If she stepped across the room, if she let him touch her, she would crumble. Robin’s chin came up. “Keep it as weregilt, Armormaster. I am a faithless sidhe bitch, and likely to remain so.”
She turned on her heel and stalked for the door. He moved, perhaps to catch her, but Robin was quick, and she had her shoes on. She stepped out into the flow of a warming spring evening, pollen already beginning to float golden on the breeze, and stepped sideways.
And was gone.
Nightfall found her downtown, on the roof of the Savoigh Limited. Tucked between skyscrapers, it was a relic, and had much iron in its construction. The breeze was soft, winter’s chill finally fled at last.
The city seethed under its mortal lights. Those who could, sensing the gathering tension, sought any hole to hide in. At dusk Unwinter would have been banished from Summer, if not before, for Summer had the Jewel and no invitation into her lands would stand if she chose to revoke it. It would now be open war between Seelie and Unseelie, and the free sidhe would no doubt make merry hob of it, with Puck Goodfellow’s guidance.
If he chose to guide them, that is. Robin thought it very possible indeed.
She waited, perched next to a stone gargoyle’s leering, looking at the rubies of brake lights, the diamonds of headlights. Exhaust, and cold iron, a breath of damp from the river. A hint of crackling ozone—lightning about to strike. The faint good smell of a soft spring rain approaching.
He did not keep her waiting long.
“Oh, my darling. What fine merriment we have had.” He melded out of the darkness, his boyface alight with glee. “You are the best of children, delighting your sire’s heart so ful—”
The golden flood of song hit him squarely, Robin’s breathing calm and controlled, and knocked the Fatherless to the ground. She was on her feet in an instant, the stolen crowbar burning in her palms as she lifted it, brought it down with a convulsive crunch. Iron smoked on sidhe flesh, and by the time she ran out of breath and the song died, thick blue ichor spattered the rooftop, steaming and sizzling.
“You,” she hissed, between her teeth. “You killed her. You pixie-led her car. You killed Sean. You did it.”
Amazingly, Puck began to laugh. “Aye!” he shouted, spitting broken teeth. They gleamed, sharp ivory, ringing against the roof. “Robin, Robin Ragged, I will kill all those close to thy heart. I will have thy voice!” He slashed upward with his dagger, a spot of wet green beaded at its tip, but Robin was ready and skipped aside.
Not today. She didn’t say it. She’d finished her inhale, and the song burst out again, given free rein.
Smoke, blood, iron, the crowbar stamping time as razor-edged music descended on the Fatherless. Some whispered that he was the oldest of the sidhe; some said he remembered what had caused the Sundering. Others sometimes hinted he was the cause of the division in the children of Danu, the Little Folk, the Blessed.
When the song faded, Robin dropped the crowbar. It clattered on the roof.
The thing lying before her was no longer sidhe. Full-Twisted, it writhed, and its piping little cries struck the ear foully.
She bent, swiftly, and her quick fingers had the pipes and the dagger, Puck Goodfellow’s treasures. The Twisted thing swiped at her with a clawed, malformed hand, and its voice was now a growl, warning.
Her breath came high and hard, her ribs flickering. The dagger went into her pocket, its sheath of supple leaf-stamped leather blackened and too finely grained to be animal hide. The pipes—she almost shuddered with revulsion as she poked a finger in each one, and near the bottom, where they were thicker, she touched glass.
Three glass ampoules, like the ones she had bargained MacDonnell’s kin into making. Decoys within decoys, but this held a sludge that moved grudgingly against its chantment-sealed container. A true cure. Like her, he had decided the only safe place to hide such a thing was in his own pocket.
Like sire, like child, perhaps? Hot, bilious loathing filled her.
The Twisted thing that had been Puck Goodfellow struggled to rise. Morning would find it here, too malformed to speak or walk. It might starve to death; it might cripple out the rest of its existence like Parsifleur Pidge, though she had Twisted it far past that woodwight’s ill-luck. Robin looked down at it, tucking the pipes in her other pocket.