Valiant

Chapter 10

As the night wore on, Val got no better. The cramping of the muscles under her skin grew until she stood up and crept away from their crash spot so that she could at least twist and move as her discomfort urged. She walked across the rocks and started back through the Ramble, scattering a flurry of crumpled leaves from their branches. She took another sip of the tea, but it had turned icy cold.

Val had grown up thinking of Central Park as dangerous, even more than the rest of New York, the kind of place where perverts and murderers lurked behind every bush, just waiting for some innocent jogger. She remembered countless news stories about stabbings and muggings. But now the park just seemed tranquil.

She picked up a stick and did lunging drills, thrusting the tip of the wood into the knothole of a thick elm until she figured she'd cowed any squirrels that might have lived there. The movements made her feel dizzy and slightly nauseated and when she shook her head, she thought she saw moving lights on a nearby path.

The wind picked up just then and the air felt charged, the way it did before a thunderstorm, but when she looked again, she saw nothing. Scowling, she squatted down and waited to see if there was anyone there.

The wind whipped past her, nearly pulling her backpack off her shoulder. This time she was sure she heard laughter. She turned, but there were only the thick bands of ivy crawling up a nearby tree.

The next gust of wind hit her then, knocking the cup out of her hand, spilling the remains of the tea in a puddle and rolling the white cup in the wet dirt.

"Stop it!" Val yelled, but in the silence that followed, her words seemed futile, even dangerous to shout into the still air.

A whistle turned her head. There, sitting on a stump, was a woman made entirely of ivy. "I smell glamour, thin as a dusting of snow. Are you one of us?"

"No," Val said. "I'm not a faerie."

The woman inclined her head in a slight bow.

"Wait. I need—," Val started, but she didn't know how to finish. She needed to score; she needed Never but she had no idea if the faeries had a name for it.

"One of the sweet tooths? Poor creature, you've wandered far from the revels." The ivy woman walked past Val and down toward the bridge. "I'll show you the way."

Val didn't know what the ivy woman meant, but she followed, not only because Lolli and Luis were breaking Dave's heart on some nearby rocks and she didn't want to have to see it, not just because the dead eyes of the policewoman seemed to follow her in the darkness, but because the only thing that seemed important right then was stopping her own pain. And where there were faerie revels, there would be some way to find surcease.

The ivy woman led Val back to the terrace with its carved walls of birds and branches, the fountain at its center, and the lake beyond. The faerie rustled across the tiles, a moving column of greenery. Fog rolled up off the water, a silvery mist that hung in the air for a moment before it roiled forward, too dense and fast to be natural. Val's skin prickled but she was too dazed and full of aches to do more than stumble back as the fog came in like the tide on some dark shore.

It settled around her, warm and heavy, carrying a strange perfume of rot and sweetness. Music ghosted through the air—the tinkling of bells, a moan, the shrill notes of a flute. Val walked unsteadily, engulfed and blinded by swells of mist. She heard a chorus of laughter, close by, and turned. The fog ebbed in places, leaving Val looking at a new landscape.

The terrace was still there, but the vines had grown from the stone into wild looping things, blooming with strange flowers and thorns long and thin as needles. Birds flew from their sculpted nests to pick at the swollen grapes that hung from the stair rails and squabble with fist-sized bees over the steely apples that littered the pier.

And, too, there were faeries. More than Val might have imagined could live among the iron and steel of the city, faeries with their strange eyes and knifelike ears, in skirts woven of nettle or meadowsweet, in T-shirts and vests with embroidered roses and in nothing at all, their skin gleaming under the moon. Val passed a creature with legs that seemed to be branches and a face carved from bark and a little man that peered at her through opera glasses with lenses of blue beach glass. She passed a man with spines that ran along his hunched back. He smelled of sandlewood and she thought she knew him. Each fey creature seemed bright as leaping flame and wild as wind. Their eyes glowed hot and terrible in the moonlight and Val found herself afraid.

And, too, along the edge of the lake, were cloths woven with gold and heaped with all manner of delicacies. Dates, quinces, and persimmons lay on platters of cracked and dried leaves, next to decanters of sapphire and peridot wines. Cakes piled with roasted acorns were stacked beside spits of limp pigeons and cups of viscous syrups. Nearby them, in a heap, were Ravus's white apples, their red innards visible through vellum skin, promising Val respite from pain.

