Smirking, Corny took the piece of paper and wrote on it, pressing hard enough that the letters were fat and smudgy. He spun the slip in her direction. "'Cause I know you're going to read it anyway.”
"I won't if you say not to.”
"Just read it.”
Kaye picked up the paper and saw the words: I would do anything not to be human.
She took the eye pencil and wrote hers: I stole someone else's life. She turned it toward Corny.
He slid them both into the drawer without comment. The waitress came with silverware, coffee, and cream. Kaye busied herself making her coffee as light and sweet as she could.
"You thinking about the quest?" Corny asked.
She'd been thinking about what he'd written, but she said, "I just wish I could talk to Roiben one more time. Just hear him say that he doesn't want me. It feels like I got broken up with in a dream.”
"You could send him a letter or something, couldn't you? That's not technically seeing him.”
"Sure," Kaye said. "If he got mail that wasn't, like, acorn-based.”
"There's stuff you still don't understand about faerie customs. Everything that happened—it might not mean what you think it means.”
Kaye shook her head, shaking off Corny's words. "Maybe it's good that we split up. I mean, as boyfriends go, he was always busy working. Running an evil court takes a lot of time.”
"And he's too old for you," Corny said.
"And moping around all the time," Kaye said. "Too emo.”
"No car, either. What's the point of an older boyfriend with no car?”
"Hair longer than mine," Kaye said.
"I bet he takes longer to get ready, too.”
"Hey!" Kaye punched him on the arm. "I get ready fast.”
"I'm just saying." Corny grinned. "You know, though, dating supernatural creatures is never easy. Admittedly, being supernatural yourself should make it easier.”
Across the room, a group of three men looked up from their cappuccinos. One said something and the other two snickered.
"You're freaking them out," Kaye whispered.
"They just think we're plotting out a really bizarre book," Corny said. "Or roleplaying. We could be LARPing, you know." He crossed his arms over his chest. "Now I'm obfuscating, and you have to pay for my dinner.”
Kaye caught the eye of a girl hunched over a table. The tips of her stringy hair trailed in her coffee and she was bundled in a series of coats, one layered over another, until it seemed like her back was hunched. When the girl saw Kaye looking, she held up a slip of paper between two fingers and slipped it into a drawer in front of her. Then, with a wink, she slugged back the last of her coffee and got up to leave.
"Hold on," Kaye said to Corny, rising and crossing to the table. The girl was gone, but when Kaye opened the cabinet, the paper was still there: The Queen wants to see you. The Fixer knows the way. Page him: 555-1327.
Corny and Kaye walked over to the club just as it started to snow again. The building had a brick front, papered over with posters in tattered layers worn by rain and dirt. Corny didn't recognize any of the bands.
At the front door, a woman in black jeans and a zebra-print coat took the five-dollar cover charge from a short line of shivering patrons.
"ID," the woman said, tossing back tiny braids.
"My mom's playing," Kaye said. "We're on the list.”
"I still need to see ID," said the woman.
Kaye stared, and the air around them seemed to ripple, as if with heat. "Go right in," the woman said dreamily.
Corny stuck out his hand to be stamped with a sticky blue skull and walked toward the door. His heart thundered against his chest.
"What did you do to her?" he asked.
"I love this smell," Kaye said, smiling. He wasn't sure if she hadn't heard his question or if she'd just decided not to answer it.
"You have got to be kidding." The inside of the club was painted flat black. Even the piping high above their heads had been sprayed the same matte tone so that all the light in the room seemed to be absorbed by the walls. A few multicolor lights strobed over the bar and across the stage, where a band wailed.
Kaye shouted over the music. "No, really. I love it. Stale beer and cigarette residue and sweat. It burns my throat, but after the car and the subway ride, I barely care.”
"That's great," he shouted back. "Do you want to say hi to your mom?”
"I better not." Kaye rolled her eyes. "She's a bitch when she's getting ready. Stage fright.”
"Okay, let's grab a seat," Corny said, weaving his way toward one of the tiny tables lit with a red electric votive that looked like a bug light.
Kaye went to get drinks. Corny sat and observed the crowd. An Asian boy with a shaved head and fringed suede chaps gestured to a girl in a knitted wool dress and tarantula-print cowboy boots. Nearby, a woman in a moiré coat slow danced with another woman up against a black support pole. Corny felt a wild surge of excitement fill him. This was a real New York club, an actual cool place to which he should have been forbidden according to the rules of nerd-dom.
Kaye came back to the table as the other band cleared off the stage and Ellen, Trent, and the other two members of Treacherous Iota strode on.