Katie y on the white, sinking surface of the bed. The light had gone out. She was positive she rode a cloud, facing above her and behind, her sweating head tipped back. Her gaping mouth was the Sahara. Stars spread above her, gleaming in the bckest depths she could remember. It looked cold.

  She wanted to be out there. Hot, so fucking hot she couldn’t think about anything else. Stifling hot, and the smell of her cooking flesh didn’t disabuse her of the notion. She swore she heard the crackle. Her tongue wouldn’t even move over her broken lips.

  She heard something. Her body came alive, racing with pain. Only her eyes would move. She swept them frantically over senseless white contours, looking for shadows the right shape, but there was nothing.

  Not everyone here looked human, but even the Jello monster she’d seen had a head, arms, and legs. She couldn’t make out any human shapes in the darkness, but what would she have done anyway?

  Her right hand curled into a fist the second she thought it. I’ll fight, that’s what. Nobody’s gonna get me easy.

  She let her eyes scan more slowly, gulping hard even though there was no moisture to make more than a click. All right, she wouldn’t make it any easier than she had to, but she had serious doubts about her ability to fuck up a baby’s shit, let alone an immortal alien’s.

  She’d gotten her eyes almost to making sense of a kitchenette settled in a wide curving swath of darkness. The white counters gleamed beneath starlight. She thought she’d made sense of it, anyway, but now she could swear there was a single white pixie hovering above the counter, glowing softly against the night. It had a perfectly smooth lithe body, posing there and reminding Katie of Fox; when it fluttered its wings, they dragged the stars into long rainbow streaks.

  A shadow rose from behind it, no bigger than she was, but it seemed hulking from her viewpoint ft on her back. Its glow flickered over a suggestion of bearded face, one she didn’t know. Her heart clutched, and her good hand.

  The pixie whirled away, singing happily in clicks and prints like an old-fashioned adding machine. “Hey, don’t you know?” it chirred. “This is Eagle! Eagle! Eagle Eye, right here!”

  Eagle. That was supposed to mean something. Not a bird. A man. Fox’s man. I remember. “Hello?” She crushed it out of her throat. “Fox—he just—” Well. Maybe not “just.” Time wasn’t exactly a priority. She couldn’t even get a grasp on space. Now that the pixie had danced away, she saw only a lump of shadow. Was she talking to one? The pixie was gone…

  The shape moved, stretching across the floor toward her. Katie groaned, flexing her hand. She couldn’t even wind up a good punch.

  “I know. He left a little while ago,” a man said, to her agonizing relief.

  “Looking like… a billionaire’s brunch date,” Katie said, remembering that too. Fox had gone to—to do a thing, she could get her hands around that much.

  “Bet he was.” There was a lot of smile in that. It comforted her.

  “He’s really…” She should tell Eagle how lucky he’d gotten. She followed the shadow carefully across the end of the room, but it slipped from her vision anyway. “Really…” But she couldn’t find the word she wanted. “Good.”

  “He is.” The shadow was at the end of the bed. It warped—but another pixie, glowing hot blue, zipped past a short, bearded man ying back a deep hood. “So good I could scream sometimes, but that’s the way he’s always been. You’ll never meet a braver man than Fox.”

  Katie gulped again. “Do you have any water?”

  “Yeah, I do. Let me take care of your wrist.”

  God. If he touched it— “Fox isn’t here.”

  A third pixie fshed across her view, joining the others in floppy, elliptical infinity symbols. This one was green as the pnts in every corner and on every wall. “Isn’t he lovely?” the green pixie demanded.

  “Oh, he’s just as lovely as he’s ever been!” the other two trilled in unison, batting their shes. “Oh, Eagle!”

  He didn’t even blink. She might have been hallucinating. “I’m not here to talk to Fox. I mean, I am,” he amended, lifting his hands to his chest, “but right now I need to talk to you.”

  Katie searched his upside-down face. She couldn’t make out the color of his eyes by the weird pixie lights fshing across him, but he looked serious. His hair was just long enough to be messed up from the hood; his straight nose seemed to descend into a mustache and neat beard.

  She thought he must be half-Fey, looking the way he did. Half Sprite? But the pixies acted strange.

  “Why is this making you so sick?” The cloak parted. A gloved hand gestured at her wrist in sharp green glittering light.

  “Iron.” She knew that better than she knew her own name. “It’s bad for me.”

