stepping through into dim electric light and close, sweating mortal warmth.
“Who’s there?” A pale, fretful voice.
“It’s Ragged,” she answered, gently enough. “You sent word.”
All the internal walls had been taken out. Sidhe chantments had coaxed roots to support the place; it was far more solid than it looked. At one end there was a camp bed with sweat-yellowed sheets, an ancient radio tinkling away with mortal music, and a chair; the remains of a bathroom halfway down the trailer were still functional, but there wasn’t even a curtain for privacy. The rest of the space was crammed with tables and shelves, computer screens with odd designs glowing through their blank stares, glassware of odd shapes and Bunsen burners with their blue flames, alembics and three microscopes, two refrigerators for his “samples,” and various other weird mortal accouterments.
Hunched at the far end was a skinny mortal man with glittering eyes. He leaned against the table and scowled at her, lank, greasy hair falling over his face. Rounded bird-shoulders in a dirty white lab coat, trembling hands, Robin might have been shocked at the change in him if she hadn’t seen it happen so many times before. The wanting consumed them from the inside out, when the Queen took a mind to dazzle a male of any realm, sideways or no.
Still, the mortals burned away so much more quickly.
“I thought she would come.” Petulant, a whining note in his tone. No wonder he sweated; it was stifling in here. “I’ve done it, I did it, all she asked.”
“She wanted to come,” Robin lied. “But it’s not safe, Henzler. She sent me to hear you.”
“I already sent the vials.” He edged forward, into the light. “They’re in a black bag. I gave it to him.”
For a moment she thought he meant Unwinter, and every inch of her skin chilled hard-taut before she reminded herself that Henzler wouldn’t be alive if the shadowy king had visited. The whole point of hiding the mortal scientist here was to keep him safe from Unwinter’s prying, especially if Unwinter was the source of the plague.
Robin sighed. “She will be displeased. You were told—”
The mortal—there was no hint of sidhe about him; he was purely salt and decay—made a short stabbing motion with one hand, something in it glinting. “You keep telling me lies. I know he’ll take it straight to her. Then she’ll come for me. I can do so much more. She’ll see.”
“What did you give, and to whom?” At least she was the entire length of the trailer away from him. “So I may know what to tell her when she asks.” And woe betide us both, mortal—you for letting the prize out of your fingers, and me for carrying ill news.
“The glasses went with the boy.” The mortal shook his head, spattering drops of sweat across the glassware on tables to either side of him. “The boy with the knife.”
Oh, for the love of… It wasn’t as bad as she’d feared, but frustration still sharpened under her breastbone. Her throat ached, and she suddenly longed to let the song loose. It would sweep all this jumbled mess away, and ease the man’s suffering in the bargain. If he had given up what Summer had contracted him for, he was all but useless now, and he would not see hide nor hair of the Queen again. He would sicken and waste away, perhaps take refuge in insanity, a mortal butterfly dipped in dwarven filigree. Consumed, only a husk remaining to clatter in a thoughtless sidhe’s hair.
Her stomach, weak mortal thing that it was, roiled at the notion. Not three months ago he’d been a thoughtful, dark-haired mortal man with wire-rimmed glasses, his sober mien handsome in its own way. A scientist, probably with a good job—Puck had mentioned him as a teacher. Now he was a pixie-led mess, picked like a fruit, a single bite taken and the rest flung away.
There was nothing to be done. “Very well. I shall leave you in peace, then.” There was no way to douse the fire Summer had kindled in him, and he would not thank her for trying.
They never did.
“No, wait!” Henzler stumbled forward, and she saw without any real surprise that the gleam in his hand was a jagged bit of glass, sickle-shaped and wicked-sharp. Who was he planning to use it upon? “Does she speak of me? Does she say anything, anything at all? When is she coming? I’ve done what she wanted, done it