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And then I hung up, and just sat there, staring at the phone some more.
What the hell?
Chapter Twenty-nine
I was sucking on a splinter—my only relic from the fight—when I entered the kitchen. And found it deserted except for a harassed-looking fey at the sink, and Gessa sitting on a stool alongside. She looked the same as always, in a cute blue sack dress, because nothing rattled her. Including, apparently, teaching a fey how to do the dishes.
He looked up when I came in, relief flooding his face. Either he was out of the loop or he didn’t care about my supposed shaman status. All he knew was that a woman had finally showed up to do the chores, and the world had righted itself.
He started to take off his apron, and I held up my hand. “Sorry. Splinter.”
The weight of the universe came crashing back onto his shoulders, and Gessa had to turn away to hide a smile.
“You okay?” I asked her.
She nodded.
“And Ymsi?”
She sighed. “In his room. He sad.”
Yeah, I’d been afraid of that.
I added coffee to the perpetual grocery list on the fridge, and wolfed down a giant container of soup, a salad, three boiled eggs, most of a jar of pickles, and some soft cheese spread on half a loaf of fresh-baked bread. Then I headed for the basement.
Or I tried to. But young trolls make human teens look like neat freaks, and there was so much stuff piled against the basement door that I could barely . . . get the old thing . . . there! It finally allowed me a couple inches to squeeze through, so I did. And abruptly stopped, because I couldn’t see a damned thing.
That would have been bad enough on its own, without the minefield of items between me and the bottom of the stairs. But Claire’s uncle Pip had never bothered to run lights down here, and I didn’t feel like taking time to hunt for a flashlight. I slowly started to pick my way down.
Trolls are nocturnal, more often than not, back in Faerie. Not out of choice, but because their eyes don’t help them much even in daylight, leaving them at a serious disadvantage among better-sighted creatures. But at night, their superior hearing and smell put the shoe on the other foot, allowing them to hunt in pure darkness.
It was why a lot of them lived in caves. Even a well-equipped contingent of Light Fey hesitated at the idea of descending into a dark-as-pitch subterranean maze filled with creatures that didn’t need to see you in order to kill you. And over time, it had just become a thing. Caves might be cold and hard and generally unappealing—until you factored in the advantage of sleeping in safety. And suddenly, they didn’t seem so bad.
Which I guess was why the twins had chosen to live in the basement, despite being offered the guest room upstairs.
And why only one of them had adjusted to living in sunlight.
That, of course, was Ymsi, because gardening was easier during the day. But Sven was still mostly a night owl, and had taken to prowling around the neighborhood after dark, dragging back any rubbish that caught his eye. He just couldn’t get over all the stuff that people threw away here: cracked birdbaths and old furniture and random two-by-fours and a twisted bike with no back wheel and a painting of triangles and a rusted fridge and a whole box of CDs.
Trolls are not fond of hip-hop, as it turns out, but still—so shiny!
Claire had drawn the line at bags of actual trash, like she’d had to break Gessa from washing used paper towels and setting them all over the counters to dry. The Dark Fey lived on lousy land in Faerie, since most of the better stuff had been taken from them in the wars. I’d kind of gotten the impression that everything was hard to come by, from food to possessions, so nothing was wasted.
“Trash” just wasn’t a thing among the Dark Fey.
So garbage day was an endless bazaar of wonders to Sven, because many of the old people put their cans out the night before. Leaving him on an all-night shopping trip where everything was free. And leaving our garbage guys an easier job the next day, because a lot of the discarded junk of the neighborhood ended up back here.
That was especially true of anything metal and shiny that whirred softly when poked. Be
cause, unlike his brother, Sven preferred all things mechanical, and had “rescued” a profusion of broken electronics to tinker with. He’d managed to get an old blender working again, which had delighted him to no end, and had thereafter started a side business with other Dark Fey, trading things he’d found or repaired for things he wanted.
The problem was that Sven had a problem telling trash from treasure, and had begun to demonstrate some serious pack rat tendencies. They hadn’t progressed all the way to hoarding, but they were heading that way fast. And Claire didn’t play that. If he didn’t do something soon, she was going to make good on her threat to open up the portal, and just blow everything to kingdom come.
Which might be the only option at this point, I thought, jumping over the railing for the last five feet, because it was easier.
My eyes had had time to adjust, allowing me to see a dim lantern glowing in the gloom and Sven over by the far wall, holding something. It turned out to be a troll favorite, consisting of potatoes sliced up in a bowl, covered with milk and a cloth, and set in a corner of the basement until it turned into something horrid. It was the Earth version of a traditional troll delicacy and the boys loved it, but it took a long time to make—because apparently it wasn’t good until it was really rancid—and they guarded their portions jealously.
Which was why it was weird that he wasn’t eating it.
