Ironside (Modern Faerie Tales 3)

"There was nothing for her to do! Nothing for any of us to do. She spoke often of her fondness for you. Let her explain. Let her be your friend again. Forgive each other." Her voice dropped low. "You don't belong in a place like this.”

"And why is that, dear sister? Why don't I belong here?”

Ethine groaned and slapped one open hand against the wall. "Because you are not a fiend!”

She reminded Roiben so much of his old, innocent self that for a moment he hated her, for a moment he only wanted to shake her and scream at her and hurt her before someone else did. "No? Is it not enough, what I have done? Is it not enough to have cut the throat of a nix that dared laugh too loud or too long before my mistress? Is it not enough to have hunted down a hob that stole a single cake from her table? Is it not enough to have been deaf to their entreaties, their begging?”

"Nicnevin commanded you.”

"Of course she did!" he shouted. "Again and again and again she commanded me. And now I am changed, Ethine. This is where I belong if I belong anywhere at all.”

"What about Kaye?”

"The pixie?" He gave her a quick look.

"You were kind to her. Why do you want me to think the worst of you?”

"I was not kind to Kaye," he said. "Ask her. I am not kind, Ethine. Moreover, I no longer have any interest in kindness. I mean to win.”

"If you were to win," Ethine said, her voice faltering, "I would be the Queen and you would be my enemy.”

He snorted. "Now don't go casting a pall over my best outcome." He held out the cup to her.

"Drink something. Eat. After all, it is natural for siblings to squabble, is it not?”

Ethine took the cup back from him and lifted it to her mouth, but he had left her only a single swallow.

Kaye cradled a large ThunderCats thermos of coffee as she walked to Corny's car. Luis followed, wrapped in a black coat. It hung voluminously from his shoulders, its inner lining torn to pieces. He had taken it out of the back of one of the closets, from a pile strewn with chunks of plaster.

She was glad to keep moving. As long as there was something in front of her, something still to do, things made sense.

"You got a map of upstate New York?" Luis asked Corny.

"I thought you knew the way," Corny said. "What kind of guide needs a map?”

"Can you two not—," Kaye started, but stopped in front of a newspaper machine. There, in a sidebar on the front page of the Times, was a picture of the cemetery on the hill by Kaye's house. The hill where Janet was buried. The hollow hill under which Roiben had been crowned. It had collapsed beneath the weight of an overturned truck. The photo showed smoke billowing up from the hill, fallen gravestones scattered like loose teeth.

Corny slid quarters into the machine and pulled out a paper. "A bunch of bodies were found, too burnt to identify. They're looking for dental matches. There was some speculation that maybe people were sledding when the truck hit. Kaye, what the fuck?”

Kaye touched the picture, running her fingers over the ink of the page. "I don't know.”

Luis frowned. "All those people. Can't the folk kill each other and leave us out of it?”

"Shut up. Just shut up," Kaye said, walking to Corny's car and jerking on the handle. Pieces of chrome came off on her singed fingers. She felt sick.

"I've got to unlock it," Corny said, opening the door for her with his keys. "Look, he's okay. I'm sure he's okay.”

She threw herself into the backseat, trying not to imagine Roiben dead, trying not to see his eyes dulled with mud. "No, you're not.”

"I'm calling my mom," Corny said. He started the car while he dialed, his gloved fingers awkward.

Luis pointed out the turns and Corny drove with the phone cradled against his shoulder. This time Kaye welcomed the iron sickness, welcomed the dizziness that made it hard to think.

"She says Janet's coffin wasn't disturbed, but the stone's gone." Corny pushed his phone closed. "Nobody saw anyone sledding that late, and according to the local paper the truck wasn't even supposed to be making deliveries in the area.”

"It's the war," Kaye said, putting her head down on the vinyl seat. "The faery war.”

"What's wrong with her?" she heard Luis ask softly.