Page 51 of Night and Silence

I blinked. I don’t normally have allergies. I was about to comment when I sneezed again, and again, barely covering my nose in time.

“Sorry about that,” said Miranda, not sounding sorry at all as she opened a drawer and rummaged for a writing utensil. “My St. John’s wort is having a very exciting pollination season this year. I may need to cut it back before the next blooming.”

I stiffened. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw May do the same. Then I turned, with exquisite care, to consider Miranda’s window garden.

It was artfully planned. At first glance the plants looked like they’d been shoved in wherever they would fit, but a few seconds’ consideration confirmed it wasn’t so. Each had been potted precisely, positioned to receive the exact degree of sunlight it needed to thrive. She gardened like a scientist, like someone who knew precisely what she was hoping to achieve.

I didn’t know the plants by sight, but I knew them by scent. She was growing the usual herbs, rosemary and basil and thyme. She was also growing fennel, and kingcup, and St. John’s wort. She was growing hemlock, and gorse, and dill, and kale.

She was growing everything we’d found in Gillian’s room and more. The only thing she wasn’t growing was cinnamon.

“Here.” Miranda turned to offer me a slip of paper. “My number, and Cliff’s. Call if you find anything.” Her tone made it clear that she didn’t expect me to. She was playing along, grasping at any straw she could find.

I looked at her, searching her face for any sign of inhuman heritage. There was nothing, no smear of fairy ointment around her eyes or glitter of illusion in the air. But those herbs . . .

I took a breath. I’ve been following my instincts for my whole career, and while they’ve led me wrong a time or two, they’ve been right far more often than that.

“Okay,” I said. “I have just one question before we go. Why are you warding my daughter’s room against the fae?”

Miranda froze, staring at me. Then, taking a step back, she hissed, “Get out.”

So I wasn’t wrong. That might have been reassuring, if I hadn’t been so damn confused. “I found the sachets in Gillian’s dresser. The smell is all over her clothing. What do you know that I don’t?”

“I know you’re all liars and thieves, and you’d take her in the night if you thought you had half a chance at holding her.” Miranda took another step backward. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re mother or monster; you’d steal her all the same. So I kept her safe. I kept her away from those who might have harmed her. How dare you raise your voice to me, as if you had ever done a damned thing to protect that child?”

The image of a meadow that never existed flashed before my eyes. There had been three versions of Gillian there, three versions of my perfect changeling child: the one who was, in that moment, and the two who had the potential to rise from her ashes. I had given her the Choice. I had protected her in the only way I had, in the only way I had known how. If it hadn’t been enough, how was that my fault?

“You have no idea what I’ve done for her,” I said stiffly. “You have no idea what I might still do for her. You’re not her mother. You have no right to act like you are.”

“I’m more mother than you ever were,” Miranda snarled. She turned, apparently intending to grab a knife from the block next to the sink.

Oh, hell, no! I was trying to be nice. I was trying to be reasonable. Neither of those things required me to stand idly by while Cliff’s new wife stabbed me. “Not happening,” I said, and lunged, grabbing her around the ribs. The action pinned her arms to her sides, which was a nice bonus.

Her response—slamming her head back so that her skull impacted with my forehead—was less of a bonus, and more of a predictable problem. Blood gushed from my nose, clearing my head almost instantly. I squeezed harder.

“Calm down,” I spat. “You think I care if you’re not human? I don’t care. I only care that you were apparently trying to keep me away from my own daughter.”

Miranda jerked away from me. She was surprisingly strong, and I didn’t want to hurt her, not when I was going to have to explain it to Cliff. “Hi, I beat up your wife because she likes to play with herbs . . .” wasn’t the sort of thing that was exactly going to fly with him. I fell back, wiping my bloody nose with one hand, and watched her warily.

“I am entirely human,” she snarled, and grabbed her purse from the edge of the counter, rummaging through its contents with one hand. I expected her to draw a knife, given what she’d been lunging for before. Instead, she produced a wicked-looking rose thorn with tin foil wrapped around its base. It was half the length of my thumb, its surface glistening like it had been dipped in something viscous and terrible. She pointed it at me, then at May, continuing to move it back and forth between us.

“You stay back.” Her voice was low, tight, controlled. “You stay back, and I won’t have to use this.”

“Do you regularly carry super jumbo thorns in your purse?” asked May. “Aren’t you afraid of stabbing yourself when you go for your checkbook?”

Miranda scowled at her. “Who uses a checkbook anymore? I do all my banking online.”

“How progressive of you,” I said. “What happens if one of us gets stabbed with your little gardening project?”

“Pray you don’t find out,” she said.

“Yeah, okay,” I said, and grabbed her.

As expected, she stabbed me with the thorn, embedding it in my wrist. A wave of dizziness passed over me. I stepped back, letting her go in order to pull the thorn out and jam it into my jacket pocket. The dizziness passed as quickly as it had come. If there was any charring or blistering of the skin, my human disguise hid it.

May rolled her eyes. “You’re not immune to poison, you asshole,” she said.

“Yeah, but I’ll recover.” I drew my knife, holding it in front of myself in a defensive position. “Drop the purse, Miranda.”