“Blood,” said Teo. “Fey blood.”
I did a double take. The stains and the track were both too dark for me to be sure, and any telltale scent was covered by other metallic odors.
“That’s bad, right?”
“You have no idea.”
“Because no one will tell me. Are you sure it’s blood?”
“Put on your glasses.”
Feeling a qualm, I did as he asked—and made a strangled sound. The faint stains shimmered with golden light. It was brightest on the track where the liquid looked to have pooled; then the stains made a wide, smeary trail from the tracks to the platform.
“Oh, shit,” I said. I remembered the coldly simmering anger in Brian Clay’s eyes and shuddered.
Teo nodded grimly. “The cop must have held him down on the tracks and—I don’t know, shot him? Bashed his head in? Then I guess dragged him over there—” Teo looked blankly at where the blood trail disappeared. “Picked him up, maybe?”
“How did no one see this?” I hated how high-pitched my voice suddenly sounded. “I get that the platform was empty, but Clay had to take him somewhere after he— How is this place not swarming with cops and EMTs right now?”
“I don’t know,” said Teo, hands in his hair again. “I don’t know. This is fucked.”
While Teo panicked, I kept my glasses on and tried to see if there was more blood anywhere. I noticed a few drips near the top of the stairs.
“Teo, is it possible that Rivenholt is still alive?”
“Could be. Fey anatomy is different from ours, so blood loss doesn’t stop them. Fey essence isn’t even really blood, it’s . . . more a kind of liquid energy, like fuel, for their spells.”
“So maybe he just walked out?”
Teo considered it, then shook his head grimly. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “Being held against iron like that, plus having essence literally pouring out of him, it would drain his fuel tank, right? He can’t refill without going back to Arcadia. He wouldn’t be able to hold his facade anymore. That means there’s no way he’s just walking out of here.”
“So why is there more blood at the bottom of the steps?” I pointed to a faint glimmer, barely visible from where I was standing. Teo moved past me jackrabbit quick, bounding down the stairs in a way that made me green with envy. He knelt to look.
“This isn’t blood,” he said. He bent down, picking up a piece of paper and unfolding it. He stood there for a long moment, then slowly took off his glasses. He turned his head and looked up at me with the kind of look people give you when the burning house on the news is yours.
“What?” I said, when he didn’t speak. “Is it another of Rivenholt’s drawings?” I pushed my own glasses up to the top of my head and made my way down the stairs.
Teo nodded and turned the paper around toward me. When I was close enough, I laced my hands together behind my back and looked. The air collapsed out of me with a whoosh.
The woman in the drawing wasn’t beautiful in the way Hollywood stars are beautiful. More like a rock face worn away by wind and water. Her short hair left every scarred line of her face exposed, a lean face dominated by intelligent eyes. She stood with the careful straightness of someone who took pain for granted. Her cane gleamed like wet ice, as did the sleek mechanical construction that stood in for her left leg.
She had flesh, somewhere, past the metal and the loosely draped clothes that had once flattered a less gaunt frame. I wondered if her skin was warm, if by reaching it, by fitting the curve of a naked hip into the hollow of my palm, I could change the grim expression in her eyes. But she was as off limits as though she were surrounded by barbed wire. Written at the bottom of the paper were two words: COLD IRON.
Rivenholt had drawn me.
After a moment Teo folded up the drawing, leaving me staring blankly at his T-shirt, and tucked the paper into his back pocket. I didn’t notice there were tears on my cheeks until he wiped them away with the back of his hand.
And then he was holding me and murmuring in my ear—no llores, mija—and I wanted to explain that I wasn’t sad, I was happy. But then I couldn’t explain because he was kissing me.
He was terrible at it and tasted like cigarettes (the bastard had sneaked a smoke while parking the car, maybe while Rivenholt was bleeding out on a railroad track), but I kissed him back anyway because I couldn’t kiss the man who had drawn me. We stood clinging to each other like a soldier and his wife at the bottom of the stairs, and I shook like a cheap washing machine and he shhh-shhhh-ed me between kisses. His hands were careful, but mine were reckless; they found soft cotton T-shirt and rough jeans and then—paper, because while I was groping him I accidentally touched the drawing, goddamn it.
25
Teo didn’t talk in the car; he just lit a cigarette. I opened my window but didn’t say anything. I let him finish his smoke and stab it out in the ashtray between us before I broke the silence.