damsel, and look at you a-tumble. Did I not know Gallow was in Summer before the witching hour, I would suspect you dishonored by a knight neither of Seelie nor its counterpart.”
She absorbed this, staring at him, willing her face to remain neutral. Where’s my dress? “And you left to guard my dreaming, Goodfellow?”
“Oh, I watched over my primrose darling, never fear. Here you are, still fine and feathered. And delicious.”
Does that mean I am prey now? Loosing the song on him was a wonderfully attractive proposition. “My clothes?”
“Ah. Yes.” He bounced slightly on the bed, and his pencil-thin eyebrows rose. “Do you need them? I’ll wager you are all rose and cream under that mortal ragpile.”
“My clothes, Puck. Or get out, so I may find them.” Gallow left. For Summer, Puck said. The disappointment, however expected, was still sharp and sour against her tongue. I was a fool to hope.
Still, Jeremiah Gallow had fallen to her expectations, instead of rising to her hopes. It was all one could ask for, from a man. She edged for the side of the bed, carefully gathering the sheet to take with her. Her shoes were placed neatly on the floor, and she didn’t have to look at the bedside table with its purple-shaded lamp to know this was Daisy’s half of the mattress.
Sudden nausea cramped her stomach, but she kept moving, slowly and steadily, stepping into the heels and trying not to sigh with relief as their chantment tingled against her skin. Puck whistled, a long, low wolfish tone, and laughed when she shot him a glance that could have been a curse, had she willed it a trifle harder.
He hopped down, and danced for the door. “Your robe is in the water-room, and I’ve stolen you fruit and lovely heavy cream. Hurry, dear Robin. Morn approaches, and there is much to do.”
“Gallow went into Summer.” It was early morning yet, the sun strengthening but not yet breaching the horizon.
“Not only that, my primrose Ragged.” Puck stamped into the hall, turned and beckoned her. “Can you not feel it?”
She did, as soon as she halted, wrapped in a torn sheet and standing in her heels at the foot of her dead sister’s bed. A subtle thrilling all through her, a clock those pure mortal would never hear the ticking of. “She’s opening the Gates.”
“At true dawn, in less than an hour. Summer fears the plague no more.” His tone turned grave. “I wonder how soon she will move to collect the mortal servant who created its pretty black boils for her. What do you think?”
Henzler is dead, though. “For…” Not just the cure, but the illness itself. Robin clutched the sheet to her chest. Her locket was gone. Her throat felt naked. Who had taken it? Jeremiah? “Puck… Robin Goodfellow, are you telling me what I think you…” It can’t be.
And yet. I did what she asked. I did it twice, Henzler had crowed. Summer had not opened the Gates last spring, not until the very last moment and only partway. The mortal season had been rainy and chill, and Seelie not fully renewed. Five changelings given to the Tiend last mortal summer, a prodigious number, but necessary, Robin grasped now, to stave off withering.
Summer had planned this.
Puck watched her dawning realization, his smile returning in increments. “Oh yes,” he murmured. “Summer bargained hard, and bargained fierce, and earned some little of my expertise. She glamoured the one I thought most likely to make what she wished; I installed her pet in a lovely safe place, and brought her his reports. You were to keep a watch on me, all unknowing.” His arms stretched out; he brushed either side of the hallway with his ten fingertips, the thumbs folded in with ease no mortal hands could match.
Robin’s skin was ice. “She didn’t expect it to start killing fullborn.”
“ ’Twas meant for Unseelie alone, my pet. Imagine her surprise.” He stepped back as she advanced, holding his arms stiffly out. The bathroom door was to her left; that was where Jeremiah had hung her dress. Not in the closet; it would have fouled Daisy’s holy, dusty robes.
She was mortal. He’d said it like a curse. He hated anything sidhe, it seemed, including himself.
Including her, no doubt. He had his place at Summer’s side secured now, and may he have joy of it. At the moment, though, there were other matters to concern her.