“So, Leanansidhe has you guys steal from dragons?” I asked the girl as we walked down the dimly lit corridors, torchlight flickering over the damp stone walls. Whatever the house looked like, the basement was huge. It reminded me of a medieval dungeon, complete with heavy doors, wooden portcullises, and gargoyles leering at us from the walls. Mice scurried over the floor, and other things moved in the shadows, just out of sight.
The girl, Kimi, grinned at me. “Leanansidhe has lots of clients with very unusual tastes,” she explained. “Most of them are exiles, like her, who can’t go back into the Nevernever for some reason. She uses us—” she gestured to herself and Nelson “—to fetch things she can’t get herself, like that thing with the dragon. Apparently, a banished Winter sidhe in New York is paying a fortune for real dragon eggs.”
“You stole its eggs?”
“Only one.” Kimi giggled at my stunned expression. “Then the stupid lizard woke up and we had to book it.” She giggled again, smoothing down her ears. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to decimate the dragon population. Leanansidhe told us to leave a couple behind.”
Puck made a noise that might’ve been appreciation. “And what do you guys get out of this?”
“Free room and board. And the rep that goes with it. We’d be out on the streets, otherwise.” Kimi and Nelson shared a secret glance, but Warren was staring at me. He’d been doing that since we left to meet Leanansidhe, and it was making me very uncomfortable.
“The pay’s not bad, either,” Kimi went on, oblivious to Warren’s scrutiny. “At least, it’s better than the alternative—being hunted down for what we are, getting stepped on by the exiles and the fey who just like it better in the mortal realm. Leanansidhe’s made it safer for us—you don’t screw around with the queen’s pets. Even the redcap gangs know to leave you alone. For the most part, anyway.”
“Why?” I asked. “You’re exiles, too, right? Why should it be different for you?” I looked at her furry, tufted ears, at Nelson’s swamp-water skin and Warren’s horns. They weren’t human, that much was certain. But then I remembered Warren holding out the iron cross, his fearful damned faeries, how they could get through the door when Grimalkin couldn’t. And I knew what they were even before Kimi said it.
“Because,” she said cheerfully, twitching her ears, “we’re half-breeds. I’m half-phouka, Nelson’s half-troll, and Warren is part-satyr. And if there’s one thing an exile hates more than the fey who banished him, its half-breeds like us.”
I hadn’t thought of that before, though it made sense. I suspected half-breeds like Kimi, Nelson and Warren had it pretty tough. Without Oberon’s protection, they would’ve been left to the whims of the true fey, who probably made life very difficult for them. It wasn’t surprising they would make a deal with this Queen of the Exiles, in exchange for some degree of protection. Even if it meant stealing dragon eggs right out from under the dragon.
“Oh, and by the way,” Kimi went on, with a quick glance at Ironhorse, clanking along behind me. “Leanansidhe knows about…um…his kind. They’ve been killing off lots of exiles lately, and it’s making her mad. Your ‘friend’ should be really careful around her. I don’t know how she’ll take an Iron faery in her living room. I’ve seen her throw a fit for less.”
“Shut up, Kimi,” Warren said abruptly. We had reached the end of the hall, where a bright red door waited for us atop a flight of stairs. “I told you, it’s not a big deal.”
I frowned at him, but something caught my attention. Strains of music drifted down the steps, the low, shivery chords of a piano or organ. The music was dark and haunting, reminding me of a play I’d seen a long time ago, The Phantom of the Opera. I remembered Mom dragging me to the theater when the play came through our little town, shortly before Ethan was born. I remembered thinking I’d have to sit through three hours of absolute boredom and torture, but from the first booming organ chords, I was completely entranced.
I also remembered Mom crying through several of the scenes, something she never did, even with the saddest movies. I didn’t think anything of it then, but it seemed a little odd, now.
We stepped up and through the doorway into a magnificent foyer, with a double grand staircase sweeping toward a high vaulted ceiling and a roaring fireplace surrounded by plush black sofas. The hardwood floor gleamed red, the walls were patterned in red and black, and gauzy black curtains covered the high arched windows near the back of the room. Nearly every clear space on the wall was taken up by paintings—oil paintings, watercolors, black-and-white sketches. The Mona Lisa smiled her odd little smile on the far wall, next to a weird, disjointed painting that was probably Picasso.
Music echoed through the room, dark and haunting piano chords played with such force that they made the air vibrate and my teeth buzz. An enormous grand piano stood in the corner near the fireplace, the flames dancing in the reflection of the polished wood. Hunched over the keys, a figure in a rumpled white shirt beat and pounded the ivory bars, fingers flying.
“Who—?”