Trolls are not fond of hip-hop, as it turns out, but still—so shiny!
Claire had drawn the line at bags of actual trash, like she’d had to break Gessa from washing used paper towels and setting them all over the counters to dry. The Dark Fey lived on lousy land in Faerie, since most of the better stuff had been taken from them in the wars. I’d kind of gotten the impression that everything was hard to come by, from food to possessions, so nothing was wasted.
“Trash” just wasn’t a thing among the Dark Fey.
So garbage day was an endless bazaar of wonders to Sven, because many of the old people put their cans out the night before. Leaving him on an all-night shopping trip where everything was free. And leaving our garbage guys an easier job the next day, because a lot of the discarded junk of the neighborhood ended up back here.
That was especially true of anything metal and shiny that whirred softly when poked. Because, unlike his brother, Sven preferred all things mechanical, and had “rescued” a profusion of broken electronics to tinker with. He’d managed to get an old blender working again, which had delighted him to no end, and had thereafter started a side business with other Dark Fey, trading things he’d found or repaired for things he wanted.
The problem was that Sven had a problem telling trash from treasure, and had begun to demonstrate some serious pack rat tendencies. They hadn’t progressed all the way to hoarding, but they were heading that way fast. And Claire didn’t play that. If he didn’t do something soon, she was going to make good on her threat to open up the portal, and just blow everything to kingdom come.
Which might be the only option at this point, I thought, jumping over the railing for the last five feet, because it was easier.
My eyes had had time to adjust, allowing me to see a dim lantern glowing in the gloom and Sven over by the far wall, holding something. It turned out to be a troll favorite, consisting of potatoes sliced up in a bowl, covered with milk and a cloth, and set in a corner of the basement until it turned into something horrid. It was the Earth version of a traditional troll delicacy and the boys loved it, but it took a long time to make—because apparently it wasn’t good until it was really rancid—and they guarded their portions jealously.
Which was why it was weird that he wasn’t eating it.
He was just holding it, sitting on the floor beside a blanket-covered lump that I assumed was his brother. He looked at me. And then he held out the bowl, in both hands because it wasn’t actually a bowl. It was a kitchen sink one of the neighbors had thrown out, and that he’d found and bunged up and used for things like eating three boxes of cereal for breakfast.
Or a whole lotta rancid potatoes.
“He don’t eat,” Sven said, looking worried. Because that was not a normal thing among trolls.
“Just leave it there,” I told him, and he nodded and put the sink down.
Sven levered himself up and, despite his size, managed to negotiate the minefield on the stairs better than me. It reminded me of the big guy at the fights; so graceful despite his size. I stared after him for a moment, with something rattling around my brain, something that felt important. . . .
But then it went away, and I sat down by the lump.
It was a little ripe in here, smelling like a combo of swamp gas and troll ass, and making me curse dhampir noses. But there was no point trying to hurry this. Trolls did not hurry. They considered it undignified, unless it was children gamboling around or in battle. Otherwise, they had an odd sort of gravitas about them, a natural poise you wouldn’t expect—or at least I hadn’t, until Olga taught me that grace transcended species.
I waited.
It was peaceful down here if you ignored the smell, and dim even with a lantern. There were some narrow windows up near the ceiling, but they’d recently been covered with black paint. I dragged the lantern closer, and Ymsi turned over, the light glimmering in his tiny eyes.
“Did I disturb you?” I asked, wondering if I should put it back.
He shook his head.
We sat there some more.
Despite appearances, trolls could be very restful people to be around. Unlike the Light Fey, who reminded me of jagged bolts of lightning, or hyped-up teenagers, always ready for a fight or an adventure, trolls had a natural peacefulness about them. Like the mountains and trees and deep, quiet fjords they were named after, they didn’t seem to need to prove something to the world to justify their existence. They could just be.
I leaned back against the basement wall, and slowly felt the anger, confusion, and worry still knotting my gut start to ease away. Cool darkness wrapped around me, a gentle sort of fuzziness pervaded my body, and my feverish thoughts slowed down, down, down. I took a deep breath, and let it out, suddenly feeling calmer.
It was nice.
A large finger emerged from the blankets, and pushed the heavy vat of potatoes and slime my way.
“Thanks, but I just ate,” I said.
Ymsi frowned, probably not seeing what that had to do with anything.
“We humans have tiny little stomachs.” I pulled up my sweatshirt and showed him. He regarded it sadly. “And mine’s full. Otherwise, I’d be all over that,” I said, which seemed to mollify him somewhat.
“You should eat, though,” I told him.
He shook his head. I noticed that his eyes glimmered a little more than usual, although maybe that was a trick of the light. Sure, Dory, and the light is dribbling down his face, too.
Goddamn, I wished we’d caught whatever attacked him! I wanted to do evil things. But that required finding it first.
“I know this is a bad time,” I said. “But I have some questions. Can you answer some questions?”
Ymsi blinked at me, looking surprised. Like he’d expected the usual “it’s not your fault, you shouldn’t blame yourself” stuff he’d probably heard a dozen times by now. Which was true, but not helpful, because of course he blamed himself. He’d stabbed a kid. And the fact that he hadn’t wanted to, and that the kid might pull through anyway, wasn’t really the point, was it?
“I’m going to find whatever was here last night, and I’m going to kill it,” I told him. “But it would be easier if I had some more info to go on. If you remember anything?”
Ymsi regarded me silently for a moment. I looked placidly back. Troll brains took their time, but that didn’t mean they were stupid. Ymsi, for example, could tell you everything about every flower in the garden: which needed sun and which did better in shade, which made the prettiest flower and which smelled the best, which responded to what kind of fertilizer, or needed what kind of soil, acidic or sweet. The guy was a walking compendium of knowledge about his favorite subject, like a human kid knowing all the stats on his favorite sports team, even though he’d just failed algebra.
People are smart when they want to be, and I thought maybe Ymsi wanted to be right now.
“Woman,” he finally said, in a low rumble.
“It was a woman who attacked you?”
Again, I got a surprised look, although this time, I wasn’t sure why.
Until he told me. “Not attack. I attack. I kill—”
He broke off.
I blinked. Maybe no one had talked to him about this, after all. “You didn’t kill anyone,” I said. “He’s upstairs resting. Didn’t they tell you?”
He nodded, and then shook his head violently. “I try kill. Same thing.”
“I don’t think the kid would think it’s the same thing.”
“She say stab. I stab. I can’t stop—” He broke off again and, for a moment, sat very still. “I try,” he finally said. “I run into things. I break. But no one hear.”
Probably due to all the screaming.
“That’s why you were covered in blood,” I said. Because the stab wound in the kid wouldn’t have caused that. The blade might have gotten a little messy, but Ymsi should have been fine. Except that he’d made himself deliberately bloody, not an easy thing for trolls, so that someone would notice.