Copperhead

here, not meeting her eyes, to purchase a bias-cut slip skirt for Betty.

Helen adjusted the folds of a sundress on a mannequin. “Did you want to see some clothes?” she said. “Something for someone in particular?”

“No,” Rook said, and she almost smiled, but then he said, “Yes. Show me your favorites.”

“Well,” said Helen. She pulled a somber navy dress from a rack and said, “This is what I wear when I want to convince Tam’s school that his foster mother is serious and appropriate.”

“I had heard that,” he said, though he did not say how. Frye, perhaps, and that made her upset that someone she knew had seen him, shared details about her life with him, and still he had not come. “I’m glad.”

“So are we,” she said, and added, “I’ve gotten quite the education on magical snakes.”

He fingered a beaded belt hanging from a hook, not saying anything.

Helen did not know how to respond to silence. She pulled a bright green sundress from a hanger and held it in front of her, smoothing down the pleats. “This is all mine. People need something a little frivolous these days, you know? Spring’s here—almost summer. No more curfew. No more fear.” She knew the green offset her copper curls, and she looked for his reaction.

He made a noncommittal noise and turned away.

Frustrated, she tried a more direct approach. She moved to a mannequin in the shop window and directed his attention to it. “I’m rather fond of this one, with all the seed pearls. But it fits very tiny. Some of the dwarvven have stopped in, now that they’ve trickled back to the city, but it’s out of their budgets I suppose. I really need to cut one of them a deal on it—Nolle, perhaps—she repaid her debt by bringing me customers, you know. Is she dwarvven?”

“Who, Nolle?”

“The girl you’re picking this out for.”

Rook looked moody. “No. She’s not.” He pointed at the seed pearls. “Isn’t that one expensive?”

“Yes,” Helen admitted. “I sank rather a lot into it. And then accidentally made it so small that everyone who can afford it looks at it and feels guilty about the second high tea they had, but that doesn’t do anything for the dress. It doesn’t get sold.”

He glowered around the room, his hazel eyes dark. “I suppose it’s not just that dress. You’ve sunk a fortune into this place.”

“Perhaps,” Helen said, “but in fact it’s very calculated costs, this dress notwithstanding. Turns out I have a head for such things.”

“I’m not surprised,” Rook said. “I always thought you could move mountains.”

“I expect to recoup the initial investment within two years,” Helen said, “but even if I don’t—” She stopped and looked at him sharply. “Is that what this is? Are you in here worrying about how wealthy I am now?”

His hazel eyes were sharp with misery. “I knew this was a mistake,” Rook said. “I need to be going.”

“Look,” Helen said. “I may have inherited a fortune so large you could fill all your bathtubs with large bills and roll around in a scandalous fashion. But that doesn’t change me.”

The joke did not make him laugh. “You’re just being kind to me,” he said, sounding grumpy. “You can’t help it, I suppose. The fey glamour.”

She had never seen him like this. Her heart beat faster. “Fey glamour?” she said.

“Yes, whatever you do I’ll interpret as nice, because I’m bewitched. If I get too uppity, then as you said before, you could change me so I’ll leave you alone.” He glowered. “You already told me to leave town with the rest of the dwarvven. Practically threw your purse at me to get me to go. And here I am looking for another excuse to be under your fey spell.” He turned. “I suppose I’d better leave now, before I embarrass myself further.”

Helen swallowed hard and did not move. In a voice a little too high she said, “I suppose you object to my freckles, is that it?”

He was at the doorjamb, the iron-free doorjamb, and then he stopped. Slowly he pivoted on his heel. “Your freckles?” he said. Something sharp and alive crackled all through him, a hint of his former self.

“And the bump on my nose,” she said.

“What bump?” He took one step back to her. Two.

“Jane’s been doing us one by one. Freeing the little bits of fey. Didn’t you know? They deserve their chance to go home.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” he said. The spring sun slanted through the window, the dust motes sparkled in the air.

“You know, I find it highly unflattering that one viewing of Miss Eglantine Frye in a performance could make you rush all up and down the street buying flowers, but for someone you’ve actually shared a highly inappropriate dance of the Shadow with, you don’t even check in to see if she’s recovered from a murderous fey attack.”

“Dear Miss Eliot,” Rook said. He was near enough now for her to smell that faint hint of sandalwood. “I believe you told me I do many things badly.”

“Such as?”

“Dancing, for starters.”

“And?”

“And maybe this.” He kissed her.

When she came up for air she said, “No, perhaps not that.”

“Not that? Well, apologizing then. Probably that.”

“And being late for things,” Helen said. “And willfully misinterpreting my concern over your getting home as evidence that I wanted you to go there.”

“That was very badly done,” he conceded. “But not this?” He kissed her again.

A little bit later she said, “Well. I suppose that might need some practice.”

“But you’ll teach me?”

“I might,” she said.

Rook’s eyes were level with hers and the old gleam was in them. She smiled, mischievously, and turned him around till she was behind him, one hand on his waist, one hand grasping his, looking past his dear face through the open door into the clear sweet sunshine.

“Dearest Rook,” Helen said. “May I have this dance?”

Acknowledgments

The grandparents:

I got pretty lucky in grandparents, but I would especially like to dedicate this to the memory of my grandmother. She was whip-smart, an autodidact, chic, feminist, witty, political, a lover of theatre and the arts. She loved traveling, and she took me to the Children’s Theater Company in Minneapolis (Raggedy Ann & Andy!), to the Shelburne Museum in Vermont (circus toys!), to a Wayne Thiebaud retrospective in Kansas City (all those delicious painted cakes). At their house I first read The Annotated Alice, Saki, and Ogden Nash. I miss her dearly—I wish I would have traveled with her more, after college—and I like to think she would have liked many of the moments in this book, particularly when The Hundred pour in with hatpins.

The thank-yous:

The wise and insightful K. Bird Lincoln and Katherine Sparrow for reading the first draft; Cassie Alexander and Anatoly Belilovsky for heroically answering medical questions (any oddities remaining are thoroughly my own); my dad for asking a lot of tactful questions about discrepancies in the third draft; my mom and Eric for taking the toddler every time I needed to finish yet … another … draft; Anne Bronte, whose work I so greatly admire; Kij Johnson and the CSSF novel workshop for invaluable advice for future novels; my agent, Ginger Clark, for all her wisdom and excellence; everyone at Curtis Brown for theirs; my editor, Melissa Frain, for her keen eye and general fantabulousness; Alexis Nixon, Susannah Noel, Irene Gallo, Larry Rostant, and everyone else on the Tor side for their support, attention to detail, and many et ceteras; all the bloggers, reviewers, podcasters,