met a sidhe that night, and there were none who owed Gallow enough grudge to kill his wife.
Or if they did, they would know he would avenge her.
Which left Robin, or Robin’s enemies, who were probably numerous.
Daisy never mentioned her sister. She sometimes let little remarks drop about her mother, more rarely about her father—Snowe, a cold name Jeremiah had left on her tombstone to keep even her bones safe—but anything else? No. If not for that lone picture he’d found in her jewelry box after the crash, he would have discounted the whole thing as a glamour-lie.
None of which helped him find Robin now.
Well, Jer, you don’t have to find her. Simple, really. He could head to the bus station and be gone by the time night unloosed her mantle…
… or he could find the Unseelie, and wait until they located her.
Because they would.
Jeremiah ran his hands back through his too-short hair, adjusted his coat, glanced at the sky again, and got going.
OF UNWINTER VINTAGE
33
The dwarves were filthy, but at least they traditionally took little interest in Summer’s machinations. The plague brushed them but lightly, their gates closed even to many of their friends. Robin was no friend, but she was Half and they valued Realmaking, and they knew she would chant for passage.
Black MacDonnell snorted and dug in his nose, extracting something large, hairy, and sooty from deep within his sinus-caverns, carrying it to his fleshy lips. Red lamplight licked the walls, and Robin suppressed a shudder as she surrendered the handful of golden threads—finer than even they could weave, those metalsmiths of dream and wonder, because it was made from mortal hair. “As promised.”
He snorted, squinting, testing each strand. His beard, tied into bunches with blue thread, almost swept the stone floor. This far underneath the earth, it was warm, and Robin felt the weight above pressing, pressing, even though there was plenty of air. “Aye. Thought you’d forgotten us, Ragged.”
“I could not forget you, MacDonnell,” she replied, politely enough. “Do you have them?”
He jerked a chin, and one of his clansmen—Figurh, with a lazy eye—scurried forward, bearing a pouch in his soot-blackened fingers. The uglier the dwarf, the more beautiful his wares, they said, and it was by and large true. They could not stand to make an ugly thing.
“Went to a fair ’mount of trouble to make these, songbird. Worth twice what you’ve paid.”
Liar. “Don’t be greedy, my lord.” She accepted the pouch, and did not check its contents. Playing her false would mean he disdained her, just as bowing and scraping would mean he feared her.
Neither was acceptable to a chieftain of his stature, or likely to be true. The black dwarves were almost Unseelie, it was whispered, but they were faithful to their word. Or at least, this particular one had a healthy enough respect for her voice to remain relatively so.
MacDonnell snorted and waved a begrimed hand, jewels worth more than a kingdom clasping his dexterous, fat fingers. His neck, probably unwashed since his beard began to show, was clasped with so many fine chains it was a wonder he could turn his head. Bone dipped in gold pierced both his ears, carved in high fantastical curves that gave him an antlered shadow, aping a highborn huntsman’s horned crown.
Here in his hall, soot veiled the high, ribbed blackstone ceiling, light reflecting wetly over carvings as fine as those trapped in Summer’s orchard. A massive fire roared in the pit in the middle, twisting leaping flamesprites feasting on wood and ethercoal, little piping cries of glee echoing with the snapping of kindling. They paid their board in heat and raw chantment the dwarves used, and some said they sometimes grew large enough to couch with their hosts.
“I’ll be on my way then.” She paid him a pretty courtesy, her skirt swishing, and turned.
He made a deep grumbling noise. “Stay and dance for us, Ragged. Been a long while since we’ve seen one of the Fair Court down here.”
No, thank you. “If I dance, I must sing, and none of us wish for that.” Light and laughing, but she turned back as if saddened. All part of the game. “It pains me to leave you, Chieftain MacDonnell.”
“Pretty liar. I would give you jewels, Ragged, and a finer robe than ever she has worn.”
And no doubt after a week I should be forced to murder you or myself. “Ah, my lord, my lord. You honor a drab little bird.” Another courtesy, and she spun again,