“Now get thee hence, Robin Goodfellow. I shall brook none within my borders who are not Seelie for some while yet.”
Another mocking half-bow, a laugh, and Puck vanished, stepping sideways again.
The Jewel on her forehead filled with radiance. Her head tipped back, her fists turned to bone spurs, and for a single breathless moment the Queen of Seelie’s true form shone in the wrack and ruin of her Great Hall. All through Summer’s violated dells and fouled rivers, in her ruined orchard and along the flour-white paths, a steady, low hissing gathered strength. The ladies of the Court, handmaidens and fullblood-in-waiting, cowered as they realized what the noise meant. In the forests and fields, each Seelie knight raised his head, a cruel smile playing on thin lips, his armor firing with new gold.
Summer would be renewed, yes.
Come the dawn, she would be hungry. The changelings would be recalled, and the flint knife would loose torrents of nameless blood.
A white-hot flash filled the Jewel. The silent thunderclap rolled through Veil and Seelie alike, the mortal world momentarily full of a hot, uneasy flushing wind, there and gone as soon as tired cops and waitresses working the night shift could think that’s strange, it’s still winter.
When it faded, Summer lay whole and lovely, but pale, so pale, under an indigo night. The stars above field, forest, and dell glittered sharp-dangerous, and in a tall-pillared room in the heart of a white Keep with greenstone towers, a slim sidhe woman was driven to her knees, a green flicker on her forehead fading to dull gray.
The Queen of Seelie looked at her soft, beautiful hands. On her left wrist, a pinprick of black bloomed into a small, hard, calcifying boil.
Her teeth showed in a silent snarl, and Summer sought to gain her feet. It took her two tries. She did not call for her handmaidens yet. When they entered the hall, they would see her gracious and composed, with a rag of her spring-revel finery knotted about her left wrist and the rest of her as naked and innocent as any nymph.
But for now, Summer rocked back and forth on her knees, and hissed a slow, furious song of quiet vengeance that filled the pillared room with the dry, cloying scent of baking apple pie.
FULL NIGHT
47
He tossed fitfully through most of the afternoon, but the wound had sealed itself. Perhaps she’d drained all the poison. Maybe she should have used more bread?
Too late, now. The wound had closed. If any foulness lingered, she didn’t have the skill to draw it.
She roamed the small trailer, her hands finding things and setting them to rights. Laundry, chugging in the washer—she found an ancient box of dryer sheets, and wondered if her sister had sniffed them in the aisle, deciding on this particular scent. Meadow Fresh! the label declared, but it smelled like no meadow, mortal or otherwise.
Robin folded the clothes when they were dry, gathered refuse into black trash bags she found under the sink—everything was still arranged in the proper fashion, just where her sister would have put it.
Glancing in on Gallow every quarter-hour. Washing the dishes Puck had not broken—he had crashed around in the kitchen, perhaps offended by its size or the dirty dishes. Chantment eased some of the chores, but she did most of the cleaning by hand, his bathroom sparkling and mildew-free before she stepped into the shower’s embrace and stood for a long while in her dress and heels, letting warm mortal water flood her with soothing. When she stepped out, shaking water away with a single crackling word, drying her hair with finger flicks, she stood for a long few moments in front of the mirror. Even a sidhe chantment couldn’t get the flyspotting off, but at least there were no toothpaste flecks or smudged fingerprints.
There were bottles in the medicine cabinet. Two prescriptions with Daisy’s name on them; her allergies and probably for her back pain. Mama had a bad back, too, a mortal ailment.
Daisy Gallow, the bottles said. But Jeremiah had put her mortal name on her tombstone, perhaps to keep her even more secret.
Even safer.
The cleaning soothed her. Would he be grateful?
My lady Ragged.
Oh, she could try, she supposed. She could do a Daisy impression, blithe and laughing. The glamour might even become the reality, and Gallow perhaps even grow fond of her.
It was possible. So many things were possible.
The couch was finally cleared off, and she brought his coat there to mend it, needle-chantment pricking