She forgot her fear.

She grabbed one, and bit into the warm, sweet flesh. It slid down her throat like a bloody chunk of meat. Fighting back nausea, she bit again and again, juice sluicing over her jaw, the skin of the fruit giving under her sharp teeth. It didn't feel like Never, but it was enough to numb her limbs and still her trembling.

Relieved, Val sank down by the lake as a creature of moss and lichen surfaced for a moment with a flailing pewter fish in her mouth, then dove again. Too tired to move and too relieved to be anything but sated, Val contented herself by watching the crowd. To her surprise, she saw that she was not the only human. A girl, too young to be out of middle school, rested her head in the lap of a blue faerie with black lips that braided tiny bells and beggarsweed into the child's pigtails. A man with graying hair and a tweed coat knelt beside a green girl with mossy, dripping hair. Two young men ate slivers of white apples off the edge of a blade, licking the knife to get all of the juice.

Were they the sweet tooths? Human thralls, willing to do anything for a taste of Never, not even knowing what it was to stick it in your arm or burn it up your nose. Never, Val told herself. Never again Never. Never more. Never Never NeverNeverLand. She didn't need to make the shadows dance. She didn't need to keep choosing the wrong path, gloating that at least she was picking her disaster. No matter how bad her decisions, they weren't keeping any other troubles at bay.

Another faerie came down the stairs. There was something wrong with his skin; it looked mottled and bubbling in places. One of his ears and part of his neck looked like they were sculpted crudely from clay. Some of the others drew back as he strode across the terrace.

"Iron sickness," someone said. Val turned to see one of the honey-haired faerie girls from Washington Square Park. Her feet were still bare, although she wore an anklet of holly berries.

Val shuddered. "Looks like he was burned."

"Some say that's going to happen to all of us if we don't stay in the park or go back where we came from."

"Were you exiled here?"

The faerie girl nodded. "One of my lovers was also the lover of a well-favored Lord. He made it appear as though I had stolen a bolt of cloth. It was magical fabric, the kind that shows you stories—precious stuff—and the punishment from the weaver was likely to be both elegant and severe. My sisters and I went into exile until we could prove my innocence. But what of you?"

Val had leaned forward, imagining the marvelous material, and was caught off guard by the faerie's question. "I guess you could say I was in exile." Then, looking around, she asked. "Is it always like this here? Do all the exiles come here every night?"

The honey-haired faerie laughed. "Oh, yes. If you have to go Ironside, at least you can come here. It's almost like being back at court. And, of course, there's gossip."

Val smiled. "What kind of gossip?" She was back to being a sidekick. It was automatic for her to ask the questions that her companion wanted to answer and a relief to listen. The faerie's words drowned out her own restless thoughts.

The girl grinned. "Well, the best bit of gossip is that the Bright Lady, the Seelie Queen Silarial, is here in the iron city. They say that she's to take care of the poisonings. Apparently Mabry—one of the exiled Gentry—knows something. Everyone's heard they had a meeting."

Val sank her nails into the back of her other hand. Had Mabry accused Ravus? She thought of Ravus's abandoned place inside the bridge an scowled.

"Oh, look," the faerie whispered. "There she is. See how everyone hangs back, pretending they aren't dying to ask her to prove the rumors."

Val stood up. "I'll ask her."

Before the honey-haired faerie could protest or applaud, Val threaded her way through the Folk. Mabry wore a gown of palest cream, her green-and-brown hair piled up on her head with a comb made from the inside of a shell. It looked strangely familiar to Val, but she couldn't place it.

"That's a pretty comb," she said, since she'd been staring at it.

Mabry drew it from her hair, letting the locks tumble down her back, and gave Val a wide, lush smile. "I know you. The servant Ravus has become overfond of. Take this little trinket if you like. Perhaps your hair will grow into it."

Val ran her fingers over the cool surface of the shell, but she was sure that a gift delivered with such a barb didn't deserve any thanks.

Mabry reached out a finger and touched the side of Val's mouth. "I see you've had a taste of what your skin has been drinking."

Val started. "How did you know?"

"It is my habit to know things," Mabry said, turning to walk off before Val got to ask a single thing she wanted to know.

