Ironside

"I don't care about her or her messengers!" Kaye shouted. "I care about you, and you're acting crazy.”

Corny shrugged and turned away from her, looking through the window of a shop as if he were seeing some other place in the racks of clothing. Then he smiled at himself in the glass. "Whatever, Kaye. I'm right about him. They love to hurt people. People like Janet.”

Kaye shuddered, guilt over Janet's death too fresh for his words not to feel like an accusation. "I know—”

Corny interrupted her. "Anyway, I got cursed, so I guess I got what I deserved, right? The universe is in balance. I got what I was asking for.”

"That's not what I meant," Kaye said. "I don't even know what I mean. I'm just freaked out. Everything's coming apart.”

"You're freaking out? Everything I touch rots! How am I going to eat food? How am I going to jerk off?”

Kaye laughed despite herself.

"Not to mention I am going to have to dress up in down-market fetish-wear forever." Corny held up a gloved hand.

"Good thing that turns you on," Kaye said.

A slow smile spread over his mouth. "Okay, it was dumb. What I did. At least I should have found out what Silarial wanted.”

Kaye shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Let's go back to Brooklyn and figure out what to do about your hands.”

Corny pointed to a pay phone hanging outside of a bar. "You want me to call your mom's cell? I could tell her we got kicked out of the club for being underage. I can lie like crazy.”

Kaye shook her head. "After you beat up someone in the bathroom? I think she knows what we got kicked out for.”

"He was hitting on me," Corny said primly. "I had to protect my virtue."

Kaye let herself and Corny into her mother's apartment with a spare key and threw herself down on the bed. Corny flopped down beside her with a groan.

Looking up at the popcorn of the ceiling, she studied the grooves and fissures, letting her mind drift from Corny's curse and the explanation she didn't have for ru

"We're going to fix things," Kaye said.

"How are we going to do that, exactly?" Corny asked. "Not that I'm doubting you, mind.”

"Maybe I could take the curse off of you. I have magic, right?”

He sat up. "You think you can?”

"I don't know. Let me get rid of my glamour so I can use whatever I've got." She concentrated, imagining her disguise tearing like cobwebs. Her senses flooded. She could smell the crusts of burnt food in the burners of the stove, the exhaust from cars, the mold inside the walls, and even the filthy snow they'd tracked across the floor. And she felt the iron, heavier than ever, eating away at the edges of her power, as clearly as she felt the brush of wings across her shoulders.

"Okay," she said, rolling toward him. "Take off a glove.”

He removed one and held out the hand to her. She tried to imagine her magic as she'd been told to, like a ball of energy prickling between her palms. She concentrated on expanding it, despite the iron-soaked air. When it settled over Corny's hands, her skin stung like she clutched nettles. She could change the shape of his fingers, but she couldn't touch the curse.

"I don't know what I'm doing," she said finally, helplessly, letting her concentration lapse and the energy dissipate. Just the attempt had exhausted her.

"That's okay. I heard about a guy who breaks spells. A human.”

"Really? How'd you hear about him?" Kaye fumbled with her pocket.

Corny turned his face away from her, toward the window. "I forget.”

"Remember the paper that girl gave me? The Fixer? There's a place to start. Fixing sounds like what we're looking for.”

"You think you have to beep him like a drug dealer?" Corny yawned and put the glove back on. "Your mom is going to totally make us sleep on the floor, isn't she?”

Kaye turned to him, pressing her face against his shoulder. His shirt smelled like bug spray and she wondered what the faery who'd cursed him had wanted. She wondered about the other Kaye, still trapped in the Seelie Court. "Do you think I should tell her?" she mumbled into the T-shirt.

"Tell her what? That we want the bed?”

"That I'm a changeling. That she has a daughter who got stolen.”

"Why would you want to do that?" He lifted his arm and Kaye ducked under it, pillowing her head on his chest.

"Because none of this is real. I don't belong here.”

"Where else would you belong?" Corny asked.

Kaye shrugged. "I don't know. I'm neither fish nor fowl. What's left?”

"Good red herring, I think," he said. "It's a fish.”

"At least I'm good and red.”

A key rattled in the door.

Kaye jumped up and Corny grabbed her arm. "Okay, tell her.”

She shook her head hurriedly. The door opened and Ellen walked into the room, her shoulders dusted with new-fallen snow.

Kaye reached for the shreds of her glamour to make herself human-seeming, but it came to her uneasily. The magic and the iron had eaten up more of her energy than she'd supposed. "It's not working," Kaye whispered. "I can't change back.”

Corny snorted. "I guess you'll have to tell her now.”

"I heard you guys got into some trouble, eh?”

Ellen laughed as she dumped her guitar case on top of the paper-covered kitchen table. She tugged off her coat and dropped it on the floor.

Kaye turned her back to her mother, hiding her face beneath her hair. She wasn't sure how much her glamour hid, but at least she could no longer feel her wings.

"He was hitting on me," Corny said.

Ellen raised her eyebrows. "You should learn to take a compliment better.”

"Things got out of hand," Kaye said. "The guy was a jerk.”

Walking over to the bed, Ellen sat down and started tugging off her boots. "I guess I should be glad you two vigilantes weren't hurt. What happened to you, Kaye? You look like you got a jar of green dye dropped on you. And why are you hiding your face?”

Kaye sucked in her breath so hard that she felt dizzy. Her stomach twisted.

"You know," Corny said. "I think I'm going to walk down to the corner store. I feel a sudden need for cheese curls. Want anything?”

"Some kind of diet drink," Ellen said. "Grab some money out of my coat pocket.”

"Kaye?" he called.

She shook her head.

"Okay, I'll be right back," Corny said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him give her a look as he unlatched the door.

"I have something to tell you," Kaye said without turning.

She could hear her mother banging in the cabinets. "There's something I want to tell you, too. I know I promised we'd stay in Jersey but I just couldn't. My mother—she just gets to me, you know that. It hurt me when you stayed behind.”

"I—," Kaye started, but Ellen cut her off.

"No," she said. "I'm glad. I guess I always figured that so long as you were happy, then I was an okay mother no matter how strange our lives got. But you weren't happy, were you? So, okay, Jersey didn't work out, but things will be different in New York. This place is mine, not some boyfriend's. And I'm bartending, not just doing gigs. I'm turning things around. I want another chance.”

"Mom." Kaye half turned. "I think you should hear what I have to say before you go on.”

"About tonight?" Ellen asked. "I knew there was more to the story. You two would never attack some guy because he—”