Leading Ethine by the fur-lined handcuff, Luis waited as Corny unlocked the front door. Inside, the rainbow fiber-optic tree illuminated a pile of dirty dishes. Framed needlepoint samplers hung on the wall next to signed pictures of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. A cat jumped down with a thud and started to wail.
"My room's down that hall," Corny whispered. "Home sweet home.”
Luis padded over the worn carpet, leading Ethine behind him. There was a musty smell that Corny hadn't noticed before. He wondered if he'd just gotten used to it.
Corny's mother opened the hall door. There was something sad about her thin nightgown, her tangled bed-hair and bare feet. She hugged him before he spoke.
"Mom," Corny said. "This is Luis and . . . Eileen.”
"How can you just walk in here like this?" she said, stepping back and looking him over. "You missed Christmas, this year of all years. The first Christmas since your sister's funeral. We thought you were dead too. Your stepfather cried like I've never seen him.”
Corny squinted, as though some problem with his vision could explain her words. "I missed Christmas? What day is it?”
"It's the twenty-sixth," she said. "What are you three wearing? And your hair's black. Where have you been?”
Five days gone. Corny groaned. Of course. Time ran differently in Faerieland. It had seemed like two days when it had been twice that. Crossing to that island had been like crossing another time zone, like flying to Australia, except there was no way to gain that time on the way back.
"What is wrong with you? What have you been doing that you don't know how long you've been gone?”
Corny plucked at his tunic with a yellow-gloved hand. "Mom—”
"I don't know if I can ever forgive you." She shook her head. "But it's the middle of the night and I'm too tired to listen to your excuses. I'm exhausted from worrying.”
She turned toward Luis and Ethine. "There's some more blankets in the closet if you get cold; remind Corny to turn on the space heater.”
Ethine seemed ready to say something, but Luis spoke first. "Thank you for letting us stay." He looked almost shy. "We'll try not to be any trouble.”
Corny's mom nodded absently, then squinted her eyes at Ethine. "Her ears are . . ." She turned to Corny. "Where have you been?”
"A sci-fi convention. I'm so sorry, Mom." Corny opened the door to his bedroom and switched on the light, letting Luis and Ethine walk past him, inside. "Seriously, I don't know how I lost track of so much time.”
"A convention? Christmas con? I expect to hear a much more convincing story in the morning," she said, and went back into her own room.
A computer hummed on his desk, the screen fading between a series of screen shots from Farscape. A poster of two angels hung above his bed, one with black wings and one with white, their hands twined together by a cord of thorns, their blood the only color on the large glossy paper. Piles of books were stacked where he dropped them right before he fell asleep. Manga volumes sat on top of graphic novels and paperbacks. He kicked a few under the bed, embarrassed.
He had always thought of his room as an extension of his interests. Now, looking around the room, he thought it looked as dorky as the penguin on his lawn.
"You can sleep here," Corny told Ethine, nodding toward his bed. "The sheets are pretty clean.”
"Gallant," she said.
"Yeah, I know it is." He walked over to his dresser, where a white King and a black King stood side by side. He liked to signal his moods by which one was in front, but he'd stopped doing that after Janet died; there was no annoying sister to signal to. Opening the drawers, he pulled out a T-shirt and boxers and tossed them onto the bed. "You can wear these, if you want. To sleep in.”
Luis unlaced his boots. "Can I grab a shower?”
Corny nodded and rummaged for the shirt that had the least pathetic logo. He found a faded navy blue one that said, i can drink more coffee than you can. Looking up, ready to hand it to Luis, he froze as Ethine stripped off her dress with complete nonchalance. The blades of her shoulders were covered with what looked like the buds of wings, pink against the handkerchief white of her skin. As she slid his boxers up her thin legs, she looked over at him and her eyes were chilling in their emptiness.
"Thanks," Luis said too loudly, taking the cloth out of his hands. "I'm going to borrow jeans, if you don't mind.”
Corny nodded toward a few pairs stacked on a basket of clean clothes. "Take whatever.”
Ethine sat on the edge of the bed, the unnaturally long toes of her bare feet scrunching in the rug as Luis left the room.
"I could enchant you," she said.
He stepped back, looking away from her face. "Not for long. Luis or Kaye would come in, and you can't enchant them." But, of course, Kaye was at her grandmother's house and Luis was in the shower. A quick glance told him that he hadn't bothered to lock her other cuff to anything. She'd have plenty of time.
"Even with the sound of my voice, I could make you do my bidding.”
"You wouldn't tell me that if you were going to." He thought about the little faery he'd captured the night of the coronation, and slid his hand behind the dresser, to where the iron poker was leaning. "Just like if I say that I could make your skin wrinkle like the old waitress at that diner, you can be pretty sure I'm not planning on it.”
"And your sweet mother, I could enchant her, too.”
He turned around, whipping the brand through the air, toward her throat. "Lock the other cuff. Do it right now.”
She laughed, high and bright. "I only meant that you should not forget that by bringing me here, you are putting those you love in danger.”
"Lock the cuff anyway.”
She leaned over and cuffed herself to the support on his headboard, then twisted so that she was lying on her stomach. Her gray eyes flashed as they caught the light of the side table. They were as inhuman as the eyes of a doll.
Crossing to the window, Corny took the key out of his jacket, opened the window, and tossed it out into a leaf pile. "Good luck ordering me around now. Enchanted or not, it's going to take someone a while to find that key.”
He watched her, poker in hand, until Luis came back wearing Corny's jeans and a bleached towel wrapped around his braids. The mahogany skin of his chest was still flushed with the heat of the shower.
Corny looked down quickly at his gloved fingers, at the thin layer of plastic that protected him from ruining everything he touched. It was better, looking down, instead of taking the chance that his eyes might stare too long at all that bare skin.
Luis unwrapped the towel from his head and seemed to suddenly notice the poker and the locked cuff. "What happened?”