Roadside Magic (21 page)

S
tepping over the border into a Summer afternoon was a hideous jolt, and the scar along his side burned. Jeremiah had to halt to breathe, but Puck did not leave him behind. Instead, the boy-sidhe crouched, his ear-tips perked through the frayed silken mat of brown hair, his leathers creaking just a little too much. This shaded dell, tucked some distance away from one of the bone-white paths, was ringed by fragrant, secretive-whispering cedars.

Puck drove his slim brown fingers into the loam, muttering a word or two of chantment. He whistled, and pixies appeared, their tiny flittering glows bleached by daylight. Jeremiah’s breath came back, the dwarven draught burning like a coal in his stomach. He leaned against one of the cedars, glad a dryad wasn’t peering out of the bark. The entire sisterhood of this ring were probably out a-marketing—cedar-nymphs were naturally gregarious, fragrant beings.

The pixies chimed around Puck, excited little voices babbling in a mix of languages. They picked words up everywhere and forgot them just as quickly, interlacing them with
chantment-tongue. The Fatherless simply listened, head cocked, clutching the soft, forgiving loam.

Finally, he straightened. “Come, Glass-gallow.” He brushed his hands together, as if ridding them of stain, and the pixies scattered, winking out or hiding under cedar boughs. “We have an appointment to keep.”

“With Robin?” Something was different, but fogged by poison and exhaustion he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. What he wouldn’t give to be at home in his trailer, curled up in bed, hopefully with a sleeping warmth beside him—Robin in his arms, and her quiet breathing mixing with his.

That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Pay attention, Jeremiah.

“Why do you inquire so, Glass-my-gallow?”

Because we’re in Summer, and it looks like you’re receiving word from little pixie spies
. He shrugged, but whatever he would have said was lost under the merry clopping of bell-chiming hooves.

Jeremiah peered out through the cedars. Beside him, Goodfellow crowded, smelling of leather, crushed sap—and old dried blood. Had he been wounded recently?

Something’s off with him. Have to think about it.

Summer knights, four of them, gathered around a palanquin roped between two bridge-trolls, one of the few Unseelie clans that could stand direct sunlight. Still, the trolls looked miserable, and their silvery chain-collars steamed.

The palanquin itself, of black wood and silver chasings, bore fluttering pennons on high, flexible rods. A stylized fist, silver-embroidered on black silk, grasped fruitlessly at the breeze.

Gallow let out a soft breath. “An envoy.” From Unwinter, no less.

“Seeking parlay, no doubt. He keeps thinking she will listen to reason.” Puck’s giggle was just as high and carefree as
Summer’s ever was. “I could tell him differently, but would he credit it?”

“Summer has the Ragged,” Jeremiah guessed. His head was clearing, but not nearly quickly enough.

“She does indeed.” A snarl drifted across Puck’s face. It wasn’t like the Fatherless to take such an interest in a
female
, let alone a female sidhe. He’d extended himself mightily for Robin, and forced her into breaking Summer’s borders to boot.

It changed the game somewhat, to think he would have to balance the Fatherless against Unwinter and Summer both. The very idea made Gallow even more tired. Four vials, not even a week’s worth of leeway before he’d be right back where he started, hallucinating all his failures and dying of fever. “Then let’s go.”

“Rushing blindly in, Armormaster?”

“If you’ve a better idea, Goodfellow, I will bide to hear it.”

“No, indeed. Let us begone, then.”

Summerhome throbbed with gaiety. Nymphs trip-skipped through the halls, brughnies scurrying behind them to gather up dropped ribbons and pearl-drops of crystallized salt or dew-pearl. No fullblood highborn ladies, though—at this hour, they would be retired to soft shaded bowers, dressing for the evening’s merriment. More brughnies monkeyed on the walls, shaking the dust out of tapestries, coaxing fresh green woodbine into twining under the sconces. The kitchens would be a steaming inferno by now, no doubt Summer would feast the envoy royally.

Still, it wasn’t the same. There was an edge to the laughter, and the knights on guard duty did not so much as smile at the sidhe girls and their fluttering draperies. No cloud-dog gebriels
cavorted over Summerhome’s towers, and the torch-lighting hobs did not jest or sing. Music did roil and runnel through the halls, but it was not the joyous drumbeat that could force a mortal heart to match its pace. Instead, skirling pipes throbbed on the edge of dissonance, seeking to sound happy, perhaps, but without any true joy. The knights on duty did not smile at
all
, in fact, their mouths cruel lines under full helm and armor.

None glanced at Jeremiah
or
Puck, which was even odder. They were not challenged, which led to a very unpleasant conclusion: Puck, at least, was expected.

I have four vials. Four days of grace. Not enough.

Instead of striking for the great hall, where any revel would be held, Puck turned to the far edge of the rotunda, and the Red Door opened like a flower.

The chamber beyond, reserved for weightier affairs than dances and fetes, was robed with Summer’s green, from fir to sage, holly to sedge. Brambles grew up the walls, tangling over the sconces; fireflies and small floating bits of chantment-glittering thistledown filled the hall with soft light. Unwinter’s parlay—a tall, severe-faced highborn fullblood in black, with the clenched-fist sigil patterned over his cloak and his ebony armor flowing with him—had just dropped to one knee before Summer and was rising.

She stood, in a heavy green mantle, straight and proud. Thornvines crawled up the robe’s back, forming a high frame above her golden head and a torc around her white, white throat. Bright veins of pale gold moved fluidly along the vine-cables, winking into gemlike brilliance at the points. Dwarven work, metal married to wood, and her hair was looped and coaxed through the vines, the whole fantastical architecture twinkling with pixieglow and fireflies drunk on the chantment she exuded.

