“Fair enough,” he said.
And that was how we left matters. We talked a bit longer about pragmatic issues like meeting with the Fabulous Casimir to discuss studies in the magical arts, and the fact that Sinclair was really going to need a car to get around before winter and probably a part-time job to supplement his income in the off season, and maybe should consider taking in a roommate to help with the rent even though it was cheap on account of the work he was doing to improve the place, and whether the deadline for dear Emmy’s ultimatum meant four weeks from today or the same date in October, because I really did want to be prepared. Sinclair guessed it was the latter, but he wasn’t sure.
When I left, Sinclair walked me to the door and kissed me good-bye, his lips lingering briefly on mine. It was one of those indeterminate kisses that could mean anything or nothing depending on what I wanted to make of it, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about a lot of things.
Which did not include the pebble that stung my ear as I walked toward my Honda. That just plain hurt.
“Dammit, Jojo!” Clapping my hand to my ear, I whirled around, looking for her. “I thought we had a truce!”
She darted out from behind the slender trunk of a ginkgo tree, sling in hand. “Who said aught about a truce, you whey-faced scullion?”
I winced. “I assumed it.”
A look of disdain flitted across the fairy’s face. “You know what they say, lackwit. ‘Assume’ makes an ass of ‘u’ and ‘me.’ Although in this instance,” she added judiciously, “I’ll allow it’s merely you.”
“Okay, look.” I held up both hands, spreading my fingers in a universal gesture of peace. “I’m calling a truce. Can we talk for a minute? It’s about Sinclair’s sister.”
Jojo lowered her sling and tilted her head, regarding me. The afternoon sunlight angled into her cat-slitted eyes, turning them an eerie and luminous hue of lavender. “I am listening.”
“She’s leaving,” I said. “But she’ll be back in a month’s time. And you’re right—she wants to take Sinclair away. I want to stop her. And I want to know the minute she crosses the threshold into Hel’s territory. Can you help keep a lookout for her?”
The fairy sniffed. “I cannot be in all places at once.”
Funny, because it certainly seemed that way to me. The laws of physics appeared to be mutable when it came to the fey. “I thought maybe your brethren and, um, sistren could help.” Was sistren a word? I hoped so. Mr. Leary would know.
“I will ask,” Jojo said grudgingly. “None among us wishes him to leave. Will there be a favor recorded in your ledger?”
“Yeah,” I said. “A big one for whoever finds her first.”
Her minuscule features took on a calculating look. “Might the favor take the form of forgiveness for a past, present, or future transgression?”
Oh, gah. I should have known better than to get myself into the position of bargaining with a fairy. That usually didn’t go well for mortals. “Transgression?” I hedged. “You mean like pelting Hel’s liaison with pebbles?”
Jojo’s luminous eyes narrowed, her translucent wings buzzing with agitation. “That is a personal matter between you and me, strumpet!”
I dropped my right hand to dauda-dagr’s hilt. “Okay, you know what? As much as you’d like to believe it, it’s really not. So here’s the deal. I’m willing to consider forgiveness for minor transgressions, Jojo. Nothing major. Nothing that results in the harm of a human, especially a tourist-type human. And no changelings,” I added sternly. “Under no circumstances will the stealing of a child and the making of a changeling be forgiven. Understood?”
The joe-pye weed fairy gave a reluctant nod. “It is understood, and I will carry word to the others to enlist their aid.” She bared her needle-sharp teeth in a grimace. “We do not like an outsider threatening one of our own.”
I nodded in solidarity. “Neither do I.”With our bargain struck, I made my escape, ducking into the Honda before Jojo could decide the truce was off.
I drove around aimlessly for a while. I had a lot of thinking to do, but I wasn’t ready to be alone with my thoughts yet. Which I realize doesn’t make a lot of sense, since technically I was alone in my car, but being alone in public spaces isn’t the same as being alone in the solitude of your own home. And it was nice being able to get around town without all the tourist traffic. I tooled across the bridge, feeling a pang at the memory of how happy and carefree I’d been at yesterday morning’s Bridge Walk.
Just past the bridge, the SS Osikayas loomed over the river, white and green, its yellow smokestack jutting cheerfully into the sky. At the end of the dock, Union Pier, where I’d listened to the Mamma Jammers with Sinclair, was already closed for the season.