Val tried to follow Mabry, but a faerie with hair of long weeds and a smile full of wicked laughter interposed himself. "My lovely, let me devour your beauty."

"You've got to be joking," Val said, trying to push past him.

"Not in the least," he said, and suddenly, strangely, Val could feel desire twist in her belly.

Her face went hot. "I can make even your dreams be of want."

A hand caught her throat and a deep, rough voice spoke low and close to her ear. "And now what is your training good for?"

"Ravus?" Val asked, although she knew his voice.

The other faerie slunk away, but Ravus kept his fingers at her neck. "It's dangerous here. You should be more careful. Now I'd like you to at least try and break free."

"You never taught me—," she began, but then she stopped, ashamed of the way her voice sounded like whining. He was teaching her now. After all, he was giving her time to think what the possible moves might be. It wasn't as though he was choking her. He was giving her time to win.

Val relaxed, pressing her back to his chest and grinding against him. Startled, he loosed his grasp and she pulled free. He clutched her arm, but she spun around and pressed her mouth to his.

His lips were rough, chapped. She felt the sting of fangs against her bottom lip. He made a sharp sound in the back of his throat and closed his eyes, mouth opening under hers. The smell of him—of cold, damp stone—made her head swim. One kiss slid into another and it was perfect, was exactly right, was real.

He pulled back abruptly, turning his head so that he wasn't looking at her. "Effective," he said.

"I thought maybe you wanted me to kiss you. Sometimes I thought I could see it." Her heart was thundering in her chest and her cheeks were scalding, but she was pleased that she sounded calm.

"I didn't want you…" Ravus said. "I didn't want you to see it."

She almost laughed. "You look so shocked. Hasn't anyone ever kissed you before?" Val wanted to do it again, but she didn't dare.

His voice was cool. "On rare occasions."

"Did you like it?"

"Then or now?"

Val sucked in a breath, let it out with a sigh. "Both. Either."

"I liked it," he said softly. It was then that she remembered he could not lie.

She ran her hand over his cheek. "Kiss me back."

Ravus caught her fingers, clutched them so hard that they hurt. "Enough," he said. "Whatever game you are playing at, end it now."

She pulled her hand out of his grip, sobering abruptly, and took several steps back from him. "I'm sorry—I thought—" In truth, she couldn't recall what she'd thought, what had made this seem like a good idea.

"Come along," he said, not looking at her. "I'll take you back to the tunnels."

"No," Val said.

He stopped. "It would be unwise to remain here, no matter your—"

Val shook her head. "That's not what I mean. Someone found our place. There's nowhere to go back to." It had been a long time since there was something to go back to, anything to go back to anywhere.

He spread his hand as though trying to express something inexpressible. "We both know that I am a monster."

"You're not—"

"It demeans you to cover rotten meat with honey. I know what I am. What would you want with a monster?"

"Everything," Val said solemnly. "I'm sorry I kissed you—it was selfish and it upset you—but you can't ask me to pretend I didn't want to."

He regarded her warily as she took a step closer to him. "I'm not very good at explaining things," she said. "But I think you have beautiful eyes. I love the gold in them. I love that they're different from my eyes—I see mine all the time and I'm bored with them."

He snorted with amusement, but stayed still.

She reached up and touched the pale green of his cheek. "I like all the things that make you monstrous."

His long fingers threaded through the peach fuzz of her hair, clawed nails resting carefully against her skin. "I'm afraid that whatsoever I touch is spoilt by the contact."

"I'm not scared of being spoiled," Val said.

The side of Ravus's mouth twitched.

A woman's voice pierced through the air, sharp as the clang of a bell. "You sent for Silarial after all."

Val whirled. Mabry stood in the courtyard, tendrils of hair caught by the breeze. All around them, Folk were staring. After all, here was a chance for gossip.

Ravus's hand rested on the small of Val's back and she could feel the curl of nails against her spine. His voice was flat as he addressed Mabry. "Lady Silarial's mercy may be dreadful, but I have little choice but to throw myself on it. I know she came to talk to you—perhaps when she sees how unhappy you have been and how helpful you are, she will take you back to Court."

Mabry's mouth bent into a wry smile. "We all must avail ourselves of her mercy. But now I want to do you a good turn for what you have done for me."

