Ballad

Steven Seagal movies.'

He didn't know. How big of a deal this was. Nobody told a human their real name. Nobody. 'Promise me you... promise me that...' I couldn't think of what to make him promise. As if the promise of a human meant anything anyway. They could lie with impunity.

James leaned in and I thought for a moment he was going to kiss me. Instead, he just wrapped his arms around me and lay the side of his face against my face. I could feel his heartbeat, slow and steady and warm, going at half the speed of mine, and his breath, uneven and short on my cheek. A kiss could never mean the same thing as this. 'Nuala,' he said, and his voice was low and funny--hoarse. 'Don't be afraid of me. You don't have to tell me. But I-- I would do this for you, if you wanted. I know there has to be some sort of catch, but I'd try.'

I closed my eyes. It was too much. The possibility of keeping my memories, the faeries' words at the dance last night, the danger of telling my name, the shape of his words in my ear. I had never meant it to go this far.

I squeezed my eyes shut so hard I saw flickering grayish lights behind my eyelids. 'Amhran-Liath-na- Meine.'

I felt light-headed right after I said it. I'd really said it out loud.

I'd really done it.

James squeezed me tighter as if it would stop me from shaking.

He whispered, 'Thank goodness. I thought you were going to say Izzy Leopard and then I would start laughing and then you would kill me.'

'You are such a jerk,' I said, but I was relieved. Scared totally out of my mind, but relieved.

James let me go. I hurriedly made sure I had full control of my facial expression before he did. He leaned back and repositioned his legs. 'My butt's falling asleep. Do you think it would be really bad if I pronounced it wrong? I mean, it's not exactly an easy name like 'Jane Doe,' is it?'

'This is serious!' I sounded fiercer than I meant to. I shouldn't snap. I knew he cracked jokes even when he was serious, but it was hard to remember that when I didn't have his thoughts to back me up.

'I know it's serious, killer,' he said. 'Maybe the most serious thing I've ever done.'

We both jerked when his phone rang, in his pocket. James pulled out it and frowned at the screen. 'It's Sullivan.'

He flipped it open and leaned close to me so that the phone was sandwiched between his ear and mine. 'Yeah?'

James?

'Why does everyone ask that?' demanded James. 'Yes, its me.

Sullivan's voice sounded far away. 'Your voice sounds different on the phone. Is she still there?'

'Of course she is.'

'Look. I'm sorry I'm taking so long to get up there. There's-damn. Hold on.' A pause. 'Sorry. Look, can you drive her into town? To the deli there? Get a table outside. One of the iron ones. Can she take that?'

'Yeah.'

'Okay. Okay. I'll see you there in, like, fifteen minutes.' Sullivan hesitated again. 'James--' Another pause, and then a sigh.

'James, don't tell any of the other students. Have you seen

Deirdre Monaghan lately?'

James

All around us, the birds sang and cars whirred past the deli and the day was beautiful.

I set my hands on the table, very carefully, and worried Nuala's stone between my fingers. I wanted so badly to write guilt on my skin that I could almost taste the letters in my mouth.

Bitter.

'It wasn't fair of Sullivan to tell you that,' Nuala said. She glared at the waitress, who'd returned with our glasses of water.

'Yeah, fine, they're fine. Leave them there!' The last bit was addressed at the waitress, who was trying to catch my eye while she rearranged the water glasses on the table. 'Seriously.

We're waiting for someone. Just--' Nuala made some gesture with her fingers like she was flicking water off them.

The waitress left.

I tried to imagine the last thing I'd said to Dee. Was it something horribly cruel? I hadn't seen her since I'd let Nuala just rip into her--but I couldn't remember how awful I'd been.

Somehow I seemed to remember that I'd said something awful.

Somehow her disappearance was my fault.

'Piper,' snapped Nuala. 'He didn't say there was anything wrong. He just asked you if you'd seen her. Obsessing doesn't do any good.' She opened her mouth like she was going say something else, but instead leaned her chair back toward the table behind her and grabbed a pen that had been left with the check. She handed it to me. 'Just do it.'

Another thing to feel guilty about. My skin was almost bare of ink now, and here I was regressing.

She pressed the pen into my fingers. 'Unless you want me to write something for you.'

I felt relieved the second I pushed the tip of the pen to the back of my hand. I scratched river black onto my skin, clicked the pen, and sighed.

'What the hell does that mean?' Nuala asked.

I didn't know. It just felt good to get it out.

Nuala grabbed my pinky finger and pinched it. 'I can't read your thoughts anymore. You have to talk to me.'

'I don't know what it means,' I said. 'I didn't know what half the stuff on my hands meant when I met you.'

She frowned at me but looked up as a harried-looking Sullivan stepped out of the deli onto the patio, meeting the waitress in the door. He leaned over and said something to her before joining us at the table.

He opened his mouth, but I said first, 'Have they found Dee yet?'

Sullivan shook his head. 'No.' He fidgeted with his chair until he was happy with its distance from the table's edge. 'But please don't obsess about it, James. I only told you because I knew she was a friend of yours and thought you might have heard from her. I was really hoping that you were going to tell me she'd called you. There are a thousand innocuous places she could be.'

Nuala gave me a meaningful look, but what meaning, I couldn't tell.

'And a thousand not innocuous places,' I countered.

'Which is true for any of us.' Sullivan opened the menu but didn't look at it. 'There are people looking for her, and we're only working on guesses. Right now my attention is entirely absorbed by the definite problem right in front of me.

'Me,' Nuala said. When Sullivan looked at her, she added, 'I get it. You hate me. Nothing personal.'

Sullivan made a face. 'Ehh. I don't hate you. I just don't trust you. And--it's not even you personally. I've just never met a harmless member of your race.'

'You still haven't,' Nuala said, with a smile like a growl. 'But I would never hurt James.'

He looked at me. 'Anything to add, James?'

I shrugged. 'I believe her. I told you before. We haven't made a deal. She hasn't taken anything from me.' And she was an awesome kisser and she knew more about me than anyone else in the world. I left that part out.

Sullivan made a frown that put a wrinkle between his eyebrows, and then used two fingers to rub it, as if he was selfconscious of it. 'You're going to give me an ulcer. Can you imagine how much easier life would've been for you if you'd just gone to your classes, learned to play the piano, and graduated with more Latin epithets after your name than

Cicero? You know, instead of befriending a homicidal faerie whose modus operandi is to suck the life from her victims? Can you try to see what it is that I'm struggling with here?'

'Waitress,' Nuala warned in a mild voice.

We all shut up as the waitress appeared and asked for our orders. None of us had looked at our menus and