Rosemary and Rue

“Yeah?”


“How will we know if you need us?” He looked at me seriously. “The boss is gonna be really, really mad if you get hurt again.”

That was true. I didn’t want to get the kids in trouble. I just wanted them out of my way while I went in and used a key they didn’t know I had to unlock a door I wasn’t sure existed. “If I get in trouble, I’ll scream,” I said. “You can come running.”

“Will we hear you?”

“The way I scream, people in China will hear me. Just stay here, okay?”

“Ms. Daye?”

“Yes, Dare?” It was like trying to leave kindergart ners with a babysitter. If I was lucky, they’d run out of questions before the sun went down. Maybe.

“Here.” She pulled a knife out of her sleeve, offering it to me. I didn’t recognize the style of the blade, but if it was street legal, I’m a Kelpie. “In case you don’t scream fast enough.”

“Good idea,” I said. She looked almost disappointed by my reaction—she was still young enough for the rules against saying thank you to seem pointless. I winked, sliding the knife into my belt with the edge facing outward to keep me from cutting myself. She brightened, reading the unspoken gratitude in my eyes. She was pretty smart when she let herself be.

The taste of roses was rising in my throat again; the curse was going to backhand me soon, and they didn’t need to see that. I nodded a quick good-bye and turned, walking toward the museum. I heard the car doors slam behind me. Fine. As long as they didn’t wander too far or follow me, I didn’t care what they did. Maybe Manuel would pick the locks on the museum doors and show his sister something more culturally enriching than the latest shows on MTV.

To an onlooker, I would have looked like I was losing my mind as I walked down the path and through the motions to let me into Goldengreen. I circled a sundial three times, touching it at six, nine, and three o’clock, before kneeling, picking up a rock, and throwing it hard off the cliff. I waited for a moment after that, listening for the splash. The waves are a hundred feet down, and somehow I still expect to hear a splash. I never have.

The tall grass parted around me as I stepped off the path, brambles brushing my jeans without snagging hold. If that wasn’t proof of magic, nothing is. Unseen sprites whispered in my ears, daring me to turn, but I kept looking straight ahead. If I broke the pattern, I wouldn’t be able to find it for a month; the wards were too well constructed. The main route into the knowe ran through the middle of the museum, and the only other road I knew took at least an hour to finish. I didn’t have the time to waste.

Knowes are hidden because they have to be, and not just from mortal eyes. The fae are territorial by nature; we move around, but what’s ours is ours, and we’re willing to hold it against whatever comes. Most of Faerie’s civil wars have been fought over land. Evening was a Countess in name only, with title and lands but no subjects; there was no one to protect her knowe for her. She used her magic instead, wrapping her Court in layers of illusion, tucking the doors in shadows and the walls in the whisper of wind on the water. Which was all well and good, but it made getting inside difficult.

I waded through twenty feet of underbrush before a path appeared, unspooling through the weeds to end at the door of the battered supply shed shadowed by two enormous oak trees. Evening told me she’d planted those trees herself, a hundred years before I was born. She’d been coming this way for a long, long time.

The whispering faded as I walked toward the shed. Its job was done. There were more accessible entrances, but this was the way you took when you didn’t want anyone to see you coming. This was the hidden road. I put my hand on the doorknob, fingers tightening as a jolt of static grazed my skin. That was my last warning. If I went any farther, I was committed.