single dirty one remained. The coffeemaker kept gurgling. “He almost had me, last