Rosemary and Rue

“Maybe.” I relaxed, my smile becoming real. “I really did miss you.”


“And we really did miss you, too,” he said. “I kept the kids looking for you for ten years, you know. We didn’t want to give up.”

“I’m glad of that,” I said. “Sometimes I think the whole world gave up on me while I was gone.”

“I think a lot of the world did, but I was never part of the crowd,” he said, and smiled. There wasn’t any phony sex in that smile; just old friendship and genuine welcome. I’d forgotten how good that could feel. “Most of the folks you knew aren’t here anymore: Jimmy’s dead, Julie’s working for Lily, John and Little Mike are both down south in Angels. As for the new generation, well . . .” He shrugged.

“The new generation needs to be kept on a leash. Starting with that little blonde bimbo-in-training you have doing front duty. I know everyone stands sentry, Devin, but you should teach her some manners before you let her out in public.”

“What, Dare? Did she give you any trouble?” He sounded affronted, but I could tell he was pleased. He wanted his kids to have a certain amount of spirit, as long as they did as they were told.

“Plenty of it, until I told her who I was. Could you have possibly found a kid with a worse attitude problem?”

“No, Toby, you were one of a kind.”

“Hey!”

Devin leaned forward, putting his hands on the desk. “She was worse when she got here. The kid couldn’t say two civil words to anyone, and now, well, she’s just a little mouthy. She’s a handful, but she does her share. They all do.”

“There are always more kids, aren’t there?” I said, looking at the wall behind his desk. He kept a giant bulletin board there, plastered with snapshots of every lost boy or girl that had ever come Home. I was in there somewhere, just another gawky teenager with badly cut hair, a bad attitude, and no common sense to speak of. It was comforting to realize that no matter what happened to me, my picture would always be buried in the collage behind Devin’s desk.

“Yes,” he said, voice softening. “There are always more kids.” How many had he seen die, or vanish, or just fade away? I left Home for Sylvester’s Court, thinking it was better: Devin lost me, but at least he knew where I’d gone. How many of his kids just left and never came back at all?

And at the same time, how many of his kids did he bury in unmarked graves after the night-haunts had been and gone? So many changelings are like me, the stolen survivors of supposed childhood deaths. No one would miss them. No one would go looking. If I called one of the Courts in the Kingdom of Angels, and asked about a changeling Silene named John or a half Gremlin called Little Mike, would anyone know who I was talking about? I knew what Devin was. I’d always known. I needed to make sure I didn’t forget it.

I knotted my fingers in my skirt, trying to banish that line of thought. This wasn’t the time to dwell on it. Later. I could cry about it later, when Devin wouldn’t see me. “We should probably get around to business. I’m sure you have other people that you need to see.”

“What do you need?” he asked. I looked up, startled. He wasn’t planning to barter: he was just going to give me whatever I asked for. That was what coming back from the dead had earned me. I’d belonged to him, and he’d given up on me, and then I came back to him—how could he refuse me?

It took me a moment to get my bearings. Finally, I said, “I need to know who killed Evening.”

“Why?”

“So I can return the favor.”

“If I knew who killed her, I’d kill them myself.”

“It’s not your job, Devin.”

“So what makes it yours?”

I took a deep breath, and felt phantom thorns scrape against my skin. “Evening called me before she died. She knew what was coming; she knew they were coming to kill her.”

He froze, flower-petal eyes narrowing. “She knew?”