Rosemary and Rue

pockets, every inch of him radiating discontent. The shimmer of magic around him was visible even halfway down the path, tagging him as fae. The air tasted like steel and heather; the illusion that made him seem human had been cast recently, and on my doorstep. He’d been there since before dawn.

I hesitated. I could ignore him and hope he’d let me into my apartment without a scene. I could go to the Starbucks down the street, nurse a coffee, and hope he’d go away. Or I could get rid of him.

Never let it be said that I’d chosen the easy way out or shown a fondness for uninvited visitors. Narrowing my eyes, I stalked down the path toward him. “Can I help you?”

He jumped, turning toward me. “I . . . what?”

“Help you. Can I help you? Because you’re between me and my apartment, and I was hoping to get some sleep today.” I folded my arms, scowling.

He squirmed. Judging by body language alone, he was actually the age he appeared to be, putting him somewhere in his mid-teens. His hair was dandelion-fluff blond, and his eyes were very blue. He’d probably have been beating the girls off with a stick if he hadn’t been dressed like he was about to ask me if I’d accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior. Any kid dressed that formally and standing on my porch at dawn had to be on some sort of official business, and that just made me scowl deeper. I prefer to avoid official business. All it ever does is get people hurt.

“I . . .” he stammered. Then he seemed to remember himself and straightened, puffing out his chest in the self-important manner that seems to be endemic to pages everywhere. “Do I have the privilege of addressing the Lady Daye?” He had a very faint accent. Whoever he answered to now, he’d started life somewhere in or near Toronto.

“No,” I snapped, pushing past him to the door. The red threads that store my warding charms were still taped above the doorframe, almost invisible in the early morning light. Dawn damages wards, but it usually takes three or four days to destroy them completely. I dug for my keys. “You have the ‘privilege’ of annoying the crap out of Toby Daye, who isn’t interested in your titles, or whatever it is you’re selling. Go away, kid, you’re bothering me.”

“So you are the Lady Daye?”

Eyes on the door, I said, “It was Sir Daye, when it was anything at all.”

“I’m here on behalf of Duke Sylvester Torquill of Shadowed Hills, protector of—”

I turned to cut him off before he could launch into a full recitation of Sylvester’s titles and protectorates. Holding up my hand, I hissed, “This is a human neighborhood! I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, and frankly, I don’t care. You can take your message and your on-behalf-of back to Shadowed Hills, and tell Sylvester I’m still not interested. All right?”

The kid blinked, looking like he had no idea what he was supposed to say. My reactions didn’t fit inside his courtier’s view of the world. I had a title, one that had clearly been awarded to me for merit, rather than out of courtesy, if I was insisting on the use of “sir” over “lady.” Changelings with titles are rare enough to be conversation pieces, and changelings with titles they actually earned are even rarer; as far as I know, I’m the only changeling to be knighted in the last hundred years. I had a liege, and not an inconsequential or powerless one at that. So why was I refusing a message from him? I should have been turning cartwheels of joy just to be remembered, not blowing off a Duke.

“Perhaps you misunderstand . . .” he began, with the sort of exaggerated care that implied he was speaking to a child or a crazy person. “I have a message from Duke Torquill, which he has tasked me to—”

“Sweet Lady Maeve protect me from idiots,” I muttered, turning back to the door and jamming my key into the lock. The wards glared an angry red. “I know who your message is from. I just don’t care. Tell Sylvester . . . tell him anything you want. I got out of that life, I quit that game, and I’m not listening to anymore messages.”

I waved my free hand and the glare died, replaced by the grass-and-copper smell of my magic. Good. No one had broken in. Someone who didn’t have the key could open the door without breaking the wards, but not without voiding the spell woven into them, and even a master couldn’t replicate the flavor of my magic that exactly. I couldn’t mistake one of Tybalt’s spells for one of Sylvester’s anymore than I could mistake sunset for dawn. That’s the true value in wards; not keeping things out, but telling you if something’s managed to get in.

