toward the south, perhaps thinking he’d run for the river and its dubious bar to their passage on a night with no moon.
The Fatherless grinned again, his teeth pearly in the mellifluous shadows. “A good night’s work, that. They’ll be chasing fog and shadow ’til morning. More I cannot grant you.”
That’s more than enough. “Amberline Park. Probably where Robin ran.”
“Of a certainty. List carefully, Armormaster, for it pleases me to give one more gift this most diverting of nights.”
Now it comes. “You have already done so much.”
“Aye, and not for thee. Your mortal lover, did you know her family?”
Now, suddenly, everyone wanted to tell him about Daisy and Robin. A popular subject, indeed. He’d thought he’d been so crafty.
Jeremiah forced himself to breathe, staring to the south as if he was still thinking of Unwinter’s pursuit. The weight against his chest was cold, and throbbed a little. Was it blackening the flesh underneath? “Summer told me.”
“An unlikely tale indeed. I marvel you did not know. Poor Robin; her mortal shadow earned all the affection, with barely a scrap left over. Did you know I brought the Ragged to Summer?”
Now, there was a new twist. Was it the truth? Who cared? “A most auspicious day that must have been.” It didn’t sound precisely snide or ungracious, but it was probably not the response Puck wanted.
What, precisely, did he want? The free sidhe was going to some trouble tonight, and for no profit Jeremiah could see. Which was enough to make him very nervous indeed.
“Oh, aye. She rose from a pond like a nymph, and I saw the sidhe in her, so fair it threatened to blind the gaze. I asked Robin if she would not remain free, but she would hie herself to Summer, and so I brought her thence. But I wished to tell you, Gallow Queensglass, that Robin and her sister met the day her sister met with mortal fate as well.”
Where was she going the night she died? And who did she meet there?
So Goodfellow and Summer both wanted him to believe… what? That Robin had done Daisy some ill?
“Family is as family does,” he said carefully. “Is there a destination to these wendings, Goodfellow?”
A shrug, a smile, and the boy finished tying his pipes to his belt. “Simply making conversation while the air clears from the reek of Unseelie. Let us hie hence to our fair Robin’s aid.”
I don’t remember inviting you along. Jeremiah simply nodded. “Lead on, Puck.” Again.
“With good heart.” A capering sideways step, another broad, sharp grin, and Goodfellow scarpered for the fence.
What else could Gallow do? He followed.
Flitting from shadow to shadow, Puck flickering through the Veil and back, Jeremiah stepping in his wake and feeling his stomach flutter high up under his breastbone each time the free sidhe pulled them both through another fold between here and there. They paralleled Robin’s course, in case scavengers or other unpleasantness rode in Unwinter’s wake, and Jer caught glimpses of the chaos reverberating in the mortal world. Fender-benders, angry mortals turning on each other, sirens blaring, the dapples of red and blue lights as the mortal authorities descended to make some sense out of the sudden eruption of pandemonium.
How long had it been since an elfhorse had been ridden openly through the heart of a mortal city? Unwinter had left his country, too, and led his vassals in hunt. The medallion, a cicatrice of frost against Jeremy’s chest, twitched slightly as the Veil shivered around him and Goodfellow.
Now was a fine time to wonder whether he should trust the free sidhe, and follow him so blindly. Especially when the path took them up the side of a skyscraper and out into empty air, the lurching of falling in his stomach before concrete jolted under his feet and Puck brought them out on another rooftop, a cold stinging wind turning their breath to twin dragon-clouds, and quickly sideways as an Unseelie hound’s muzzle lifted, the flat glitter of its eyes scorching through several layers of the Veil behind them.
Puck whistled, skipped sideways; the lightfoot bloomed in Jeremy’s boots and he followed. Had the other sidhe tried to shake him off? Perhaps.
The sideways-skipping ended with a great gripping stitch in Jeremiah’s side and his stomach cramping, and he almost retched as the Veil flexed and popped, the park gates thocking into place just behind him. Puck half-spun, his irises a flash of yellow, and every muscle in Jer’s body tightened. He stepped aside, the lance prickling and