Summer knights ranged along either side of the chamber, and on the second step of the dais, just where the Armormaster would stand, Broghan Trollsbane met Gallow’s gaze. Black of eye and hair, his veins a faint blue map under flour-pale skin, he wore the glass badge on his breast, and Jeremiah could have laughed. Broghan, as Armormaster? He was dangerous, certainly, but only if you were clumsy.

Which I am now
. Arrogant to think he was anything near his prime.

Still, the lance could be cold iron. That gave him an edge against any fullborn.

The Queen of Seelie’s smile widened. A cloying of spice and burnt-leaf smoke rode heavy between the pillars marching down the chamber, each one twined with brambles. Harvest-incense, far too soon in the season for it, but who would tell
her
that?

The Jewel at her forehead flashed once, settled back into a low dull-green glow. “Fatherless.” Summer’s tone, dulcet honey, pulled on every nerve-string. The knights ranged along the pillars tensed, Broghan the Black almost swayed, and the envoy, his long, aquiline face with its gloss of sidhe beauty turning into a mask of disdain as his elegant, gloved, six-fingered hand twitched for a gem-chased swordhilt. The violet tree-ring dapples of lightshielding chantment on every inch of visible skin turned a darker shade, perhaps because the Unwinter knight recognized him.

“
Gallow
,” he said, the consonants sharp as knives. “He is ours.”

Summer’s laugh, low velvet, stroked along the floor, curled around each man. “Cease your yapping, Unwinter hound.”

“I have brought him.” Puck folded his arms. “I went to no little trouble to do so, oh Seelie’s jewel.”

“What is
trouble
, to one such as you? You shall find your maiden in a white tower, enjoying the finest of hospitality.” Summer clasped her own white, six-fingered hands, their tenderness threaded in veins of that same pale gold. It was an oddly bleached metal, and Gallow realized why.

She was wearing melted barrow-wight gold, and Unwinter’s parlay would no doubt note it as well.

Puck bowed slightly and grinned. “Then I take my leave.”

He’s going after Robin
. Gallow turned to follow, but the hiss of metal drawn from scabbard halted them both. The marks stung his arms, writhing, and he glanced back to find Unwinter’s envoy had drawn. So had Broghan the Black, and the two faced each other while Summer’s entire face lit with predatory glee.

“Why, what is this?” she said, very softly. “Do you offer me violence in my own hall, Cailas Redthorn? Yes, I remember you of old. You were a merry lord, once, and fell when the mood struck you.”

“You harbor one who is under the hunt, Eakkanthe of Summer.” The Unseelie knight let out a chill, disdainful little laugh as a gasp went through the assembly. To use Summer’s name so was something only a fullblood highborn would dare. “Your treachery threatens to extinguish all of Danu’s children, and I am come to treat with Gallow, not with you.”

“To treat with . . .” Her eyes narrowed, and Jeremiah backed up a step, two, as Puck stepped aside, perhaps recognizing that something deadly was about to occur. “To
treat
with
him
?
I
am Summer!” The gold-clasped vines shifted, slithering against her mantle, and she took a single step toward the edge of the dais.

“You are weakened,” the Unseelie pointed out. “And
he
, lady of Seelie, is who my lord sent me to pass words with, and demand a price from.”

Okay, Jeremiah. Think fast.
Time to throw a pair of bone dice, and see where their rattle landed. “He wants the Horn.” He smoked with sickness and mortal sweat, dirt, ditchwater, and even his armor could not hide the tremor in his hands. He drew the medallion from beneath his chestplate, pushing aside Robin’s locket to do so.

The Horn’s round othershape glinted, a cold breath exhaling through the room, and several Seelie knights took a step back, recognizing what it was under its seeming. He dropped it back against his chest, patted his armor over the thing’s chill-burn, denying the lance its freedom with a gutclenching effort.

Heavy silence greeted the revelation. The Unseelie’s blade was crystalline silver—a glassmaster, then. Quick, and deadly. He would be dangerous even if Jeremiah were well-rested and healthy. Gallow took a deep breath. “What is he prepared to offer, Cailas Redthorn?”

“The . . .” Summer’s face lit with predatory glee. “Oh, my Gallow, best of Armormasters, you never disappoint.”

Broghan’s face filled with thunder. “My Queen—”

“Hush.” She floated down a dais step, curled her pale hand about his shoulder. “Come to me, Jeremiah. Bring me your gift.”

She thinks I’m bringing it to her?
Of course, to Summer, they were all satellites of her sun. It wouldn’t occur to her greedy little self that her former Armormaster might have other plans.

He didn’t look at the Seelie queen. Now was the moment, and the lance resolved in his hands, a solid bar of moonlight lengthening. The blade flattened, its slightly curved inner edge growing wicked serrations. Metal dulled, and the air of Summer scorched around cold iron. “A gift, Summer? You promised me the Ragged.”
Or her life
.

“She still draws breath.” Silky, evenly spaced. “What is she to you, when you may be my lord? Come, bring me that trinket.”

Loathing filled him to the brim. Did he just have to be poisoned, and inoculated by Daisy’s death, to feel no skincrawling sting of desire for the Seelie queen? “What does Unwinter offer?”

Cailas Redthorn’s lips skinned back from his teeth. “Foolish Half,” he said, very softly. “Do you think you may stand against a Prince of the Blood?”

Fuck this noise
. Jeremiah
moved
. The lance pulled at him, filling his veins with sick sweet heat, and the knights of Summer drew as one as if they thought he would attack
her
.