Valiant

Val clutched the banister, paint flaking under her fingernails.

"'You can see me?' he asks, and because I'm a dumb kid, I nod. My mother is right next to me, but she doesn't notice anything. 'Do you see me with both eyes?' he wants to know. I'm nervous now and that's the only thing that keeps me from telling him the truth. I point to my right eye. He drops the skins and they make a horrible, wet sound, falling all together like that."

Wax dripped down the side of the candle and onto Luis's thumb, but he didn't flinch or change the way he held it. More wax followed, forming a steady drip onto the stairs. "The guy grabs me by the arm and pushes his thumb into my eye. His face doesn't change at all while he's doing it. It hurts so bad and I'm screaming and that's when my mother finally turns around, finally sees me. And do you know what she and the soft-shell crab guy decide? That I scratched my own fucking eye somehow. That I ran into something. That I blinded myself."

The hair was standing up along Val's arms and she had that chill ru

"Because it sucks to be me," Luis said. "One wrong step and they decide I don't need my other eye. That's what the big deal is.

"Dave and Lolli don't get it." His voice dropped to a whisper and he leaned close to her. "They're playing around with that drug, stealing from Ravus when I'm supposed to be repaying a debt. Then they bring you in." He stopped, but she saw the panic in his eyes. "You're stirring shit up. Lolli is getting worse instead of better."

The troll appeared at the top of the ledge and looked down at Val. His voice was low and deep as a drum. "I ca

"The last delivery," she said. "It was a… mermaid? She's dead."

He went quiet, stared.

Val swallowed. "She looks like she's been dead awhile."

Ravus started down the stairs, frockcoat billowing. "Show me." His features changed as he got closer, the green of his skin fading, his features shifting until he looked human, like a gawky boy only a little older than Luis, a boy with odd, golden eyes and shaggy black hair.

"You didn't change your—," Val said.

"That's the way glamour is," said Ravus, cutting her off. "There's always some hint of what you were. Feet turned backward, a tail, a hollow back. Some clue to your true nature."

"I'll just get out of here," Luis said. "I was on my way anyhow."

"Luis and I have had an interesting conversation about you and the ma

"Yeah," Luis said, with a half-smile. "He conversed. I groveled."

That made Ravus smile in turn, but even as a man, his teeth looked a touch too long at the incisors. "I think this death concerns you too, Luis. Put off sleep a little longer and let's see what we might learn."

The only sounds on the waterfront came from waves lapping against the stones at the edge of the shore when Ravus, Val, and Luis arrived. The body was still there, hair flowing like seagrass, necklaces of shell and pearl and sand-dollar doves caught around her neck like strangling ropes, white face looking like a reflection of the moon on the water. Tiny fish darted around her body and swam in and out between her parted lips.

Ravus knelt down, cupped the back of the mermaid's skull in long fingers, and lifted up her head. Her mouth opened farther, showing thin, translucent teeth that looked like they might be made from cartilage. Ravus brought his face so close to the mermaid's that, for a moment, it looked like he might kiss her. Instead he sniffed twice before gently lowering her back into the water.

He looked at Luis with shadowed eyes, then shouldered off his frockcoat and spread it on the ground. He turned to Val. "If you take her tail, we can move her onto the cloth. I need to get her back to my workroom."

"Was she poisoned?" Luis asked. "Do you know what killed her?"

"I have a theory," said Ravus. He pushed back his hair with a wet hand, then waded into the East River.

"I'll help," Luis said, starting forward.

Ravus shook his head. "You can't. All that iron you insist on wearing could burn her skin. I don't want the evidence contaminated more than it has to be."

"The iron keeps me safe," Luis said, touching his lip ring. "Safer, anyway."

Ravus smiled. "At the very least, it is going to keep you safe from a repugnant task."

Val waded into the water and lifted the slippery tail, its ends as ragged as torn cloth. The fish scales glittered like liquid silver as they flaked off on Val's hand. There were patches of pale flesh exposed along the mermaid's side, where fish had already started to feed on her.

"What a petty drama to watch play out," said a voice coming from the valley between the mounds.

"Greyan." Ravus looked toward the shadows.

Val recognized the creature that came forward, the ma

"Another death," one of them said, and there was a low murmur.

"What is it that you are delivering this time?" Greyan asked. There was a burst of uncomfortable laughter.

"I came to discover what I could," said Ravus. He nodded to Val. Together, they moved the body onto the coat. Val felt nauseated as she realized that the fishy smell was coming from the flesh in her hands.

Greyan took a step forward, his horns white in the streetlight. "And look what is discovered."

"What are you implying?" Ravus demanded. In his human guise, he looked thin and tall, and beside Greyan's bulk, terribly outmatched.

"Do you deny you are a murderer?"

"Stop," said one of the others, a voice in shadow attached to what appeared to be a long and spindly body. "We know him. He has made harmless potions for us all."

"Do we know him?" Greyan moved closer and from the folds of his cracked leather coat pulled out two short, curved sickles with dark bronze blades. He crossed them over his chest like an entombed pharaoh. "He went into exile because of a murder."

"Have a care," said a tiny creature. "Would you have all of us be judged now by the reason for our exile?"

"You know that I ca

"Fancy words. You think you're still a courtier," Greyan said. "But your clever tongue won't help you here."

One of the creatures smirked at Val. It had eyes like a parrot and a mouthful of jagged teeth. Val reached around and picked up a length of pipe from the rocks. It felt so cold that it burned her fingers.

Ravus held up his hands to Greyan. "I don't wish to fight you."

"Then that's your ruin." He swung one sickle at Ravus.

The troll dodged the sickle and ripped a sword out of the hand of another faerie, his fist wrapping around the sharp metal. Red blood ran from his palm. His mouth curled with something like pleasure and his glamour slipped away as though it was forgotten.

"You need what I make," Ravus spat. Fury twisted his face, making his features dreadful, forcing his fangs to bite into the flesh of his upper lip. He licked away the blood and his eyes seemed as full of glee as they were of rage. He tightened his grip on the blade of the sword, even as it bit deeper into his skin. "I give it freely, but were I the poisoner, were it my whim to kill one of the hundred I help, you would still have to live at my indulgence."