Valiant

Chapter 14

They arrived in the city as the sun dropped behind them. The drive had been slow. Congested traffic and long lines at the tolls had made the trip stretch longer and Val shifted constantly in the backseat. The icy air from windows Luis refused to close froze her and the pain when the upholstery touched her back made it impossible to turn over.

"You still okay back there?" Luis called.

"I'm awake," Val said, kneeling up and holding on to the passenger side headrest, ignoring how light-headed she felt once she was upright. The silver box sat in the center of the front seat, the dim outside lights highlighting the sculptural wreath of brambles that surrounded a single rose on the surface. "It's already dark."

"We can't go any faster. Traffic is crazy, even in this direction."

She looked at Luis and it felt as if she were seeing him for the first time. His face was bleeding and his braids were loose, hairs frizzing out in a nimbus around his head, but his expression was calm, even kind.

"We'll get there in time," she said, trying to sound brave and sure.

"I know we will," Luis replied, and Val was glad of the human comfort of lies as they continued to weave through traffic.

They pulled up half on the sidewalk of the underpass. Luis turned off the car and jumped out, pushing down the seat so Val could get out too. She grabbed the box and slid from the car as Luis pounded on the wooden tree stump.

Val ran up the stairs, holding the box to her chest. She was already crying as she walked into the dark room.

Ravus lay in the middle of the floor, no longer stone, his skin as pale as marble. Val sank to her knees beside him, opening the silver box and taking out her gory treasure. It was cold and slippery in her fingers as she placed it into the wet, gaping wound in his chest. The blood on the floor had dried in black streaks that flaked where she'd stepped and her stomach churned at the sight of it.

She looked up at Luis and he must have seen something in her face, because he kicked over a stack of books, setting dust swirling through the air. Neither of them said anything as the moments slid by, each one meaningless now that they were too late.

Her tears dried on her cheeks and no more came. She thought that she should scream or sob, but neither of those things seemed to express the growing emptiness inside of her.

Val leaned down, letting her fingers slide through Ravus's soft hair, pushing stray locks back from his face. He must have woken when he turned back from stone, woken to an empty chamber and terrible pain. Had he called out for her? Cursed her when he realized that she'd left him to die alone?

Bending low and ignoring the smell of blood, she pressed her mouth to his. His lips were soft and not as cold as she feared.

He coughed and she pulled back, falling into a sitting position. Skin was growing over his chest and his heart was beating in a steady staccato.

"Ravus?" Val whispered.

He opened his golden eyes.

"I hurt everywhere." He laughed and then started to choke. "I can only surmise that's good."

Val nodded, the muscles of her face hurting as they tried to smile.

Luis crossed the room to kneel down on Ravus's other side.

Ravus looked up at him and then back to Val. "You both… you both saved me?"

"Come on," said Luis. "You make it sound like it was hard for Val to go to the Unseelie Court, strike a deal with Roiben, challenge Mabry to a duel, win back your heart, and then get back here during rush hour."

Val laughed, but her laugh sounded too loud and too brittle, even to her own ears. Ravus's gaze settled on Val and she wondered if he hated that it was she who'd saved him, if he felt that he would now be indebted to someone who disgusted him.

Ravus groaned and started to sit up, but his strength seemed to fail him and he fell back. "I am a fool," he said.

"Stay where you are." Val scuttled over to a blanket and pushed it under Ravus's head. "Rest."

"I'll be all right," he said.

"Really?" Val asked.

"Really." He reached up to squeeze her shoulder, but she flinched as his fingers grazed over the cuts on her back. His eyes held hers for a long moment, then he pulled a wad of the material of her shirt up. Even out of the corner of her eye, she could see it was stiff with blood. "Turn around."

She did, kneeling up and lifting the back of her T-shirt over her head. She held that pose for a moment, then dropped her shirt back to cover her. "Is it bad?"

"Luis," Ravus said, his voice sharp. "Bring me some things from the table."