“But—”

“But nothing. Go home. There’s nothing for you here.” I shoved the door open and stepped inside.

“The Duke—”

“Won’t blame you for failing to deliver this message. Trust me on this one.” I paused, suddenly tired, and turned in the doorway to face him. He looked very lost. It was almost enough to make me feel sorry for him. “How long have you been with Sylvester’s court?”

“Almost a year,” he said, confusion shifting into sudden wariness. I couldn’t blame him for that. I hadn’t been exactly pleasant.

“Almost a year,” I echoed. “Right. That explains why you drew the short straw. Look: I am a knight in the service of His Grace. That’s true. I can’t make him release my fealty. But unless he gives me a direct order, I don’t have to listen. Did he send you here with a direct order?” The kid shook his head, silent. “That’s what I thought. Tell him I appreciate him thinking of me, and I’d appreciate it even more if he’d stop.” Almost gently, I shut the door in his face.

The knocking started less than a minute later. I groaned. “Root and branch, don’t some people know how to take a hint? I’m not interested!” The knocking continued.

Swearing under my breath, I shrugged out of my coat and threw it over the back of my battered, Goodwill- issue couch. It’s the little touches that can make a house a home, right?

The knocking wasn’t stopping. I glared at the door, considering telling him to go the hell away before I shook my head and moved farther into the apartment instead. Sylvester has a knack for inspiring loyalty. If he told the kid to deliver a message, the kid was going to do his damnedest to deliver it. It might have been easier to just open the door and let him say whatever it was Sylvester felt needed to be said, but the thing was I didn’t want him to. As long as I didn’t hear it, I didn’t have to run the risk that I might care.

Sylvester started trying to contact me as soon as someone told him I was back. First it was with letters delivered by pixies and rose goblins. Then it was messages passed through mutual acquaintances. If he’d moved up to sending pages, he must be getting desperate, but I still didn’t want to hear it. What did he have to say to me? “I’m sorry you screwed up this simple little thing I asked you to do and got yourself turned into a fish while I kept suffering alone?” “Maybe you didn’t find my family, but hey, you lost yours, so I guess it all evened out?” Thanks, but no thanks. I can wallow in guilt just fine without any help from my titular liege lord.

One day, Sylvester’s going to move up to ordering me to answer him, or worse, to come to Shadowed Hills and see him in person. When that happens, I won’t be able to disobey—even if I’m trying to deny Faerie, he’s my liege, and his word is law. Until then, I’m free to disregard his messengers as often as I like, and as often as I like is always. Let the kid hammer on my door until someone called security. I was going to get some sleep.

The cats were puddled on the couch in a tumbled heap of cream and chocolate. I walked past them, heading for the narrow hallway that connects the living room and kitchen to the back of the apartment where the bedrooms are. The hall lights have been burned out since I moved in, but that’s not a problem; fae are essentially nocturnal, and even changelings see well in the dark. I left my shoes by the kitchen door and my shirt on the floor outside the extra bedroom. Keeping up a human disguise for the duration of a night’s work was exhausting, and I needed to sleep.

My battered secondhand answering machine was on a low table just outside my bedroom door, dingy red display light flashing. I winced. It was probably another message from Stacy, inviting me to come over for dinner with the family, or out to coffee with her, or anywhere, just as long as I was willing to see her and let her make it better. I couldn’t deal with it. Not after Mitch and his concerned looks, and Tybalt in the alley, and Sylvester sending a page to hammer on my door until I let him yell at me. Stacy could wait. Hell, if I was lucky, maybe the machine would malfunction again and wipe the tape before I got around to listening to it.

Silencing the phone’s ringer with a flick of my finger, I walked into my bedroom and left the answering machine to flash at an empty hall. Almost as an afterthought, I closed the door.

I kicked off my jeans, taking my well-thumbed copy of the works of Shakespeare from the bedside table before crawling, otherwise dressed, into bed. My book-mark was set in the middle of Hamlet. The text was familiar enough to be soothing, and I fell asleep without noticing,