Ironside

Ethine wrung her hands, fingers sliding over one another. "No. She would accept him back. I know she would if he were only to ask her. Why won't he ask her?”

"I don't know," Kaye said.

"You must discern something. He has a fondness for you.”

Kaye started to protest, but Ethine cut her off.

"I heard the way you spoke to me when you supposed me to be him. You speak to him as to a friend.”

Kaye shook her head. "Look, I did this declaration thing. Where you get a quest. He pretty much told me to fuck off. Whatever you think I know about him or can tell you about him, I just don't think I can.”

"I saw you, although I didn't hear the words. I was in the hill that night." Ethine smiled, but her brow furrowed slightly, as though she were puzzling through Kaye's human phrasings. "Still, one must assume the quest was not an apple from a banquet table nor a braid in his hair.”

Kaye blushed.

"If you thought the King of the Unseelie Court would give you so simple a quest, you must think him besotted.”

"Why wouldn't he? He said that I . . ." Kaye stopped, realizing that she shouldn't repeat his words. You are the only thing I want. It wasn't safe to say that to Ethine, no matter what had happened.

"A declaration is very serious.”

"But... I thought it was, like, letting everyone know we were together.”

"It is far more immutable than that. There is only ever a single consort, and more often there is none. It joins you both to him and to his court. My brother declared himself once, you know.”

"To Silarial," Kaye said, although she hadn't known, not really, not before right then. She remembered Silarial standing in the middle of a human orchard and telling Roiben that he'd proved his love to her satisfaction. How angry Silarial had been when he turned away. "He finished his quest, didn't he?”

"Yes," Ethine said. "He was to stay at the Unseelie Court, as Nicnevin's sworn knight, until the end of the truce. Nicnevin's death ended it. He could be the Bright Lady's consort now if he wanted, if he returned to us. A declaration is a compact and he has fulfilled his side of the bargain.”

Kaye looked around at the revelers and felt small and stupid. "You think they should be together, don't you? You wonder what he saw in me—some dirty pixie with bad ma

"You're clever." The faerie woman did not meet Kaye's gaze. "I imagine he saw that.”

Kaye looked down at the scuffed tops of her boots. Not that clever, after all.

Ethine looked thoughtful. "In my heart I believe that he loves Silarial. He blames her for his pain, but my Lady . . . she did not intend for him to suffer so—”

"He doesn't believe that. At best he thinks she didn't care. And I think he very much wanted her to care.”

"What quest did he send you on?”

Kaye frowned and tried to keep her voice even. "He told me to bring him a faery that can tell an untruth." It hurt to repeat it, the words a reproach for her thinking he liked her enough to put feelings above appearances.

"An impossible task," Ethine said, still considering.

"So you see," Kaye said, "I'm probably not the best person to answer your questions. I very much wanted him to care too. And he didn't.”

"If he doesn't care for you, for her, or for me," Ethine said, "then there is no one else I can think of whom he cares for, save himself.”

A blond knight strode toward them, his green armor making his body nearly disappear into the leaves.

"I really do have to go," Ethine said, turning away.

"He doesn't care about himself," Kaye called after her. "I don't think he's cared about himself for a long time."

Corny strolled through the woods, trying to ignore how his heart hammered against his chest. He tried not to make eye contact with any faeries, but he was drawn to their cats' faces, their long noses and bright eyes. Luis's scowl was fixed, no matter what they passed. Even a river full of nixes—cabochons of water beading on their bare skin—did not move him, while it was all Corny could do to look away.

"What do you see?" Corny asked finally, when the silence between them had stretched so long that he'd given up on Luis's speaking first. "Are they beautiful? Is it all illusion?”

"They're not exactly beautiful, but they're dazzling." Luis snorted. "It sucks, when you think of it. They have forever, and what do they do— spend all their time eating and fucking and figuring out complicated ways to kill each other.”

Corny shrugged. "I probably would too. I can see myself with bag after bag of Cheetos, downloading porn, and playing Avenging Souls for weeks straight if I was immortal.”

Luis looked at Corny for a long moment. "Bullshit,” he said.

Corny snorted. "Shows what you know.”

"Remember that cake you ate before?" said Luis. "All I saw was an old mushroom.”

For a moment Corny thought he was joking. "But Kaye ate one.”

"She ate, like, three." Luis said with such glee that Corny started to laugh, and then they were both laughing together, as easy and silly as if they were going to be friends.

Corny stopped laughing when he realized that he wanted them to be friends. "How come you hate the folk?”

Luis turned so that his cloudy eye was to Corny, making it hard for Corny to read his expression. "I've had the Sight since I was a little kid. My dad had it and I guess it got passed down to me. It made him crazy; or maybe they did." Luis shook his head wearily, as though he were already tired of the story. "When they know you can see them, they fuck with you in other ways. Anyway, my dad got the idea in his head that no one was safe. He shot my mother and my brother; I think he was trying to protect them. If I had been there, he would have shot me, too. My brother made it— barely—and I had to put myself in debt to a faery to get him better. Can you imagine how things would be without the fey? I can. Normal.”

"I should tell you—one of them, a kelpie, killed my sister," Corny said. "He drowned her in the ocean about two months ago. And Nephamael, he did stuff to me, but I still wanted ..." His words trailed off as he realized that maybe it wasn't okay for him to talk about a guy that way in front of Luis.

"What did you want?”

In the clearing ahead, Corny spotted a group of faeries tossing what looked like dice into a large bowl. They were lovely or hideous or both at once. One golden-haired head looked uncomfortably familiar. Adair.

"We have to go," he whispered to Luis. "Before he spots us.”

Luis took a quick look over his shoulder as they walked faster and faster. "Which one? What did he do?”

"Cursed me." Corny nodded as they ducked under the curtain of a weeping willow. Neither mentioned that Silarial had promised no harm would come to them. Corny guessed that Luis was as cynical about the parameters of that promise as he was.

A tangle of faeries rested near the trunk of the tree: a black-furred phooka leaning against two green-ski

"Sorry," Corny said, turning. "We didn't mean to bother anybody.”

"Nonsense," said a pixie. "Come, sit here. You will give us a story too.”

"I'm not really—," he started, but a faery with goat feet pulled him down, laughing. The black dirt felt soft and damp under his hands and knees. The air was heavy with the rich smells of soil and leaf.

"The drake rose up with wings like leather," intoned a faery. "Its breath set afire all the heather." Perhaps the poem was about wyrms.

"Mortals are so interestingly shaped," said the elfin boy, ru