Luis collected the ingredients and set them on the floor beside Ravus. First Ravus showed Luis how to salve and treat Val's back, then how to doctor his own ripped piercings, and finally he wove together amaranth, crusts of salt, and long stalks of green grass. He handed them to Luis. "Tie that into the shape of a crown and place it on David's brow. I only hope it will be enough."

"Take the car," Val said. "Come back for me when you can."

"Right," Luis nodded, moving to stand. "I'll bring Ruth."

Ravus touched Luis's arm and he paused. "I was thinking about what was said and unsaid. If rumors from either Court implicate your brother, he will be in great danger."

Luis stood up, gazing out the windows at the glittering city. "I'll just have to think of something. I'll make some kind of bargain. I've protected my brother so far; I'll keep protecting him." He looked at Ravus. "Will you tell anyone?"

"You have my silence," Ravus said.

"I'll try to make sure I deserve it." Luis shook his head as he walked through the plastic curtain.

Val watched him go. "What do you think will happen to Dave?" she asked, her voice low.

"I don't know," Ravus said equally quietly. "But I confess that I care much more about what will happen to Luis." He turned to her. "Or you. You know, you look terrible."

She smiled, but her smile faded a moment later. "I am terrible."

"I know that I have behaved badly toward you." He looked to one side, at the planks of the floor and his own dried blood, and Val thought how strange it was that sometimes he seemed ages and ages older than she, but at other times, he didn't seem any older at all. "What Mabry told me hurt more than I expected. It was easy for me to believe that your kisses were false."

"You didn't think I really liked you?" Val asked, surprised. "Do you think I really like you now?"

He turned toward her, uncertainty in his face. "You did go to quite a lot of effort to be having this conversation, but… I don't want to read too much of what I hope into that."

Val stretched out beside him, resting her head in the crook of his arm. "What do you hope?"

He pulled her close, hands careful not to touch her wounds as they wrapped around her. "I hope that you feel for me as I do for you," he said, his voice like a sigh against her throat.

"And how is that?" she asked, her lips so close to his jaw that she could taste the salt of his skin when she moved them.

"You carried my heart in your hands tonight," he said. "But I have felt as if you carried it long before that."

She smiled and let her eyes drift closed. They lay there together, under the bridge, city lights burning outside the windows like a sky full of falling stars, as they slid off into sleep.

A note arrived in the beak of a black bird with wings that glistened purple and blue, as though it were made of pooling oil. It danced on Val's widow-sill, tapping at the glass with its feet, eyes shining like bits of wet onyx in the fading light.

"That's pretty weird," Ruth said. She got up from where she was stretched out on her stomach, library books scattered around her. They had been working on a report they were calling "The Role of Postpartum Depression in Infanticide" for health class extra credit, considering how badly they'd flunked the flour-baby project.

It had been weird to walk through the halls again after being gone for almost a month, the soft fabric of her T-shirt brushing against the scabbed-over cuts along her back, the clean smell of shampoo and detergent in her nose, the promise of pizza and chocolate milk lunches. When Tom passed her, she had barely even noticed him. She'd been too busy rushing around, kissing ass, getting makeup work, and promising never to miss another day of school ever again.

Val went to the window and pushed it open. The bird dropped its scrolled paper onto the rug and flew off, cawing. "Ravus has been sending me notes."

"Noootes?" Ruth asked, her voice threatening to assume the most obscene thing unless she was given details.

Val rolled her eyes. "About Dave—he's supposed to get out of the hospital next week. And Luis moved into Mabry's old place. He says that even though it's a dump, it's a dump on the Upper West Side."

"Any word on Lolli?"

Val shook her head. "Nothing. No one's seen her."

"Is that all he's writing about?"

Val kicked some loose papers in Ruth's direction. "And that he misses me."

Ruth rolled onto her back, snickering gleefully. "Well, what does this one say? Come on, read it out loud."

