Tithe

"I smoke," she said, sitting on the floor. Eyes already watery from coughing could no longer hold back tears. It seemed stupid that this was the thing that would set her off, but she sobbed, feeling more like puking with nothing in her stomach than any crying she'd done.



"They're poison," he said incredulously. "Even Ironsiders die from those."



"I know." She pressed her face against her knees, wiping her cheeks against the faerie gown, wishing she'd let him leave when he'd wanted to.



"You're tired," he said with a long sigh that might have been annoyance. "Where do you sleep? You might consider glamouring yourself as well." His face was impassive, emotionless.



She smeared the tears on her cheeks and nodded. "Are you tired?"



"Exhausted." He didn't exactly smile, but his face relaxed a little.



They went up the stairs quietly. Her new senses were distracting. She could hear the whistling snore of her mother and the lighter, muffled breaths of her grandmother. Up the stairs, she could smell the woodchips and excrement of her rats, smell the chemical soaps and sprays in the bathroom, could even smell the heavy coating of oily dust that covered most surfaces. Somehow, each odor was more vivid and distinct than she could remember it being.



Ignore it, she told herself; things had been the same way the last time she had the heavy glamour removed. Just a perk to make up for the fact she couldn't touch half the metal things in the house and one drag on a cigarette could make her almost pass out.



They went into her bedroom and she turned the old-fashioned key to lock the door. There was no way she was going to be able to explain Roiben to her grandmother, glamour or no.



"Well, I saw your room," she said. "Now you get to see mine."



He waded through the mess to sit on the mattress on the floor. She dug through the garbage bags and found a musty green comforter riddled with cigarette burns for herself. The pink one she usually slept with was already piled on the mattress, and she hoped that it didn't smell too much like her sweat.



Roiben pulled off his boots, looking around the room. She watched his eyes settle first on the rat cage, then on the drifts of clothing, books, and magazines lining the floor.



"Kind of a dump, I guess." She sat down on the boxspring that still graced the frame of the white bed.



She watched him, stretching out on her mattress, fascinated by the way the compact muscles moved beneath his skin. He looked dangerous, even tired and bandaged and wrapped in her pink comforter.



"What did you do with her?" He looked up through silver lashes of heavy-lidded eyes.



"What?"



"The girl this room really belongs to—what did you do with her?"



"Fuck you," she said, so angry that for a minute she didn't even care that she was supposed to be convincing him how sorry she was.



"Did you think I would credit the tears of a pixie?" he asked, turning so that his face was hidden from her.



Unspoken slurs hung on her tongue like thistles, hurting her throat with the effort of swallowing them. They were both tired. She was lucky—he was still talking to her.



As tired as she was, she couldn't sleep. She watched him instead, watched as he tossed and turned, tangling the blankets around him. Watched as his face relaxed into exhaustion, one hand curling tightly around the edge of the pillow.



He never had looked as real to her as he did in that moment, hair loose and messy, one bare foot hanging over the edge of the mattress, resting on a library book she'd always meant to return.



But she didn't want to think of him as real. She didn't want to think of him at all.



And then she was being shaken awake. She blinked in the unnatural darkness of drawn shades. Roiben was sitting next to her on the hard boxspring, hands gripping her shoulders so hard she was sure they would bruise.



"Tell me that you meant to tell me, Kaye," he said, eyes bright.



She struggled to be more fully awake. Nothing about this scene made sense, certainly not the anguish so plain on his face.



"You were going to tell me that you were a faerie," he insisted. "There was no time."



She nodded, still stunned by sleep. He seemed huge; the whole room was swallowed up by his presence so that it was impossible to look anywhere but into his eyes.



"Tell me," he said, letting go of her shoulders, his hands moving to smooth the hair back from her face in a rough caress.



"I never meant… I wanted to," she stammered drowsily, the words hard to fit together.



His hands stilled. His voice was low this time. "Make me believe it."