I turned into East Pemkowet and idled along Main Street with its boutiques and bistros and art galleries, with the crumbling, ivy-choked Tudor of Boo Radley’s house smack-dab in the middle. I thought about the rumors of Clancy Brannigan lurking inside, scuttling along the breezeway in the dark of night to retrieve the groceries delivered to his shuttered gazebo, and wondered how or why anyone would live that way. Supposedly, he’d once led a normal life as some kind of famous inventor or engineer, but no one had actually seen him for decades.
To be fair, it probably wasn’t easy being the sole living descendant of the town’s infamous lumber baron and axe murderer. At least he didn’t have to worry about his heritage causing a breach in the Inviolate Wall, just the urban legend about Talman “Tall Man” Brannigan’s ghost roaming the dunes.
Contemplating axe murderers made me realize I hadn’t eaten all day and was ravenous—hey, the stomach has its own logic, which will not be denied—so I drove over to the Tastee Treat and got a cheeseburger and a chocolate milk shake to go, because if ever there was a day that cried out for the solace of fast food, it was this one.
I took my guilty spoils to the beach, which was another off-season luxury since there was no longer a charge for admission, and ate sitting perched on the hood of my car, gazing at Lake Michigan. Although it was sunny and seventy-five degrees and still felt like summer, everything looked different. There were only scattered handfuls of sunbathers and kids frolicking in the water, and more people strolling the shore, quite a few of them walking dogs, which is what locals do when the tourists go home. Which, incidentally, is illegal, but the police department doesn’t bother to enforce it unless someone complains.
There was one young couple with a little dog messing around at the water’s edge. It was one of those energetic, bouncy little dogs, a fox terrier or a Jack Russell, dashing back and forth before the breaking waves and barking like mad while his owners played in the shallows, the guy chasing the girl and catching her around the waist, threatening to dunk her while she shrieked with laughter.
I watched their antics while I finished my milk shake, slurping up the dregs. I tossed my trash in a nearby garbage can, got in my car, and drove back to my apartment.
Although Mogwai had made himself scarce during the whole hexing incident this morning, he was back and demanding to be fed. Some helpful familiar he was. I filled his bowl with kibble, put Koko Taylor on the stereo, and curled up on the futon in my living room.
It had been a long day, a day that started with me waking up thinking I was dying of an aneurysm. It had been a long forty-eight hours containing some of the biggest highs and lows of my life.
Sinclair’s question echoed in my thoughts. So where does this leave us?
Good question.
I’m a-mixed up, Koko Taylor sang in the background, an unabashedly fierce growl in her voice. Mixed up about you.
“Me, too, Koko,” I said aloud. Just a little mixed up, and I didn’t know what to do. That sounded about right.
I liked Sinclair. I liked him a lot. I liked spending time with him and I was attracted to him. The whole thing about being threatened and hexed by his secret twin sister was an issue, but that wasn’t his fault. Okay, I felt a strong sense of betrayal that he hadn’t been upfront with me about such a major aspect of his life, but I could forgive him for it sooner or later. We were still getting to know each other. I hadn’t been one hundred percent truthful with him, either. I hadn’t told him about my feelings for Cody, or whatever the hell it was I had going on with Stefan.
But if I was honest with myself, totally, completely honest, what I felt for Sinclair didn’t compare. There was none of that deep yearning or searing emotional intensity that both compelled and frightened me.
What there was instead was something else I craved, something I’d missed out on throughout the course of my life: a sense of togetherness and desire, fun and belonging, all the sweetness of being young and infatuated and oblivious to the rest of the world. I wanted to know what it was like to be the teenagers in the park with their hands in each other’s back pockets or the couple at the beach romping in the water while their stupid little dog barked its head off. I wanted the satisfaction of riding on Sinclair’s handlebars while Stacey Brooks stared in envy.
Like I’d said, I wanted to feel like a normal human girl for once in my life.
But I wasn’t. And this probably wasn’t the best time to pretend I was.
Dauda-dagr’s hilt was poking into my side. I unbuckled my belt and slid the dagger from its sheath, holding it up with the blade at eye level. The hilt felt preternaturally cold and bracing against my palm. The reflection of my eyes gazed back at me in the bright rune-marked steel, black on black and inhuman.
Maybe if Sinclair was completely honest with himself, deep down, it wasn’t the yearning for brightness in me that drew him, but the inherent promise of darkness. Maybe without knowing it he was seeking balance for his absent twin, his missing dark half.
Or maybe not. He hadn’t fought for our relationship. Hell, he hadn’t even put up much of an argument.