Winter (The Manhattan Exiles) (9 page)

The bright eye made Aine shudder. She turned her back to it.

“3A, 3B, and here we are: 3C.”

He knocked once, and then stepped behind Aine.

The door bounced open. Lolo grinned at them.

“
Come in,” he said. “There’s no one here but us at the moment. Quiet as a kindergarten at midnight.”

At first glance Smith’s rooms were unremarkable.

“
Suite,” said Lolo. “Pretty basic. Main room with television and kitchenette, good sized bathroom, and three bedrooms off the main. Not too bad, really, for this part of town.”

“
And extraordinarily neat, the lot of them.” Winter slid from behind yet another door. In his hand he held a small satchel. “I’d say spooky neat, if not for the fact that it’s likely they’re never here to make a mess.”

“
The interns,” Richard agreed. “But what about Smith?”

“
See for yourself.” Winter nodded at Richard. “Maybe you’ll catch something I missed.”

Aine followed Richard into the small bedroom. It was unremarkable, except for the lack of windows and the square bright light in the ceiling. She didn’t know how any person could sleep in such an airless space. Suppressing a shiver, she tucked her hands into her armpits, watching Richard as he wandered the room.

“Closet’s the size of a coffin,” Winter said over Aine’s shoulder. “Cleaned out, assuming he ever used it.”

“
Dusty.” Richard poked in the cupboard with his stick. “Or is that - “

“
Ash,” Winter agreed. “Sage and cedar, and juniper. Someone’s smudged the closet.”

“
Smudged?” Aine echoed.

Winter leaned against the wall without speaking. Richard sighed.

“Ritual human magic involving burnt herbs,” he explained. He thumped the back of the cupboard. “No false walls. Ash is a quarter of an inch thick. Whatever Smith kept in here necessitated a lot of smudging. The sword?”

“
Probably wasn’t his socks,” agreed Winter. “He was afraid of it. Or he was trying to keep it safe. Juniper is for protection.”

“
Nothing in the kitchen but leftovers and energy drinks,” Lolo reported, sticking his head into the room.

“
There won’t be anything interesting in the other two bedrooms,” Winter predicted. “But take a peek anyway.”

“
Why not?” Aine watched as Richard poked under Smith’s abandoned cot. “How can you be so sure?”

“
He smudged the door frame. And the window sill. Keeping something in, keeping something out. Either way, it’s unlikely he spent much time with his roomies. But if you think I’m mistaken,” at last he looked at Aine, “I’ll leave Lolo behind with a list of questions Bran’s cops have probably already asked.”

It was some sort of test, Aine thought. She was supposed to humor him, nod and back down. Soothe his wounded pride?

“Aye, thank you,” she said.

Winter turned away, impatient.
“Come on, then.”

“
Wait,” said Richard. “What’s in the bag?”

Winter looked
surprised, then seemed to remember the pouch in his hand.

“
Oh,” he said. “These?”

The satchel was leather, and tied with waxed string. Winter undid the knot, and turned the pouch upside down over Smith’s stained mattress.

Red fire slithered onto the cot.

“
Rubies,” he said. “Quite a lot of rubies.”

Richard counted the rubies twice before he let Winter scoop them back into the pouch.

“
Forty-seven,” he said, awed. “And each the size of a grape.”

“
I’d be less impressed if they were raw,” Winter admitted. He tied a quick knot in the waxed string. “Collections of uncut gems aren’t uncommon. But these have plenty of fire. I’m betting they were turned by an expert hand.”

“
If they belong to the pouch then they’re very old,” said Aine.

Both boys looked at her in surprise.

“The pouch,” she explained. She plucked the small satchel from Winter’s fingers, rolling it on her palm. “That, there, the sickle moon pressed into the leather? That’s the mark of Angus the Lost.”

“
Angus the Lost.” Winter ran the tip of his finger over the imprint. The hard tilt of his mouth softened. His grey eyes were wide.

“
First called Angus Soothsayer.”

“
Your queen’s advisor.”

“
For a time, true. But before that, he kept the Records for Gloriana’s father, and her father’s father.”

Winter took the satchel back. His fingers brushed Aine’s own, rough and warm.

“An historian?” asked Richard.

“
The Court Records are more than just a history.” Winter secreted the rubies away under his leather coat. “They’re a written account of every ruling the Fay King - or Queen - makes. Gabby will want to see these.”

