Caparisoned in moth-eaten velvet, its rider in silver-chased armor, the horse pawed again, then stilled as the rider’s spike-helmed head lifted and cocked. A faint green glow limned them both; the rider sniffed deeply.
So did the horse, its nostrils each bearing a greenish spark in their depths. At the rider’s breast a small silver huntwhistle gleamed, a tarnished star. His gauntleted left hand, its six slim fingers all bearing an extra joint, rose to touch it as he inhaled again, a wet snuffling sound. The horse blew out a cloud of frost, small droplets hanging crystalline in the air around them.
The pixies hung back, scurrying into hiding-holes in the sickly sidewalk bushes and the closest free earth, a weed-infested vacant lot that sighed under their tiny hands and the buffets of their membranous wings. The windows facing Falida Street, every one with bars, chopped the sidhe’s reflection into several, an army of Unseelie riders, each with a struggling star at his chest.
Horse and knight both froze. Another deep sniff, as the wind veered. The pavement groaned as the cold intensified, and the rider caught a breath of spiced russet fruit. He tilted his head, and heard, not so far off, the tapping of frantic heels.
“Ragged.” A chill, lipless whisper, somehow wrong. The pixies cowered, their dismay grown so vast it was now silent, more and more of them flicker-vanishing through the Veil in search of a more salubrious place.
The tiptapping of heels intensified.
The elfhorse let out a shattering neigh and bolted for the western end of Falida, just as headlights sliced an arc across its path. An old woman clutching the wheel of her ancient, rusted Ford Fiesta let out a high piercing scream as something boiled across her windshield, a suffocating black bird of terror beating in her mortal brain. The car veered wildly, bumping up onto pavement and scraping its side along a fire hydrant, and when the emergency personnel came, the verdict was sudden heart failure, tragic and completely ordinary.
The Unseelie rider was long gone.
A BRUEGHEL PAINTING
5
Panko bought the first round without taking the smelly cigar end out of his mouth. He puffed at them constantly off-site, and the fume was enough to make a man choke. Here at the Wagon Wheel, though, there was no differentiating it from the omnipresent fug of burning cancersticks anyway.
Jeremiah took a long pull off his beer and ran an eye over the crowd. Flannel, thick shoulders, the red-faced mortal women with their hair teased high. Friday nights were crowded and loud, especially during Two-Dollar Hour at this particular watering hole. Panko was a cheap bastard, but it didn’t matter. Here was as good a place as any.
“So I told the bitch,” Panko yelled over the surfroar of the crowd. The jukebox was roaring, too, overwhelmed by three deep at the bar and elbow room at every table. “I told her. Didn’t I tell her?”
“I wasn’t there!” Clyde yelled back. This was an old, old conversation, and Jeremiah wasn’t called upon to do more than nod whenever Panko’s flat, dark gaze slid his way. Which it now did, measuring his response.
Jeremiah nodded. Took another long draft of beer. It foamed on the way down, and he found himself wishing for wine. White wine, tart and crisp with apples, and Daisy’s special soft laugh when she was half drunk and he slid his hand up her leg.
His chest seized up again. Jeremiah drank faster, broke away from the bottle and had to take a deep breath, hunching his shoulders further. Five years and counting. Weren’t sidhe-blooded things supposed to forget? The only long memory is for a grudge, Paogreer the slick-skinned grentooth had said, tapping his cane on the glassy floor of Summer’s Hall, marking time as the dancing revel spun and shook before them.
No room for gratitude in that sidhe’s chest, Jeremiah had replied, and kept his hand away from the glass badge pinned to his chest with an effort. The Armormaster did not dance. Even then he had been wondering how to free himself of Summer’s clutching white hands, but it had taken Daisy to make him attempt it. He’d done his best to keep away from her for a few months after he left Court, so the Queen wouldn’t suspect she had been abandoned for a mortal.
If Summer had suspected, it wouldn’t have been just a car accident for Daisy.
Jeremiah blinked, brought himself back to the present.