Val reached into her back pocket to give back Mabry's comb, the tines of it poking her fingers as she drew it out. Seaweed-wrapped pearls and tiny doves from the inside of sand dollars clung to the crest of the comb. Looking at it, Val suddenly saw the mermaid, necklace coiling in ropes of pearls and shell birds, dead eyes staring forever up at Val while her hair floated along the surface of the water, bereft of a matched comb.

Holding the comb in numb fingers, Val realized that it had come from a corpse.

"Mabry gave me this," Val said.

Ravus looked at it mildly, clearly not attaching any significance to it.

"It came from the mermaid," Val said. "She took this from the mermaid."

Mabry snorted. "Then, how is it that it came to be in your hand?"

"She gave it—"

Mabry turned to Ravus, interrupting Val smoothly. "Did you know she's been stealing from you—skimming off the top of your potions like a boggart drinks the head of cream off a bottle of milk?" Mabry snatched Val's arm, pushing up the sleeve so that Ravus could see the black marks inside the crook of her elbow, the marks that looked like someone had put out a cigarette in her flesh. "And look what she's been doing—stuffing her veins with our balm. Now, Ravus, you tell me who's the poisoner. Will you suffer for her mistakes?"

Val reached her hand toward Ravus. He pulled back.

"What have you done?" he asked, tight-lipped.

"Yes, I shot up the potions," Val said. There was no point in denying anything now.

"Why would you do that?" he asked. "I thought it was harmless, just something to keep the Folk from pain."

"Never… it gives you… it makes humans… like faeries." That wasn't it, not exactly, but his face already said, You didn't mind that I was monstrous because you are a monster.

"I had thought better of you," Ravus said. "I had thought everything of you."

"I'm sorry," Val said. "Please, let me explain."

"Humans," he said, the word soaked with repugnance. "Liars, all of you. Now I understand my mother's hate."

"I might have lied about that but I'm not lying about the comb. I'm not lying about everything."

He grabbed Val's shoulder, his fingers so heavy she felt as if she was held by stone. "Now I know what you saw in me to love. Potions."

"No!" Val said.

When she looked up at Ravus's face, there was nothing there that was familiar, nothing that was kind. His clawed thumb pressed against the pulse of her throat. "I think it is time that you were gone."

Val hesitated. "Just let me—"

"Go!" he shouted, pushing her away from him and curling his fingers into a fist so tight that his claws cut the pads of his own hand.

Val stumbled back, her throat stinging.

Ravus turned to Mabry. "Say that you feel revenged on me. At least tell me that."

"Not at all," Mabry replied with a sour smile. "I did you a good turn."

Val went, retracing her steps along the path, through the wall of fog, the woods and up to the castle, her eyes blurry and her heart aching. There, watching the distant flicker of the city lights, Val thought suddenly of her mother. Was this how she had felt, after Tom and Val were gone? Had she wanted to go back and change everything, but lacked the power?

Crawling along the rocks, Val saw the red tip of Ruth's clove cigarette before she saw the rest of their makeshift camp. Ruth stood up when Val got close. "I thought you left me again."

Val looked over at Lolli and Luis, curled up together. Luis looked different, his eyes circled darkly and his skin pale. "I just went for a walk."

Ruth took another long drag, the end of her cigarette sparking. "Yeah, well, your friend Dave just went for a walk, too."

Val thought about the revel and wondered if Dave had been there, another sweet tooth, wandering dazed among capricious masters.

"I… I," Val sat down, overwhelmed, and covered her face with her hands. "I fucked up. I really, really fucked up."

"What do you mean?" Ruth sat down next to Val and put her arm over her shoulder.

"It's too hard to explain. There are faeries, like real Final Fantasy faeries, and they've been poisoned and this stuff I've been taking—it's kind of a drug, but it's kind of magic, too." Val could feel tears trickle over her face, and swiped at them.

"You know," Ruth said, "people don't cry when they're sad. Everyone thinks that, but it's not true. People cry when they're frustrated or overwhelmed."

The mermaid's comb was still in Val's hand, she realized, but she'd been clutching it so tightly that it had broken into pieces. Just thin sheets of shell, nothing more. No reason to think it proved anything.