“
How do you suppose Smith got them?” Richard wondered.

Aine shook her head. Winter opened his mouth, then shut it again when Lolo popped through the door.

“Someone’s coming.”

“
Not Smith?” Winter’s hand slipped back under his coat.

“
No. Two suits. They look asleep on their feet. You’ve got four minutes, tops.”

“
Excellent. I’ve changed my mind. Richard, you’re staying. Lolo, out the window.”

R
ichard nodded. Lolo disappeared into the hall.

Winter said,
“Follow him. Out the kitchen window and down the ladder. Quick and quiet, I’m right behind you.”

“
But -”

“
I said quick and quiet.” He pushed her none too gently into the kitchen.

“
Hurry,” Lolo urged. He grinned as he ducked through the kitchen window.

“
What about Richard?”

“
He’ll be fine. He’s got a knack. Here comes the elevator. Go!”

Aine went. She clamored onto the kitchen’s long serving board, and wiggled through the window. It was night outside, dark and snowing again.

The narrow balcony outside the window was four stories up. It stank of iron.

She retched and clapped a hand over her nose.

Winter, halfway out onto the balcony, paused. “You’ve got to be kidding. Lolo, help our princess down before she turns into a pile of mush.”

Aine wanted to snarl, but she leaned into Lolo’s arms instead. Her head throbbed and snow hissed into smoke where it touched her flesh.

“What?” Lolo asked, deftly guiding her down the staircase. “Will you really turn to mush? Is it like vampires?”

“
There’s no such thing as a vampire,” said Winter.

The street beneath the iron staircase was slick. Lolo stumbled. Aine sat down and buried her face in her knees. Winter shoved at the
ladder, sending it back up against the brick building.

“
Better?” he asked.

Aine swallowed and nodded.
“How do you stand it?”

“
I was born here. You’ll adapt. Eventually.”

Aine wanted to scream
denial at the grey-eyed boy. She would go home. She had to.

But she could
n’t quite get the words past the bile in her throat.

5
. Gabby

“She’s right,” said Gabby. “That was your grandfather’s mark.”

Winter tapped his fingers on the kitchen table. The boy was never still, Gabby thought. Eve
n as a baby he’d been restless and full of energy, ready to walk before he could crawl.

But maybe that had been his parents’ fault.

Winter rolled the pouch under his palm. He stared at the wall, brow furrowed in thought.

Then he shrugged, and unknotted the pouch, upending it over the table. A clutch of gems scattered across the metal surface, flashing under the kitchen’s bare bulb.

“How about these? Do you recognize these?”

Gabby settled her whiskers, th
en walked among the rubies, tail held high. The stones were beautiful, a deep red the color of blood. She patted one with a paw. The ruby warmed at her touch.

“
Gabby?”

“
No.” She sat on her hind legs, wrapped her tail close, and regarded her charge. “They’re not familiar. But I had little time to spend counting the Queen’s jewels.”

His mouth twisted.
“Do you think that’s what they are, then? Court treasure?”

“
It seems most likely. Uniform in size and shape and kind. They would have been quite remarkable set in crown or collar.”

Winter held a stone up to the light.
“Prized from their setting to be more easily sold, one by one.”

“
It seems a convincing scenario.”

“
But also impossible, if you’re saying you believe I’ve found fay stones in a Penn Street apartment. Forget the stones. The pouch in itself is an impossibility.”

Gabby rubbed the tip of her tail between her front paws.
“There is a chance Angus had the stones on him when he crossed over. That would be the rational explanation.”

“
And the sword?”

“
I don’t remember it.” Gabby admitted reluctantly. “But my memory isn’t what it should be. Those first centuries remain little more than foggy impressions.”

The memories of an
aes sí
, she supposed, were difficult for a mouse brain to process.

Once she would have mourned the loss. But that particular sorrow had also become misty centuries past.

“The rubies can be explained away. Even the sword.” Winter’s grey eyes were bleak. “But not the girl.”

“
No,” Gabby agreed. Her regrets were nothing compared to the boy’s. The biggest mistake she had made in her life was siding with Angus over Gloriana and although the punishment had been frightful, none of the banished had been innocents.

Winter’s mistake endangered guilty and innocent alike. Not even the most feckless human babe was spared a
sluagh
’s hunger.

