Holly Black - Tithe

The Queen stiffened. "I think, my knight, that you will find claiming a kingdom far easier than keeping one." With that she turned, her long peacock cloak sweeping a circular pattern in the dust of the floor. Her knights and courtiers turned as well. Only Ethine hesitated.

Roiben shook his head.

Silarial looked back and, spotting Ethine, opened her cloak. Roiben's sister let herself be embraced and drawn away with the rest of the Seelie Court. She never saw the cruel smile that played on the lips of the Seelie Queen nor the way her eyes met Roiben's over his sister's bent head.

As the last Seelie left the hall, Roiben, self-declared King of the Unseelie Court, nearly fell into his throne. Kaye tried to smile at him, but he was not looking at her. He was staring out across the brugh with eyes the color of falling ash.

Corny had not stopped laughing.

The funeral parlor itself was small and Victorian. The furniture was ornate and dark wood. Even the wallpaper was somber, maroon fleurs de lis in a raised fuzzy velvet. There were people from school there, people Kaye only vaguely remembered. Kenny, Doughboy, Marcus, and Fatima were all there, sitting in a huddle, whispering to one another constantly, even when the preacher was speaking.

Corny held Kaye's hand through the whole funeral service, his fingers cold and sweaty and clasping hers hard enough to hurt. He didn't cry, even when she did, but he looked pale and washed out in the black suit he wore. Each time she saw the bluish bruise on his cheek, it looked more obscene.

Kaye's mother had been terrified, thinking that Kaye had died too… so terrified that she'd resolved to commute into the city instead of moving there. Even Kaye's grandmother was being nice. Ellen had dropped Kaye off at the funeral parlor that night and promised to pick her up again when she called. It was strange and kind of nice, but Kaye didn't want to get used to it.

Janet was laid out like a painting, all red curls and red lips. She looked beautiful—Ophelia surrounded by bouquets of flowers that only Roiben could name. But Kaye could smell the chemicals they'd injected into her, could smell the rotting meat of what was left, and she almost gagged when they went close. She couldn't, however, keep her hand from straying to the cold, oddly firm flesh of Janet's arm. Kaye dropped the gift she'd brought—a tube of blue, glittery nail polish—into the coffin.

Corny kept his death grip on her hand as he stared at the body of his sister.

Afterward, Kaye and Corny stood outside, waiting for his mother to finish saying good night to the relatives.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Corny said, his voice very quiet, "my mom stopped by the store before we got here. I had to go in for cigarettes." He reached into the inner pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out several straws with different-color stripes circling down their packaging. "A bouquet of Pixy Stix."

Kaye smiled. "I should be trying to cheer you up."

"You already did your white charger bit," he said. "Check it out… rip this sucker open and you get genuine pixie dust. Tastes like sour sugar."

She snickered and so did he, a weird, desperate laugh that spiraled up into the night sky.

"What are you going to do now?" Kaye asked.

"I don't know. Shit, I still have to digest what I've already done."

"I know what you mean… but, you know none of it's your fault, right?"

"Except the part at the end with the knife?"

"Even that part. Maybe especially that part."

"Next time…" Corny said, eyes alight in a way that Kaye was relieved to see until she heard the soft words that followed. "Kaye, I will never be powerless again. Whatever it takes. Whatever."

"What do you mean?"

He just squeezed her hand tighter. After a few moments, he said, "So how about you?"

She shrugged. "Did I ever mention that I know how to make leaves into money?"

"Yeah?" he said, eyebrows raised. His mother came over with a few relatives, and Corny finally let go of Kaye to get in the car. Her hand was damp and hot, and when the breeze hit it, it felt like she was wearing her insides on the outside.

The last people had left the funeral parlor and they were locking up, so Kaye crossed the street to use the pay phone in front of the supermarket. She called her mother and then sat down on the curb in front of a plastic horse that rocked back and forth if you fed quarters into it. The fluorescent lights and the organic smell of rotting vegetables and the tumble of plastic bags across the parking lot seemed so utterly normal to her that she felt disconnected from the events of two days before.

She hadn't seen Roiben. It wasn't like anything happened badly between them, it was just that she'd needed to take Corny home and he'd needed to stay and do whatever it was that new monarchs did. She didn't even really feel bad that she hadn't seen him. It was more the feeling of relief that you have when you know that something painful is coming, but you can avoid it for the moment. If she saw him, then she'd have to listen to whatever he really thought about the two of them being together now that he was King.

Looking at the plastic horse, she summoned her magic. A moment later it shook out its mane and leaped down from the metal suspension it was held in. As she watched, it galloped away into the night, plastic hooves clattering over the asphalt.

"There is something of yours I would like to return to you." Roiben's voice made her jump. How had he managed to get so close without her hearing? Still, she couldn't help smiling vapidly any more than she could help scolding herself for doing so.

"What?"

He leaned across the distance between them and caught her mouth with his own. Her eyes fluttered closed and her lips parted easily as she felt the kiss sizzling through her nerves, rendering her thoughts to smoke.

"Um…" Kaye stepped back, a little unsteadily. "Why does that belong to me?"

"That was the kiss I stole from you when you were enchanted," he said patiently.

"Oh… well, what if I didn't want it?"

"You don't?"

"No," she said, letting a grin spread across her face, hoping her mother would take her time on the drive over. "I'd like you to take it back again, please."

"I am your servant," the King of the Unseelie Court said, his lips a moment from her own. "Consider it done."

I am grateful to my kind editor, Kevin Lewis, for his patience; to my dear friends Steve Berman, Dianna Muzaurieta, and Frank Burkhead for their brutal and inventive comments; to Katja Byrne for telling me it was a YA novel in the first place; to Tony DiTerlizzi and Angela DeFrancis for hand-holding above and beyond the call of duty; and to Theo for enduring the misery along the way. In addition, I am indebted to my first readers: Caitlin, Ed, Gram, Jay, Jenni, Judy, Joe, Jon, Katherine, and Mike.