Authors: Seanan McGuire
Rosemary and Rue (33 page)
That was all the time I had. Evening’s binding flowed over me like a wave, strengthened by my return to health and anxious after my enforced idleness. Memories of her death slammed down on me, smothering the room in a veil of red, and my blood rose to meet the memories headlong, not giving me time to brace myself. Silly me, thinking I could act like I was Daoine Sidhe without paying the cost. There are always costs. The pixie, the key, the gunshots and the blood and the screaming—they were in the roses, waiting for me and dragging me down. They were all the same, as they had always been the same and always would be. Death doesn’t change. Death never changes.
Breaking free before the memory pulled me all the way into Evening’s grave was even harder this time. My blood had been in contact with iron, and recently. It didn’t just remember what it felt like to die by iron—it
knew
.
knew
.
Let me go,
I thought.
If I die here, you lose, too. Let me go . . .
I thought.
If I die here, you lose, too. Let me go . . .
I slammed back into my body to find myself clinging to the edge of the sink, dry-heaving over the floor. I didn’t remember dropping to my knees or anything else after the roses hit. The world was spinning, making my chest and stomach ache.
Moaning, I let my head drop against the sink. I knew the binding would keep me moving; that sort of thing never lets you hold still for long. I just hadn’t realized how far it would go to motivate me.
It was at least partially my fault. The memories I took from Evening’s blood strengthened the binding, wrapping it around me until there was no way out. It would have goaded me on and made me miserable if I hadn’t ridden her blood, it would even have killed me, but it wouldn’t have used her death against me. And it was getting stronger. Eventually it would be strong enough that I wouldn’t be able to fight it, and it would force me to ride the memories of Evening’s dying moments until my heart gave out.
She probably didn’t mean for it to be that way, but unfortunately for the both of us, she thought like what she was: she thought like a pureblood. A pureblood could have ridden the blood without complications, gathering the information they wanted and shrugging the rest of it away. Evening thought in terms of what she knew, but I was just a changeling, and my magic wasn’t that strong. Her binding was too much for me to hold off forever. And it was getting stronger.
I was in serious trouble.
The door opened behind me. I didn’t move, keeping my eyes closed and trying to steady my breathing. Anything that wanted to kill me would have to come through Devin and his kids, and if they’d done that already, there was no point in trying to run. Leaving my head against the sink seemed like a much better idea. At least that way there was a chance I’d die without throwing up again.
Hesitant footsteps crossed the floor, stopping about a yard away. “Yes?” I said, still not taking my head off the sink. It was a nice sink. Well, actually, it was a filthy, disgusting sink, and I didn’t want to think about the things caked around the drain, but it was giving me something to prop my head against, and that was what counted.
“Ms. Daye?” Dare, sounding uneasy and a little scared. For once, I couldn’t blame her. I’d made it pretty clear that I didn’t like her, and Devin was probably threatening to do all sorts of nasty things to her if she didn’t get along with me, or at least keep me alive. The two have never been mutually exclusive. That was a good thing; Evening and I would never have been able to handle it if we were required to get along.
“Yes, Dare?”
She took a step forward, feet scuffling against the linoleum. I lifted my head to watch her progress, not bothering to try and stand. I’m not that stupid.
“Are you feeling okay, Ms. Daye?”
“Of course,” I said, putting my head back down. “I always snuggle up with the bathroom fixtures.”
“You don’t look like you feel okay,” she said, coming a few steps closer. Brave girl. “Should I get Devin?” That showed a certain unexpected courage on her part—Devin’s kids never called him by name where anyone could hear them.
“I’d rather you didn’t.” I abandoned the comforting stability of the sink and climbed back onto my feet, bracing one hand against the mirror. I was ready to catch myself if I fell, but that didn’t mean I was looking forward to the possibility. “I’m fine.”
Dare eyed me dubiously, saying, “You don’t
look
fine . . .”
look
fine . . .”
“Okay, let’s try I’m better now than you’re going to be if you call Devin.” I leaned against the mirror, trying to look fierce. There are better conditions under which to look intimidating—any conditions that don’t involve me being dressed in a low-cut purple nightgown, for a start. “I think he’s worried enough, don’t you?”
The implied threat actually seemed to relax her. You take comfort in the things you know, and what she knew was the chaotic and sometimes violent world of Home. “You want me to give you a few minutes to get back together?”
“That’s probably a good idea, yeah.” I swallowed, trying to clear the taste of roses from my mouth. It wasn’t working very well. I hadn’t really expected it to.
Dare hesitated, rocking back and forth on her heels before turning wide eyes toward me again. I was grateful for the reprieve in the rocking—watching her do that in high heels had been making me dizzy. “Can I ask you a question, Ms. Daye?”
“Sure,” I said, with a shrug. It wasn’t like she couldn’t learn my darkest, deepest secrets just by breaking into Devin’s files. I expected her to ask something vulgar or pointless and be finished.
She surprised me. “How did you meet Devin?”
“Devin?” I straightened, really seeing at her for the first time since she entered the room. She looked anxious, almost strained, like she was breaking some sort of vast, unwritten law. I didn’t understand it. “It was a long time ago,” I said slowly.
“Do you remember?”
Of course I remember,
I thought.
The question is why you care.
“I met him a long time ago, when I ran away from . . . never mind what I was running away from. I was trying to avoid places where people might know me, and I managed to get myself pretty messed up. One day I just turned around and he was there. Said a friend told him where to find me. He asked if I might want to try something new.” I shrugged. “I came Home with him.” And that was the end of that. By the time I realized what I was getting myself into, it was too late.
I thought.