"Fine, fine, I'm working on it." Val unrolled the paper. "It says, 'Please meet me tonight at the swing set behind your school. I have something to give you.'"

"How does he know that there's a swing set at school?" Ruth sat up, clearly puzzled.

Val shrugged. "Maybe the crow told him."

"What do you think he's going to give you?" Ruth asked. "A little hot troll action?"

"You are so disgusting. So, so, so vile." Val shrieked, throwing more papers at her, scattering their work completely. Then, she grinned. "Well, no matter what it is, I'm not introducing him to my mom."

It was Ruth's turn to shriek in horror.

That night, on her way out the door, she passed her mom, sitting in front of the television, where a woman's lip was being injected with collagen.

For a moment, the sight of the needle made Val's muscles clench, her nose scent for the familiar burning sugar smell, and her veins twist like worms in her arms, but it was accompanied by a visceral disgust just as strong as the craving.

"I'm going for a walk," she said. "I'll be back later."

Val's mother turned, her face full of panic.

"It's just a walk," Val said, but that didn't settle the unasked and unanswered questions that lay between them. Her mother seemed to want to pretend the last month hadn't happened. She referred to it only vaguely, saying, "When you were away," or "When you weren't here." Behind those words seemed to be vast, black oceans of fear, and Val didn't know how to navigate them.

"Don't be too late," her mother said faintly.

The first snow had fallen, encasing the branches in sleeves of ice and turning the sky bright as day. Val picked her way to the school playground as flurries started up again.

Ravus was there, a black shape sitting on a swing that was too small for him, hunching forward to avoid the chains. He wore a glamour that made his teeth less prominent, his skin less green, but mostly he just looked like himself in a long, black coat, gloved hands holding a gleaming sword across his lap.

Val walked closer, sticking her hands in her pockets, finding herself suddenly shy. "Hey."

"I thought you should have one of your own," Ravus said.

Val reached out and ran a finger down the dull metal. It was thin, the crossguard in the shape of braided ivy and the hilt unwrapped by leather or cloth.

"It's beautiful," Val said.

"It's iron," he said. "Crafted by human hands. No faerie will ever be able to use it against you. Not even me."

Val took the blade and sat in the swing beside his, letting her feet drag through the snow, making it into muddy slush. "That's some present."

He smiled, seemingly pleased.

"I hope you'll keep teaching me how to use it."

His smile widened. "Of course I will. You have only to tell me when."

"I was looking at NYU—Ruth likes their film department and they have a fencing team. I know that's a different thing than the kind of fighting you've been teaching me, but I don't know, I was thinking it might not be completely different. And there's always lacrosse."

"You would come to New York?"

"Sure." Val looked back at her slushy feet. "I have some school to finish. I got all your messages." She could feel that her cheeks were hot and blamed the cold. "I was wondering if there was a way to send something back to you."

"Do you mind birds?"

"No. The crow you sent was beautiful, although I don't think he liked me."

"I will have my next messenger await your response."

Just a short time ago, she might have been that messenger. "Have you heard anything about Mabry? What is everyone saying?"

"Rumors from the Courts hold that Mabry was some kind of double agent, but each Court denies her. The exiles in the city know she was the poisoner—the Bright Court appears to be claiming that she was killing at the behest of the Night Court—but so far she has not been linked with Dave. Regrettably, I fear time will reveal his involvement."

"And then?"

"We Folk are a fickle, capricious people. Whim will decide his fate, not some mortal idea of justice."

"So are you going to return to the Bright Court? I mean, now that you know the truth about Tamson there's no reason to stay exiled."

Ravus shook his head. "There is nothing for me there. Silarial counts deaths too lightly." He reached out a gloved hand and stilled her swing. "I would remain nearer you for what time there is."

"Gone in one faerie sigh," she quoted.

Leather-clad fingers brushed over her short hair, rested on her cheek. "I can hold my breath."