"I can't," she said. She had to focus, to find the answer that would make everything right again. "You know I can't."



"Go back to sleep, Kaye," he said softly, no longer touching her, his hands fisted on his knees.



She levered herself up to her elbows, blearily realizing that she had to stop him before he got up from the bed.



"Let me show you," she said, leaning forward to press her mouth to his. His lips parted with no resistance at all, letting her kiss him as though he could taste the truth on her tongue.



After a moment, he pulled back from her gently. "That wasn't what I meant," he said with a small rueful smile.



She flopped back, cheeks reddening, fully awake now and appalled at herself.



Roiben slid off the boxspring and onto the floor. He was looking away from her, at the sliver of light showing under the dirty plastic windowshade.



Rolling onto her side, she looked down at what she could see of his face. Her fingers chipped nervously at a drop of wax on the comforter. "I answered the riddle. I thought she would let me go and I answered it anyway."



He looked up at her abruptly, amazed. "You did at that. Why?"



Kaye wanted to explain it as best as she could. He was listening to her, at least for the moment. She made sure to keep her voice completely level, completely sincere. "Because it wasn't supposed to go like it did. I never even thought of using you like that… you were never supposed to—"



"Be glad I did," he said, but he said it gently. He reached up and ran three fingers down the side of her jaw. "It's strange to see you this way."



She shivered. "What way?"



"Green," he said, his eyes like mist, like smoke, like all insubstantial things.



She lost her nerve, looking into those eyes. He was too beautiful. He was a spell she was going to break by sheer accident.



His voice was very soft when he spoke again. "I have had a surfeit of killing, Kaye."



And whether that was meant as a prayer for the past or a plea for the future, she could not say.



This time, when he lay down on the mattress and drew the comforter over his shoulders, she watched the cobwebs swing with each gust of air that crept through gaps in the old windows. Words echoed on the edges of her thoughts, phrases she had heard but not heard. She'd seen the scars that ran up and down his chest, dozens of marks, pale white stripes of skin edged in pink.



She imagined the Unseelie Court as she had seen it the night she'd snuck in with Corny, except that now they were all looking at their new toy, a Seelie knight with silver hair and such pretty eyes.



"Roiben?" she whispered into the quiet of the room. "Are you still awake?"



But if he was, he didn't answer her.



The next time she woke, it was because someone was pounding on the door.



"Kaye, time for you to get up." Her mother's voice sounded strained.



Kaye groaned. She unfolded herself stiffly from her uncomfortable position on the little bed, feeling the impression of every metal coil along her back.



The banging didn't stop. "Your grandmother is going to kill me if I let you miss another day of school. Open this door."



Kaye lurched out of bed, stumbling over Roiben, and turned the key in the lock.



Roiben sat up, eyes slitted with sleep. "Glamour," he said rustily.



"Shit." She had almost opened the door with massive wings attached to her back, and green.



She focused for a moment drawing energy through her hands, feeling the thrum of it in her fingers. She concentrated on her features, her eyes, her skin, her hair, her wings. Her wrists and ankles were still sore, and she made sure to use the glamour to compensate for the discoloration of the skin where they'd been burned by the iron.



Then she opened the door.



Ellen looked at her and then looked beyond her at Roiben. "Kaye—"



"It's Halloween, mom," Kaye said, pitching her voice in a low whine.



"Who's he?"



"Robin. We got too fucked up to drive anywhere. Don't look at me like that—we didn't even sleep in the same bed."



"Pleasure to make your acquaintance," Roiben said muzzily. In this context, his formality sounded like drunkenness, and Kaye felt an overwhelming urge to snicker.



Ellen raised her eyebrows. "Fine, sleep it off. Just don't make it a habit," she said finally. "And if either of you puke, you clean it up."



"Okay," Kaye yawned, closing the door. Considering the sheer volume of vomit she'd cleaned up over the last sixteen years—most of it belonging to her mother—she thought that was a pretty uncharitable comment, but she was too tired to dwell on it.



