She snorted. "No wonder he doesn't want humans knowing he's in bed with the Seelie Court. He's playing both sides. When he comes back, you should ask him about your hands.”
"What do you mean 'in bed'?" Dave asked. His voice was dry, like rustling paper. "What's my brother doing?”
"She doesn't mean anything," Corny said.
"How come we're not supposed to talk to you?" Kaye asked.
"Kaye," Corny warned.
"What?" Her voice was low. "Luis isn't here. I want to know.”
Dave laughed, hollow and bitter. "Always trying to be the big brother. He's trippin' if he thinks he can stop them from killing me.”
"Who wants to kill you?" Corny asked.
"Luis and I used to be delivery boys for a troll." Dave dumped a handful of jelly beans into his mouth and talked around the chewing. "Potions. Keep the iron sickness from getting to them. But if a person takes it—you know what you can do?”
Corny leaned forward, intrigued despite himself. "What?”
"Anything," Dave said. "All the shit they can do. All of it.”
There was a distant banging, like someone had come to the door. Kaye turned toward the doorway, wide-eyed.
A half-chewed licorice bean fell from Dave's mouth. "Sounds like my brother's going to be busy awhile. Did you know that drinking urine drives out faerie enchantments?”
"Nasty." Kaye made a face.
Dave wheezed with what might have been laughter. "Bet he's pissing in some cups right now.”
Kaye scrunched down in the sofa, kicking off her boots and putting her feet on Corny's lap. They smelled like the crushed stems of dandelions and he thought of dandelion milk covering his fingers, sticky and white, on a summer lawn years ago, while he pulled off flower heads and tossed them at his dozing sister. He was abruptly choked by grief.
"So wait," Kaye said. "Why do they want to kill you?”
"'Cause I poisoned a bunch of them. So I'm a dead man, but what good does it do to stay shut up in here while Luis tries to bargain for an extra week or two of boredom? At least I can have some fun with the time I got left." Dave grinned, but it looked more like a grimace, the skin on his cheeks pulled painfully tight. "Luis can tell me what to do all he wants, but he's going upstate this week. While the cat's away, the mouse'll finally get some play.”
Corny blinked hard, like the pressure of his eyelids could push back memories. "Wait," he said. "You murdered a bunch of faeries?”
"You think I didn't?" Dave asked.
"Hey!" Luis stood in the doorway. A Latina girl and an older woman stood behind him. "What are you doing?”
Corny circled one of Kaye's ankles with a gloved hand.
"I'll talk to whoever I want, " Dave said, standing up. "You think you're better than me, giving orders.”
"I think I know better than you," Luis said.
The girl turned toward Corny, and he saw that her arms and face were shadowed by something that looked like vines growing beneath her skin. Tiny smears of dried blood dotted where the points of thorns stuck up through her flesh.
"You don't know anything." Dave kicked a table, sending it crashing onto its side, and walked out of the room.
Luis turned toward Kaye. "If I hear—if he tells me you came anywhere near him," he shouted. "If you spoke to him—”
"Please," said the woman. "My daughter!”
"I'm sorry," Luis said, shaking his head, glancing at the door.
"What's wrong with her?" Corny asked.
"She sees these boys all the time hanging around the park," the woman told Corny. "They're pretty but they're trouble. Not human. One day they bother Lala and she insults them. Then this. Nothing in the botánica is helping.”
"You should both go wait in the other room,”
Luis said, rolling up the sleeves of his coat. "This is about to get messy.”
"I'm good here," Corny said, trying to seem unimpressed. He had several different fantasies of himself that he liked to trot out when he was feeling miserable. In one, he was the scary lunatic— the guy who was going to snap one day, get a high-powered rifle, and bury the bodies of all the people who'd wronged him, in a mass grave in the backyard. Then there was the misunderstood genius, the person whom everyone discounted but who triumphed in the end through his superior competence. And the most pathetic fantasy of all—that he had some secret mutant power he was always on the verge of discovering.
"I need her to lie down on the floor." Luis walked over to the tiny kitchen and came back with a crude knife. The woman's eyes never left the blade. "Cold iron.”
Luis actually had a secret power and was competent. That pissed Corny off. All he had was cursed hands.
"What's that for?" Lala asked.
Luis shook his head. "I won't cut you. I promise.”
The woman narrowed her eyes, but the girl seemed reassured and sank down onto the floor.
The vines squirmed under her skin, rippling as they shifted. Lala winced and cried out.