Emerald City Dreamer (51 page)

Jina looked up and met Jett's eyes. "I trust you enough. Do you trust me?"

"
Of course," Jett said, without hesitation. "That is the essence of the geas I offer you. An expression of our mutual trust, as the tree trusts the ground to hold its roots and keep it from falling into the sky."

"
Then let's do this. It will be nice to finally be warm. What do I need to do?"

Jina's voice did not tremble. She had accepted her fortune. Soon, Jett could relax, knowing Jina's power was safely contained by the geas.

"
Go put something on," Jett said.

Jett arose and dressed in her kimono. Jina returned from her room in the same pair of cargo pants and the tank top she'd arrived in. Time and resources were too limited for anything more formal.

She took Jina's hand. "Follow me, and do as I say."

During her decent to the basement, she ordered Fiz to gather the rest of the brugh from the far reaches of her tiny realm.

She retrieved an ornate goblet from a dusty bookshelf - from its place next to tattered fantasy books and forgotten action figures. Someone had been using the Chalice of the Fates as a storage container for unpainted RPG miniatures. She dumped the pewter goblins onto the shelf.

The Lia Chlainne had been hung on the wall to serve as decoration. She unceremoniously pulled the flat stone down and placed it beside the goblet on the table. The knife she brought out was just an ordinary knife, a cheap metal blade with a rosewood handle carved like a dragon, purchased at a Renaissance faire. It would cut just as well as the Claiomh Solais or the long lost Claiomh Haislinge.

The smell of some baked good followed Pete into the basement. At her command, he brought tea and set up a heater next to the throne where Jina sat on Fiz's ratty chair.

"
Ivy isn't home," Fiz said, coming down the steps. "But she is on her way. Kenny will be a while. She went to the midnight showing of
The Dark Crystal
at the Egyptian. Her phone is switched off."

Jett needed all of them here to stitch the brugh to Jina. Jina shivered with only the one heater here to warm her, and her lips were turning blue, so Jett snuggled in next to her and wrapped her long arms around Jina's shoulders. This always seemed to warm her more than any other method.

It was a delay, but an acceptable one. Jina would not change her mind, not now.

IT HAD BEEN A WHOLE week since Jina's call and her meeting with Pogswoth. Both had abandoned her.

The Scotch was long gone, as were the rest of their alcohol stores. She'd forgotten what a decent meal tasted like.

She'd been sick a few days ago, ever since the alcohol ran out, but now her stomach hurt a little less and her heartbeat felt a little more normal. Her head had stopped throbbing, but the nightmares persisted - both while sleeping and awake.

At least while she was awake, the nightmares were confined to the outdoors.

Sandy heard another skittering noise outside the window, and then a chattering, and then a scrambling, like two squirrels having a fight. Only they weren't squirrels.

The scrape of claws echoed down the wall, and then there was a thud, followed by squealing, as whatever-it-was landed in the iron filings Hollis had sprinkled around the yard. Sandy listened to it warble in anger as its voice grew distant. It had lost the skirmish, and thus its right to hang from that particular window.

It would be back.

Sandy peered into the blue plastic crates sent by Amazon Fresh. Trash, all of it. She opened a carton of milk and sniffed. Curdled. Then another. Also curdled.

Gretel opened a crate full of cheese and quickly closed it as spores of mold rose up through the air. She set the crate aside, and opened another full of egg cartons. She closed it when the odor of sulfur hit their noses.

"
I had such hopes," Gretel mused. "Milk, after all this time. Wouldn't it have been nice?"

At least for the first five days, they'd had the few groceries left by Pogswoth, but since their meeting, she'd not heard from him. She'd expected to see Jina, knocking on her door, free and happy to be home. And he must not have killed Jett, because the fae were still all over the place. Either Pogswoth had been lying, or he'd been defeated. The result was the same.

Sandy threw aside a bag full of dried shrimp. The label was in Chinese. Hollis picked it up. "Wait, these are pretty good," he said, opening the bag and popping one into his mouth. "Mmm, extra spicy."

"
Fine, you can have them," Sandy said. She sighed. "That jasmine rice with spaghetti sauce is starting to sound really good at this point. Better than lentils with syrup."

"
Too bad we ran out," Hollis said.

"
Yeah."

Sandy thought through the list of ingredients they now had: two cases of maple syrup, two boxes of canned water chestnuts, and another box of canned baby corn. A small sack of dried lentils, half gone. A 5 gallon bucket of cooking oil. Three packets of seaweed wrap for sushi. A jar of kimchee. Enough cake decorating sprinkles to fill a bathtub. Twelve jars of capers. A case of toothpaste.

No matter where they ordered their food - online grocers, organic produce co-ops, even local delivery services that usually brought groceries to the elderly - their orders were screwed up in some way.

And then the decay began.

A 25 pound sack of potatoes arrived. It should have fed them for a week. But after one meal, the entire bag rotted into a black mush that smelled of old socks. Since then, anything remotely edible spoiled within a few hours of receipt.

