and the yard as the days lengthened, spitting into her Folgers can and occasionally nodding a counterpoint to the conversation in her head. Garnier, once his wife let him back in, would take care of the mowing and scare off any mortal nosing around in the evenings. The rent was paid automatically; there was enough for at least a year and a day in that account.
What else did he have to spend it on? Worse than dead leaves; at least the leaves had some value as they decayed to feed the next generation of trees.
Gallow left his mortal life locked and silent, and vanished.
MERCY IN HIS END
20
Tap, tap, who is home?” Drumming his fingertips on the thin door, as the trailer rocked slightly. It was much sturdier than it appeared, but he had laid some of the glamour and chantments here himself, and they obeyed his poking and prodding. “Who is that nibbling at my house?”
No answer. Puck twisted the knob, stepped into a hot bath of mortal illness and dim red light. Chemical stink filled his nose, and he stepped fastidiously around broken glass scattered on the floor.
“Only the wind, the child of heaven,” Goodfellow murmured, and stepped leaf-light and lively. A skip, a hop, and he was atop a laden table. Rinds of cheese, nutshells, takeout containers—free sidhe brughnies had brought the mortal pet enough to dine on and to spare, and much of it had gone to rot.
They lost appetite when Summer’s sickness was upon them.
The mortal curled on his narrow pallet, shirtless and frowsy-haired. His shoulder blades were tiny wings, the knobs of his spine almost piercing stretched-tight, yellowed skin. Hugging his knob-knees and muttering to himself, he rocked back and forth slightly, and his movement caused an echo in the trailer as well.
The branches and vines coaxed through the walls now exuded a sweet, drowsy resin—the mortal had lashed at the walls with something sharp, not caring where he cut, and it was the sapblood that flowed so steadily. Long strings and ribbons of amber festooned every corner, slowly thickening. Perhaps they would even reach the mortal’s bed, did he slumber overlong, and wrap him in a crystalline cocoon. The pungent analgesic would lull him, and he would not even feel the digesting juices.
Such was the revenge of free earth. Slow but steady, and turning all to advantage.
From his perch, Puck surveyed the ruin. The glass containers and the microscope the mortal was always muttering at were broken, scattered across the table. The privy stank, clogged with Stone alone knew what, and the strange spinning-machines the mortal used to “separate” fluids lay in twisted pieces still smoking from the fury that had crushed them. The glowing screens were all smashed, too.
Henzler’s soft mumbling stilled. So did his rocking motion. A rabbit, crouched in the snare.
“Hello, mortal.” Puck balanced on the table, his feet placed just so. Mortal filth disgusted him, and yet this particular sack of sweetsalt blood had been useful. Perhaps mercy could be granted here. A quick movement, a sigh, and this small pile of chantment and glamour could close about itself. Eventually, this entire decaying place could become free earth, with Goodfellow’s influence already at its core. They did not know how he spread his own borders, either of the so-lordly in either Court. Perhaps Unwinter suspected, for he was a canny beast.
Even the most fell of beasts died before a hunter with enough patience, though.
The cot creaked as Henzler moved, pushing himself up and turning slowly, swinging his legs off the bed. His bare feet were now horn-callused as a brughnie’s, though not nearly as charming or useful. Yellowed nails curled around the end of the knotted toes, weeping sores covered his stick-legs. His wide dark eyes, pupils swollen in the dimness, held the firefly-flickers of the moontouched. Were Summer to see her pet now, she would turn away in loathing.
Puck almost chuckled at the thought.
“Boy,” Henzler breathed. “Little boy.” He had clawed at his own cheeks, and Puck decided to be magnanimous.
“You have served well, mortal. I promised you a reward.”
Henzler waved one clawlike hand, half-moons of grime tipping each finger. “Where is she? Did she send word?”
Puck’s good temper frayed slightly. Asking for Summer, when the Fatherless was before him? Still, he had decided mercy would please him. So he rested one narrow brown hand on the hilt by his side, and smiled broadly. His ear-tips wiggled, twitching with pleasure that had nonetheless lost some of its luster.