“
Have some tea,” she suggested as she had that very first night, to a broken child little more than eight, when they’d huddled together in a mortal soup kitchen.

Winter turned away, no doubt to spare her the glimpse of his pain, and shuffled rubies back into his grandfather’s pouch.

“Siobahn needs to know what we’ve found.”

Gabby ran a half circle around the table, and then back again. A mouse was a prey animal. When she worried it was very hard to keep still.

“Your last attempt brought a ghoul past our Wards. Are you sure you’ve set them secure?”

“
No,” said Winter. “And I’m not willing to risk it again. Which is why you’re taking the rubies to Manhattan. The rubies, and word of Aine.”

In her tiny chest the mouse’s heart began to flutter.
“Word I can carry, but not the rubies.”

“
I know.” Winter smiled without humor. “That’s why I’m also sending Lolo.”

“Flying’s faster,” Lolo complained. Arms folded across his ribs, he stared out the bus window at the speeding scenery, scowling. “Also more fun.”

“
You know I don’t ride airplanes, child. None of my kind do.”

Gabby crouched on Lolo’s shoulder, hidden by the fall of his beaded hair. She kept a watchful eye on the other passengers.

“Most of
your kind
can't leave Manhattan,” Lolo pointed out. “So they couldn’t ride on an airplane even if they wanted to. Besides, there’s probably more iron in a bus than a fuselage.”

“
It’s not just the iron. It’s the crossing of water.”

“
We’re gonna cross more than a few bridges on this really slow bus.”

“
The crossing of large bodies of water,” Gabby amended, irritated. “At great speeds and high altitudes.”

Lolo fiddled with his cap. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
“Oh. You’re afraid. My ma was afraid of flying, too. Then she got hypnotized and now she jet sets all over the place, you know?”

Gabby groomed her whiskers. To the best of her knowledge Lolo had never met his mother, but she wasn’t about to
correct him. Sometimes fantasies were the only lifeline that kept one from drowning in despair.

“
I guess maybe it’s smarter this way,” Lolo grumbled. He prodded the seat in front of him with one foot. “Less security. The suits at the airport would probably have asked all sorts of questions, and then confiscated everything.”

The soft white fur on the back of Gabby’s neck prickled.

“Everything? What do you mean, everything? You haven’t done something foolish, Lolo? You left Richard’s guns at home?”

Lolo scoffed.
“Even the rent-a-cops at the terminal would have spotted a gun. I left the artillery in D.C. Besides, I’ve got something better. Winter gave me his knife.”

He shifted just a little, allowing Gabby a glimpse of the sheath strapped to his belt.
“Pretty chill, huh?”

“
Aye.” Gabby nibbled a claw.

Winter had slept with the fairy knife under his pillow every night for the last nine years. If he’d given it into Lolo’s keeping it meant he was worried indeed.

“No problem,” continued Lolo. “I’m great with a knife. It was my thing, you know, before I met Winter. I had this hunting knife. Because I was too little to use anything bigger. I got real good with it. Practiced hard before I ever had to shank anyone.”

“
I doubt you’ll have to ‘shank’ anyone this trip.”

“
Maybe.” Lolo sounded disappointed. “But Win said to use it if I needed, and you can be damn sure I will.” 

Gabby stretched herself on the boy’s shoulder. She smothered a sigh. The bus was mostly empty, which meant there was less need for caution. The passengers were spread out in search of comfort, and no one was near enough to really care about the scruffy child talking to himself.

“Why don’t you try a nap, Lolo? We’ve still several hours to go.”

“
Three hours 22 minutes, 15 seconds, if we’re on time,” Lolo agreed. “Boring enough to send me into a coma.” He dug in his rucksack. “I brought some tunes. You want a listen?”

“
No, thank you.”

“
Your call.”

He unwound a pair of the little wire speakers mortals preferred and stuck one into the ear farthest from Gabby. He tucked the other under the collar of his shirt. It was a kind thought, and she didn’t have the heart to tell him his precaution didn’t help.

He listened to the speakers at such a high volume she was sure the entire bus must be sampling his choice of music.

Deciding that the passengers on the bus were of little real interest and highly unlikely to be any threat, Gabby transferred her gaze to the small, dirty window.

Outside the sun was rising. The roads were wet with melted snow. Trees flashed past on either side of the highway, most bare as skeletons.