"Look, I'll admit you sound a little crazy," Ruth said. "But so what? Even if you are completely delusional, we still have to work out your delusion, right? An imaginary problem needs an imaginary solution."

Val let her head fall onto Ruth's shoulder, relaxing in a way she hadn't relaxed since before she'd seen her mother and Tom and maybe before that. She'd forgotten how much she loved talking to Ruth.

"Okay, so start at the start."

"When I came to the city, I was just operating on autopilot," Val said. "I had tickets to the game, so I went. I know it sounds insane. Even when I was doing it, I thought it was crazy, like I was one of those people who kills their boss and then sits back down at their computer to finish reports.

"When I ran into Lolli and Dave, I just wanted to lose myself, to be nothing, to be nothingness. That sounds all wrong and dumb, I know."

"Very poetic," Ruth smirked. "Kind of goth."

Val rolled her eyes, but smiled. "They introduced me to some faeries and that's the part where everything stops making sense."

"Faeries? Like elves, goblins, trolls? Like the ones on Brian Froud panties at Hot Topic?"

"Look, I—"

Ruth held up her hand. "Just checking. Okay, faeries. I'm going with it."

"They have trouble with the iron, so there's this stuff that Lolli calls Nevermore. Never. It keeps them from getting too sick. Humans can… take it… and it makes you able to create illusions or to make people feel the way you want them to. We were doing deliveries of it for Ravus—he's the one that makes the Never—and we would take some for ourselves."

Ruth nodded. "Okay. So Ravus is a faerie?"

"Something like that," Val said. She could see a laugh in Ruth's eyes and was grateful when it didn't move to her lips. "Some of the Folk died of poison and they blamed Ravus. I think this comb came from one of the dead faeries and Mabry had it and I just don't know what that means.

"Everything is so crazy. Dave turned that cop into a dog on purpose and Mabry told Ravus we were stealing from him so he thinks I had something to do with the deaths and I haven't had Never in two days and my whole body hurts." It was true, the aches had started up again, the pain dim but growing, the temporary reprieve of faerie fruit not enough to keep her veins from clamoring for more.

Ruth squeezed Val's shoulders in a sideways hug. "Shit. Okay, that's crazy. What can we do?"

"We can figure it out," Val said. "I have all these clues; I just don't know how they fit together."

Val looked at the remains of the comb and thought of the mermaid again. Ravus had said rat poison killed the faerie, but rat poison was a dangerous and unlikely substance for a faerie poisoner to use, especially an alchemist like Ravus. And why would he want to kill a bunch of harmless faeries?

A human could have done it. A human courier was expected, not at all suspicious.

Val remembered the first delivery she'd ever been on and the bottle of Never Dave had unstoppered, breaking the wax. Shouldn't Mabry have been worried? With all the poisonings, wasn't that like taking an aspirin with the safety seal broken? The only way that anyone would do that was if they already know who the poisoner was or if they were the poisoner themselves.

And Mabry had known that Val was using. Someone was telling her.

"But why?" Val said out loud.

"Why what?" asked Ruth.

Val stood up and paced on the rock. "I'm thinking. What's the result of the poisonings? Ravus gets in trouble!"

"So?" Ruth asked.

"So Mabry wants revenge on him," Val said. Of course: Revenge for the death of her lover. Revenge for her exile.

Mabry then. Mabry and a human accomplice. Dave was obvious, since he'd been the one that didn't bother to disguise that he was skimming Never from Mabry, but what reason did he have to kill faeries?

It could have been Luis. He hated faeries for what they'd done to his eye. He wore all that metal to protect himself. And he was using the Never, as the marks under his knee proved, even if he denied it. But for what if he couldn't see glamour? And why didn't he care that Dave had gone missing? Why pick now to hook up with Lolli when she'd wanted him for longer than Val had known her? He was so unworried. It was as though he knew where his brother was.

Val stopped at that thought.

"This is what we have to do," Val said. "We have to go to Mabry's house while she's still at the revel and find proof that she's behind the poisonings." Proof that would convince Ravus that she was innocent and proof that would convince the others he wasn't the poisoner at all. Proof that would save him so that he would forgive her.

"Okay," said Ruth, shouldering her backpack. "Let's go help your imaginary friends."