Ironside (Modern Faerie Tales 3)

"Hey!" The stubble-headed girl—Val—called.

Luis squeezed Corny's hand. "Be right back.”

Luis walked over to them just as the stubble-haired girl popped a bottle of champagne. The cork shot out into the waves and she laughed. Corny wanted to trail after Luis, but he wasn't sure he was welcome.

Kaye tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked out at the waves. "You can see the whole city from here. Too bad we can't see the ball drop.”

"This reminds me of something in a fantasy novel," Corny told her. "You know, mysterious island. Me, with my trusted elven sidekick.”

"I'm your trusted elven sidekick?" Kaye snorted.

"Maybe not trusted," Corny said with a grin. Then he shook his head. "It's dumb, though. The part of me that loves this. That's the part that's going to get me killed. Like Dave. Like Janet.”

"Do you still wish you weren't human?”

Corny frowned, glanced toward Luis and his friends. "I thought those were our secret wishes.”

"You showed me it!”

Corny snorted. "Even so." He sighed. "I don't know. Right now, being human is actually working out for me. It's kind of a first. What about you?”

"I just realized that I don't have to do normal things, being a faery," Kaye said. "No need to get a job, right? I can turn leaves into money if I need it. No need to go to college—what would be the point? See above, no need for a job.”

"I guess education isn't its own reward?”

"You ever think about the future? I mean, you remember what you and Luis were talking about in the car?”

"I guess." He remembered that Luis had hoped Dave would go to school with him.

"I was thinking about opening a coffee shop. I thought that maybe we could have it be a front, and in the back there'd be a library—with real information on faeries—and maybe an office for Luis to break curses out of. You could work on the computers, keep the Internet running, make some searchable databases.”

"Yeah?" Corny could picture green walls and dark wood trim and copper cappuccino machines hissing in the background.

She shook her head. "You think it's crazy, right? And Luis would never go for it, and I'm probably too irresponsible anyway.”

He grinned hugely. "I think it's genius. But what about Roiben? Don't you want to go be the Faerie Queen or whatever?”

Across the field, Corny saw the troll rest a massive, monstrous hand on Luis's shoulder. Luis relaxed against the creature's bulk. The girl with the dark hair—Ruth—said something and Val laughed. Roiben stepped away from the trees and started toward them. Lutie sprung off Kaye's shoulder, launching herself into the air.

"I thought Luis hated faeries," Kaye said.

Corny shrugged. "You know us humans. We talk an enormous amount of shit."

The funeral was simple. They all stood in a semicircle around Luis as he held up the metal tin of ashes. They'd dug a shallow pit near the edge of the numbered grave markers and passed out champagne.

"If you knew my brother," Luis said, his hand visibly shaking, "you probably already have your own opinions about him. And I guess they're all true, but there doesn't have to be only one truth. I'm going to choose to remember David as the kid who found the two of us a place to sleep when I didn't know where to go, and as the brother that I loved.”

Luis opened the tin of ashes and dumped them. The wind caught some and lifted them into the air, while the rest filled the hole. Corny wasn't sure what he'd thought they would look like, but the dust was gray as an old newspaper.

"Happy New Year, baby brother," Luis said. "I wish you could drink with us tonight."

Roiben stood by the water, swigging out of a bottle of champagne. He'd loosed his salt white hair and it covered most of his face.

Kaye walked over to him, pulling out a noise-maker from her pocket and sticking it in her mouth. She blew and the long checkered paper tongue unfurled with a squeak.

He smiled.

Kaye groaned. "You really are a terrible boyfriend, you know that?”