“Like that she fights dirty,” the youngest one mutters.
“That’s right, tenderfoot,” Billy growls. “She does fight dirty. And it’s your turn, so you’d best remember it and perform adroitly.”
Without getting off his chair, the young one says, “Names, then.”
“What?” Nettie asks.
“Names. If you can guess all our true names correctly. They’re not the ones you’ve heard us say, obviously.”
Somewhere in Nettie’s addlepated brain, this rings a bell. Didn’t the Captain say the fae guarded their true names from mortals and monsters? But these fools didn’t know she’d watched them earlier, when they used different names in easy conversation. Shadow magic is as good as fae magic, she figures, no matter how many goddamn violins you can play.
Pointing at each one, Nettie barks their names. “Bonney. Scurlock. Rudebaugh. Tom.” They’re incredulous. “That’s right, ain’t it? And for my own challenge, why don’t you fellers guess my true name?”
The silence that follows is deep and dark and furious, a bull’s breath before charging. The four men surge to their feet, and they can’t hide what they truly are now. Their coats and hair whoosh back on a breeze that isn’t there, their pointed ears twitching and alert. They’re so handsome her heart wrenches, each of them bestial but beautiful, too, like the prettiest parts of men and women all mixed up, which happens to be Nettie’s particular brand of temptation. Humanity falls off them like the flash of a peacock’s tail opening to reveal what’s been there, all along. The air smells like fire and lightning and crushed pine needles and danger, so much danger. And power. And a whiff of cruelty, dark as pitch. Nettie loves them and longs for them, but the Shadow sees them and hates them.
“You already told us your name,” Bonney says, his ice-blue eyes glittering under a crown of ivory antlers that drip with rubies and emeralds. He steps forward, tall and elegant, trailing a cape made of moss and starlight and pointing one clawed finger at Nettie’s chest. “Nettie Lonesome,” he says, a cruel but sweet smile curving his flawless lips.
Nettie shakes her head. “Nope. Sorry.”
His cloak expands wide enough to blot out the stars, and he’s a startlingly beautiful god-giant made of a million points of light, his hands big enough to crush Nettie and everything she’s ever loved in a tornado of lightning and flowers.
“What do you mean, ‘nope’?” he shrieks.
Nettie closes her eyes so they won’t explode and rocks back on her heels. “Sorry, but Nettie’s not my true name, my real name. I don’t know what my real name is. I was orphaned, and the folks who took me in, they just called me Nettie. I guess Nettie’s my girl name, but I don’t think of myself like that.”
Doc glides over and leans down to inspect her. He’s dropped his human face, too, and the creature before her is so full of sunshine and gilt that he makes Nettie’s best friend, Sam Hennessy, seem like a haystack. His crown is woven of slender finger bones and chunks of amber strung on catgut, and his cloak is the soft brown of baby bunnies fresh born.
“She’s not lying,” he says quietly, as if he can’t quite believe it.
“Oh, hells,” Tom mutters, turning away with the rustle of leaves. His crown is a circlet of vines daubed with poison-tipped thorns and tiny rosebuds, and his jacket is spring green, plush as the new grass by a riverbank and dappled with tiny white flowers. All the magic in the world can’t hide his embarrassment. Black curls of smoke encircle the boy as Bonney’s glittering fingers squeeze their censure with the power of an earthquake.
“Clever girl.” Rudebaugh sidles up and slides a finger under her chin, looking closely at her face. She’s frozen, unable to turn away. “You’d make a suitable bride. Return to Fairy with me, and I’ll gift you an eye that sees the future. You’ll dwell seven years in perfect happiness, dancing and doted on and gifted with every jewel you desire. Your child will be fine and fortunate beyond all men, and when you return, your luck will forever be sevenfold.” He’s the most beautiful of them, to Nettie, with his crown of braided leather and thick, bear-pelt beard and cloak of spotted fawn skin. There’s an animal roughness about him that appeals to her, a glint in his sharp teeth that says he understands her on a bone-deep level, her need to coax and kill and mete out justice in equal measure.
His words, on the other hand, show the truth of him: he belongs to another world, and Nettie Lonesome doesn’t give a shit about magic eyes or jewels or dancing or pretty fairy babies or unearned luck. She’s got to kill what needs to die, and she can’t do that where they come from because nothing dies in Fairy. Ever.
Nettie snaps her chin out of his reach, closing her eyes to the silly but cloying dreams he showed her. “No thanks. I got to get back to rangering. I’ll just take your man, and return him to . . .”
They all look over to find a pair of golden manacles on the ground.
“That son of a bitching possum!” Rudebaugh shouts, but he’s just a man again, a trapper in skins drawing his bowie knife, all raiment of glamour faded.
Bonney claps his hands together, and it’s like lightning striking the glade in a blinding flash of light.
The trees are dead again. The chairs are gone. The fire is gone. The dented coffeepot is gone. The cloaks and crowns and otherworldly beauty are definitely gone. There’s nothing but the full moon, Billy the Kid, his posse, and the chains their quarry slipped while they were showing off their skills. While Nettie watches, the manacles’ metal fades from solid gold to rusted iron. She doesn’t mind a bit that the fairies are wearing their masks again. She prefers them this way, not showing off. Magic’s one hell of a distraction.
“If you’ll excuse me, fellers, I’m free to go, ain’t I?” she asks.
“Without your man,” Billy says with a grin. “The contest was three to two, but I guess I’ll consider it a tie now.” He passes an open hand before her face and murmurs, “Forget us and go.”
Nettie tips her invisible hat. “Nice gambling with you boys,” she says.
As she walks into the woods, she unties the gold sash. Safely in the shadows, she lets the cloak drop, then her humanity. The great bird shakes itself, sick to death of magic. It launches into the air and surveys the moonlit desert below.
All it sees are four road-worn cowpokes arguing as they tighten the saddles of their horses. The leader smacks the youngest one, knocking his hat to the dust. The bird doesn’t know why, but it turns and flaps in the other direction. Farther on, it catches sight of movement and swoops down to snatch up a quickly waddling possum, which it immediately drops. Possums, the bird seems to recall, are not worth the trouble.
TEAM FAIRY
* * *