The forests of Gabby’s childhood had been evergreen an
d bushy. In the winter they smelled of pine sap, and where snow caught in the thick branches it stayed, decorating the ancient trees with white drifts.

Remembering those trees and the mountains that held them, Gabby buried her muzzle in her paws, and let the rocking of the bus lull her to sleep.

It was the sharp tug of the
geis
that woke her.

“
Ouch!” Lolo protested. “That hurts!”

Gabby withdrew her tiny claws from the fabric of his shirt. Past the beads in the fall of Lolo’s hair she could see civilization: the hustle and bustle and groan of morning traffic.

“It’s the Lincoln Tunnel,” said Lolo, excited. He craned his neck, trying to see out the bus window. “We’re almost there.”

Gabby crouched low on his shoulder, as still as one rodent could be, and tried hard to think like a mouse.

“Hey, don’t worry. We’re going
under
the Hudson, not over it. And we’re going slower than shit. The tunnel must really be jammed.”

Gabby had been off and on the island a dozen times since Siobahn first sent her away with Winter.

Sent her, because she was the only one of the remaining
aes sí
who could fool the curse and leave Manhattan. Because she, Gabby, was stuck in a form she had taken centuries ago, and could no longer remember how to escape.

She was more mouse than
fay and as such almost fooled the
geis
.

Almost. Even as she crouched, and twittered, and concentrated very hard on crumbs and bits of trash and running in the dark and the fear that shook one’s bones when the underground trains rattled by too fast, too fast -

The curse caught her and shook her once, hard, an alley cat onto a feast. Then, just as abruptly, it let her go, and she was still twittering on Lolo’s shoulder, albeit gifted with a headache to end all headaches.

She smoothed her whiskers, inhaling, then sighed. It had let her go, as it always did, which was only more proof that she was no longer the being she’d been born, the being she longed - mind and heart and mortal rodent soul - to be again.

“Look! Look!” The boy actually bounced in his seat. “Look at those scrapers! They’re taller than even I imagined! Taller than they are on TV! We’re here!”

“
Aye,” Gabby breathed, resigned. “Here we are.”

The snow that had missed them on the highway threatened outside the bus station.

“
Holy frijoles.” Lolo’s beads sang as he turned this way and that, trying to take in everything at once. “I’ve died and gone to heaven, and heaven has three vendors on one block, all selling Louis Vuitton knock-offs.”

“
Imagine.” Gabby clutched the strap of Lolo’s rucksack as she tried to keep her balance.

“
I am. Imagining the fistfuls of cash I could be raking in. I’m a businessman. I belong in the big city. Why did you ever leave?”

“
Much like street vendors, Manhattan is overrun with rodents. One mouse less was not missed. Stand still,” she ordered, exasperated. “Siobahn will have sent someone to meet us. Do you see - “

“
A super hot fay girl in pink Manolos and carrying
real
Louis Vuitton? Hell, yes. Over there. Under the awning. Is that Siobahn?”

“
No,” replied Gabby. “Stop gawking and walk, please, child.”

Lolo
managed to get himself under control and move down the block with a semblance of calm. The girl under the awning watched them with a half smile, a flash of familiar grey eyes laughing under long lashes.

She wore an expensive wrap, and carried an unnecessarily large purse. And she’d traded her usual pink hiking boots for high heels.

Her smile grew as they approached. When Lolo stopped she gave a lithe half bow, beaming.

“
Mistress,” she said. “Welcome home.”

“
Samhradh
.” The mouse disliked the mischief in the girl’s smile. “Thank you.”

“
Summer?” Lolo gasped. “What happened to your pigtails?”

The
fay narrowed her grey eyes. “I outgrew them two years ago. Probably about the same time you gave up diapers. Assuming you’re finally potty trained.”

“
Snap!” Lolo laughed. “Does Win know you’ve started wearing dresses?”

“
Perhaps if he bothered to come home once in ten years he would.” Summer looked down her nose. She crossed her arms, large purse dangling. “We’ve all forgotten what he looks like. And you can tell him so.”

Lolo drew himself up and scowled.
“You know he can’t leave the Metro unprotected. He took vows, and everything.”

“
Bah,” said Summer. “Surely you and Richard can keep things under control for a mere twenty-four hours. Mama’s birthday is coming up. Papa is having a party. I expect Win to show. You can tell him that, too.”