A few moments later, Kaye was curled up on the boxspring again, dropping easily back into sleep.



The third time that Kaye woke, it was dark outside the window. She stretched lazily, and her stomach tightened in knots. She reached out to the lamp on the end table and switched it on, bathing the room in dim yellow light.



Roiben was gone.



The pink comforter was crumpled at the foot of the mattress, two pillows beside it. The sheet covering the mattress was pulled off the corner, as though he had slept restlessly. Nothing to suggest where he'd gone; nothing to say good-bye.



She had only asked him to stay for the day. When darkness had come, he had been free to go.



Frantically, she pulled the faerie dress over her head, tossing it on the floor with all the other laundry, tugging on the first clothes she found—a plain white T-shirt and plaid pants with zippers all down the sides. She unbraided her hair and hand-combed it roughly. She had to find him… she would find him…



Kaye stopped with one hand still dragging through tangled hair. He didn't want her to follow him. If he'd wanted anything more to do with her, he would have at least said good-bye. She'd apologized and he'd listened. He'd even forgiven her, sort of. That was that. There was no reason to go after him, unless you could count the odd, soft touch of his hand on her cheek or the gentle acceptance of yet another kiss. And what did those things mean anyway? Less than nothing.



But when she went down the stairs, Roiben was there, right there, sitting on her grandmother's flowery couch, and Ellen was sitting beside him. Kaye's mother was wearing a red dress and had two sequin devil horns sticking out of her hair.



Kaye stopped on the stairwell, stunned as the utter impossibility of the scene crashed up against the utter normalcy of it. The television was on, and its flickering blue light sharpened Roiben's features until she couldn't tell whether he still wore his glamour.



He was drizzling pieces of plain, white bread with honey from the jar, thick amber puddles of it that he as much poured into his mouth as ate.



"Thank you," he said. "It's very good."



Kaye's mother snorted at his politeness. "I don't know how you can eat that. Ugh." Ellen made a face. "Too sweet."



"It's perfect." He grinned and licked his fingers. His smile was so honest and unguarded that it looked out of place on his face. She wondered if that was what he had looked like before he'd come to the Unseelie Court.



"You're one twisted young man," Ellen said, and that only made his grin widen. Kaye wondered whether he was smiling at the jibe or smiling because it was so true.



Kaye walked down a few more steps, and Ellen looked up. Roiben turned to her as well, but she could read nothing in those ashen eyes.



'"Morning," Roiben said, and his voice was as warm and slow as the honey he'd been eating.



"You still look like shit, kiddo," her mother said. "Drink some water and take an aspirin. Liquor makes you dehydrated."



Kaye snorted and walked down the rest of the stairs.



On the television, a cartoon Batman chased the Joker through a spooky old warehouse. It reminded her of the old merry-go-round building.



"You guys are watching cartoons?"



"The news is on in ten minutes. I want to see the weather. I'm going up to New York for the parade. Oh, honey, when I saw Liz the other day, I told her how you were doing and everything. She said she had something for you."



"You saw Liz? I thought you were mad at her."



"Nah. Water under the bridge." Ellen was always happier when she was in a band.



"So she sent me an album?"



"No. It's a bag of old clothes. She was going to get rid of them. She can't fit in any of that stuff anymore. It's in the dining room. The gray bag."



Kaye opened the plastic bag. It was full of glittering fabrics, leather and shiny vinyl. And yes, there it was, as shimmeringly purple as in her memories, the catsuit. She pulled it out reverently.



"How come you didn't tell me the real reason you didn't want to move to New York?" Ellen glanced meaningfully in Roiben's direction.



Roiben's face was carefully expressionless.



Kaye could not seem to marshal her thoughts well enough to find a reply. "Do you guys want some coffee or something?"



Her mother shrugged. "There's some in the kitchen. I think it's left over from the morning—I could make some new."