The question is why you care.
“I met him a long time ago, when I ran away from . . . never mind what I was running away from. I was trying to avoid places where people might know me, and I managed to get myself pretty messed up. One day I just turned around and he was there. Said a friend told him where to find me. He asked if I might want to try something new.” I shrugged. “I came Home with him.” And that was the end of that. By the time I realized what I was getting myself into, it was too late.
“Were you . . .” Dare paused.
“Were we what? Friends? Yeah, after we established that me working for him didn’t mean belonging to him.” Those first few years had been nothing short of chaos, filled with power plays and tiny battles that never quite escalated into war. “Lovers? Yeah, that, too. At first it was because I needed to pay my debts, and then it was because he cared about me. Or seemed to, anyway.” Our relationship—if you wanted to call it that—ended the night I came into the room we sometimes shared and found him fucking Julie like it was an Olympic sport. Sex for payment was one thing. Sex with my friends was another. I took Connor up on his offer of dinner the very next day. “He bought me, the same way he probably bought you. I needed a place to go, and Home was that place, at least for a while.”
Dare’s cheeks reddened, embarrassment betraying her age. “Oh.”
The sex. People always focused on the sex. “You know the rules,” I said, more gruffly than I intended. Memory does that to me: that’s part of why I don’t like it very much.
But Dare didn’t deserve that. Softening my tone, I said, “If you don’t like the way it works here, get off the street. Find yourself someplace else to go.”
“I’m trying,” she said, so softly that I almost missed it. Then she looked up again, eyes pleading as she asked, “How did you get away?”
I blinked at her. “He’s not holding you captive.”
“If you think that, you got stupid.” She shook her head. “We came here because no place else would take us when our momma died. They all said go away, come back when you’re older, when you know better, when you’ve learned. Only no one wants to teach us how to be older, or how to know better—not even Devin. They just teach us how to be broken.”
“Dare . . .”
“Devin’s not so bad. He knows the deal, but—it’s like you said. There’re always costs.”
“What are you asking me for?”
“You got out.” Dare looked at me. “We all know about you, because he talks about you all the time. Even when he thought you were dead, he kept talking about you. We’ve heard about everything you’ve ever done, because you’re the one that got away—you’re the one that was his, and stopped belonging to him. And I want to know how you did it. Because we’re gonna do it, too.”
She was serious. I stared at her. Damn. Finally, quietly, I said, “I’ll do what I can to help you. If there’s anything I can do. Believe me. There’s no right way to do it . . . but it can be done, and if I can help you, I will.”
The look she gave me was radiant, full of gratitude and awe. I winced, trying to keep my dismay from showing on my face. The lingering taste of roses helped—it gave me something that I could focus on other than the look in her eyes. I’ve never liked being looked at like I was a hero. I always wind up letting someone down. Sometimes I get lucky. Sometimes the only person who gets hurt is me.
TWENTY
DEVIN LOOKED UP WHEN his door opened and smiled. He was alone—Manuel had vanished on some unknown errand—and his expression was somewhere between smug and exhausted. Smug was winning. It probably had seniority. “I see Dare found you.”
“I hadn’t gone far,” I said. “I got sort of distracted by my reflection.” Dare slipped in behind me, finding a place along the wall.
“Surprise.”
“Yeah. Big surprise.” I shook my head. “What did you do?”
“It was bad, Toby.” He walked over to me, expression grave. There were shadows lurking in his eyes, making it plain that the past few days had used him almost as hard as they’d used me. “We didn’t think you were going to make it.
I
didn’t think you were going to make it.”
I
didn’t think you were going to make it.”
“So what did you do?”
“I fixed it.”
“Devin, half those wounds were made with iron. You don’t have any charms that strong.” I didn’t think there were charms that strong anywhere in the world.
He shrugged, trying to look unconcerned as he reached for my hands. I pulled them away. “I called in some favors. That’s all.”
“Who could possibly have owed you enough that they’d cure iron poisoning just because you asked them to?” And who could possibly have had that much
power?
I was intruding on his personal matters. That was unforgivably rude of me, but it had to be done, because I had to know what his actions were going to cost. I had to know if it was more than I could pay.
power?
I was intruding on his personal matters. That was unforgivably rude of me, but it had to be done, because I had to know what his actions were going to cost. I had to know if it was more than I could pay.
Devin reached for my hands again. This time I let him take them. “The Luidaeg.”
Dare gasped.
“What?” I stared at him. I’d been expecting him to say something I didn’t want to hear, but this went beyond my worst imaginings. “You went to
her?
”
her?
”
“She owed me for past favors. I collected on the debt.”
“Devin, that’s insane! You—she’s a monster, she’s practically a demon! She’s—”
“Not in my debt anymore,” he finished. “That was worth a lot more to her than your life. She doesn’t like debts. She was so relieved when I said we were square that I’m surprised she didn’t make you ten years younger and give you a dinette set when she finished healing you.”
“So you ransomed my life from the
Luidaeg?
” I still couldn’t believe it. Maybe I didn’t want to.
Luidaeg?
” I still couldn’t believe it. Maybe I didn’t want to.
Devin looked past me, seeming to see Dare for the first time. “You’re excused. Wait in the front until I call with new orders.”
Dare looked surprised, then nodded, replying, “Yes, sir,” before she turned and skittered out of the room. I turned to watch her go.
“Toby.”
Devin released my hands when I looked back toward him, taking hold of the sides of my face instead, and kissing me deeply. I caught hold of his wrists, returning the kiss for a few seconds before I pulled his hands away. Heart pounding and breath short, I managed, “You shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have gone to her.”
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