Her finances were screwed, too. Her luck had finally run out, and just this week, her investments had lost half a million.

A scratch reverberated at the front door, long and slow, like something trying to wear away the wood so it could get in. And then another harmonized with it from the front window sill. A week ago, she had hoped they might eventually get bored and wander off. Instead they waited with the patience of the ancient pillars which held up the Parthenon. Some of them were probably as old.

Sandy regretted not calling Jina back. Every day she would look at her phone and consider dialing the number, but Jina spoke with Jett's voice now. There was no way she could bargain with a wicked elf who had taken her friend the same way Haun had taken them both so many years ago.

It was all her fault, in some ways. If Sandy hadn't driven Jina away, she'd be here right now.

A new sound rose up outside, like a flock of geese getting their toes stepped on. Sandy looked out the window to see a strange man come down the walk holding four paper bags by their handles.

The fae cleared in his wake, like he was some sort of lord. Or protected by iron.

Sandy pulled out her phone and looked at the text Jina sent yesterday.
I'm sending Trey anyway. He's on his way.
She'd waited by the door for him, but when he didn't show by midnight, she'd given up.

Now here he was, with enough groceries to last a few days. She opened the door before Trey could ring the bell.

He was kind of cute. She could understand why Jina was interested in him. Funny, this was the first time she'd noticed how a guy looked in... how long? Sandy found herself stammering a bit before remembering she wanted to be angry. All that slipped away at the sight of a friendly smile.

"
Sandy?" he said. "I'm Trey. I brought you some things that Jina said you'd like." He held them up. They were double-bagged, heavy with food from Trader Joe's.

She licked her lips. "Come on in," she said, opening the door wider.

He crossed the threshold and followed her in to the kitchen at the back of the house.

Sandy recovered some of her anger and slipped it on like a shield. "What took you so long?" she asked, motioning to the counter. Trey set the bags down and Sandy peered inside.

"
I came as soon as I got off work. We close at nine, but I had to help bring in a late produce order."

"
You couldn't have come last week?"

Trey got a confused look on his face. "You weren't stuck in here last week. Jina just talked to you this morning."

Sandy shook her head. "No, I've been here nearly two weeks." She ran her hand through her hair. "You swear Jina talked to me today?"

"
That's what she said..."

Of course. All these fae, surrounding her house.

"
What day is it?" she asked Trey, stepping to a calendar which hung on the kitchen wall.

"
Tuesday, May 19
^th
."

Sandy gripped the countertop. Time was slipping by in here, just as it had in Haun's house. No, the opposite as it had at Haun's house. The real world was happening more slowly. She'd starve even faster now. She'd grow
old
.

Trey reached out his hand to steady her.

"
I've been so worried about Jina, thinking she must be dead by now, but it's only been a day..."

"
Jina's fine," Trey said. "For now anyway. But she's in pain, and it's getting worse. She needs your help."

"
I can barely help myself," Sandy said. "Just look at me."

"
Jina says great things about you. She thinks you're stronger than this."

Sandy looked up at him. His hand was warm against her arm. Human. Grounding.

"
She thinks you and Jett together could take Pogswoth, make him release Jina from her curse."

"
Pogswoth didn't do that to her, Jett did."

Trey laughed. "Why would Jett want to hurt Jina?"

"
To frame him."

"
To frame Pogswoth? Do you know how you sound? Look." Trey held up his hands. A few of his knuckles were pink. "He did this to me. Chilblains. They're almost healed now. Jina got me away from him before he could do worse. Jett was miles away."

Sandy broke away and found herself staring at the cutlery, leaning forward into the counter. Trey's story rang true, but if Pogswoth was lying, what did he really want from her? So far, he'd made no demands.

"
She's getting pretty bad," Trey said. "I know
I
can't help her," Trey said. "I would if I could. Sandy, you're the only hope she has. Even Jett is worried about her. Worried enough that she'd lift this siege in a second, if she thought you could get Pogswoth to make Jina well again. Just make a deal with Jett and your life will go back to normal."

Normal. Every day a blur of old paper, microscopes, and Scotch. Who was she kidding? She wasn't a hunter. And she would be even less of a hunter if Jett could tell her who she could and could not kill.

Pogswoth, on the other hand, had offered to help her kill. Starting with Jett and moving on to someone named Lady Triona and other nobles. She'd imagined it a hundred times during this past week.

And now here was someone else telling her to trust Jett.

The elf and the korrigan were both fae. They both had information she desperately needed. Circumstances - no, Jett - had forced her to ally with a faerie. But which one?

Obviously neither was trustworthy. They were both deceitful creatures. And both had hurt Jina.

But only one of the two had the power to cure Jina.

That was it. She had her solution.

Sandy turned to Trey, ushering him to the front door. "Tell Jina she has nothing to worry about."

"
So you'll do it? You'll make peace with Jett?"

"
I never said that. Thank you for bringing the groceries." She shoved him out onto the porch and closed the door.

When she was sure he had gone, she hung another sign in the window:
COME BACK

Then she sat back to wait.