She levered herself up to her elbows, blearily realizing that she had to stop him before he got up from the bed.
"Let me show you," she said, leaning forward to press her mouth to his. His lips parted with no resistance at all, letting her kiss him as though he could taste the truth on her tongue.
After a moment, he pulled back from her gently. "That wasn't what I meant," he said with a small rueful smile.
She flopped back, cheeks reddening, fully awake now and appalled at herself.
Roiben slid off the boxspring and onto the floor. He was looking away from her, at the sliver of light showing under the dirty plastic windowshade.
Rolling onto her side, she looked down at what she could see of his face. Her fingers chipped nervously at a drop of wax on the comforter. "I answered the riddle. I thought she would let me go and I answered it anyway."
He looked up at her abruptly, amazed. "You did at that. Why?"
Kaye wanted to explain it as best as she could. He was listening to her, at least for the moment. She made sure to keep her voice completely level, completely sincere. "Because it wasn't supposed to go like it did. I never even thought of using you like that… you were never supposed to—"
"Be glad I did," he said, but he said it gently. He reached up and ran three fingers down the side of her jaw. "It's strange to see you this way."
She shivered. "What way?"
"Green," he said, his eyes like mist, like smoke, like all insubstantial things.
She lost her nerve, looking into those eyes. He was too beautiful. He was a spell she was going to break by sheer accident.
His voice was very soft when he spoke again. "I have had a surfeit of killing, Kaye."
And whether that was meant as a prayer for the past or a plea for the future, she could not say.
This time, when he lay down on the mattress and drew the comforter over his shoulders, she watched the cobwebs swing with each gust of air that crept through gaps in the old windows. Words echoed on the edges of her thoughts, phrases she had heard but not heard. She'd seen the scars that ran up and down his chest, dozens of marks, pale white stripes of skin edged in pink.
She imagined the Unseelie Court as she had seen it the night she'd snuck in with Corny, except that now they were all looking at their new toy, a Seelie knight with silver hair and such pretty eyes.
"Roiben?" she whispered into the quiet of the room. "Are you still awake?"
But if he was, he didn't answer her.
The next time she woke, it was because someone was pounding on the door.
"Kaye, time for you to get up." Her mother's voice sounded strained.
Kaye groaned. She unfolded herself stiffly from her uncomfortable position on the little bed, feeling the impression of every metal coil along her back.
The banging didn't stop. "Your grandmother is going to kill me if I let you miss another day of school. Open this door."
Kaye lurched out of bed, stumbling over Roiben, and turned the key in the lock.
Roiben sat up, eyes slitted with sleep. "Glamour," he said rustily.
"Shit." She had almost opened the door with massive wings attached to her back, and green.
She focused for a moment drawing energy through her hands, feeling the thrum of it in her fingers. She concentrated on her features, her eyes, her skin, her hair, her wings. Her wrists and ankles were still sore, and she made sure to use the glamour to compensate for the discoloration of the skin where they'd been burned by the iron.
Then she opened the door.
Ellen looked at her and then looked beyond her at Roiben. "Kaye—"
"It's Halloween, mom," Kaye said, pitching her voice in a low whine.
"Who's he?"
"Robin. We got too fucked up to drive anywhere. Don't look at me like that—we didn't even sleep in the same bed."
"Pleasure to make your acquaintance," Roiben said muzzily. In this context, his formality sounded like drunkenness, and Kaye felt an overwhelming urge to snicker.
Ellen raised her eyebrows. "Fine, sleep it off. Just don't make it a habit," she said finally. "And if either of you puke, you clean it up."
"Okay," Kaye yawned, closing the door. Considering the sheer volume of vomit she'd cleaned up over the last sixteen years—most of it belonging to her mother—she thought that was a pretty uncharitable comment, but she was too tired to dwell on it.
A few moments later, Kaye was curled up on the boxspring again, dropping easily back into sleep.
The third time that Kaye woke, it was dark outside the window. She stretched lazily, and her stomach tightened in knots. She reached out to the lamp on the end table and switched it on, bathing the room in dim yellow light.
Roiben was gone.
The pink comforter was crumpled at the foot of the mattress, two pillows beside it. The sheet covering the mattress was pulled off the corner, as though he had slept restlessly. Nothing to suggest where he'd gone; nothing to say good-bye.
She had only asked him to stay for the day. When darkness had come, he had been free to go.
Frantically, she pulled the faerie dress over her head, tossing it on the floor with all the other laundry, tugging on the first clothes she found—a plain white T-shirt and plaid pants with zippers all down the sides. She unbraided her hair and hand-combed it roughly. She had to find him… she would find him…