  “I’ve heard of that.” The cloak parted farther. He settled it back over his shoulders and circled the bed, trying to get a better angle—she knew it. She wouldn’t let him. “I can help you,” he said when she moved it the third time. “Let me help you.”

  “You’re Fox’s Eagle,” she accused, trying to rotate her head to track him. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting us out?”

  “Was that what he told you?” Eagle hopped up on the bed, so light she hardly felt the shift. Only in her wrist. She whimpered.

  Eagle set out a fat jar and unscrewed the top. That ecstatic fragrance tugged at her nose. “Are you going to use that on me again?”

  “Yeah.” He pulled his gloves off and tore the paper package of a wipe beled in a strange nguage. It looked and smelled like an alcohol wipe—just a little off ordinary.

  She stared at him cleaning his hands, kneeling next to her on the bed. “I wish you didn’t have to touch it.”

  “Me, too. It looks like it hurts. Shut your eyes.”

  Katie didn’t, but she couldn’t quite see what Eagle did anyway, his hands were so fast; she looked away after all. She screamed through most of it. When she rexed, panting, for another round, Eagle smeared her wrist with the salve.

  A hit of ecstasy—and then she felt almost normal. Eagle had slipped the cloth back under the bracelet. It felt getinous with All-Heal, but cool compared to the bzing iron. “Fox didn’t use enough,” Eagle said, sitting back on his heels. He wiped salve off his fingers with another cloth.

  Katie sat up, exhausted. “He said it was addictive.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  What if Fox couldn’t get the concession? What would she do then? Some of it still clung to the linen handkerchief Eagle had slipped back under her bracelet. The image rocked her: herself, addicted to a chemical she couldn’t get on Earth or in Faerie, a chemical from elsewhere.

  “It’s the only thing I have to help you.” Eagle paused. “Well, that’s not true. I have something for pain—I’ll give you that.”

  “The All-Heal isn’t for pain?” She gazed at her wrist, at the ft piece of iron there, etched with roses. She told herself Fox wouldn’t fail her. Hell, hadn’t he put himself out on a limb for her just by being by her side? He had no reason to support her through this, and he’d seemed determined to set things right no matter what. If he were an enemy, he’d be worth fearing, like a lionfish, beautiful and deadly at a jab.

  Katie counted herself lucky he’d decided she was a friend. He came with nice, helpful little people.

  “No,” Eagle said, but she didn’t quite believe it. She sure wasn’t in much now. Her skin tingled beneath the bracelet. “It’s not for pain.” He gave her two little white pills and a canteen. She didn’t care what they were.

  She tried to crack her neck, groaning, then slid out of bed. “Okay. If you say so.”

  “I know it feels like it is, though. Hey, don’t. I need to talk to you.”

  Shaking her head, she worked her way down the long room toward the doors, using the shadowy furniture for support. More than once, she had to stop to pant. The iron on her wrist throbbed dully. Maybe getting up hadn’t been such a good idea after all, but she wanted to move while she could. “Let’s go.”

  Eagle still sat on the bed, a tiny blot in the white, surrounded by three—no, four, there was a bck one now—revolving pixies that sent weird shadows scattering over him. “Where?”

  She made it to the doors. “I want to help Fox. I want to get information.” He hadn’t told her not to go. Maybe he assumed she was smart enough to stay put. She chortled to herself over that one. About as likely as Beri asking her to marry him. “So he can… I don’t know how he does it. But he’s really smart, so—” With her right hand, she gestured helplessly. The left one felt like warm lead hanging from her shoulder.

  Eagle lit up. “Hell yeah, he is.” But he didn’t move, and his face fell again. “Magic loves him. Like it loves you.”

  Katie snorted. She would’ve folded her arms if she could. As if her life wasn’t evidence that magic could hate. “Magic does not love me. If anything, it wants to fuck me over.”

  “I’m not going to deny it looks that way.” Eagle did a thing so much like a Unicode shruggie she almost ughed out loud, extending his hands ft on either side of his head. “I’m just telling you what I see, and it’s all over you like—like—what would you say? White on rice? But this isn’t for you. It’s not your test.”

  Her eyes bugged out. She supported herself on the back of the couch. “Could’ve fooled me!”

  “I know.” Eagle slipped off the bed. How did he move so fast? “It’s horseshit is what it is. Fox already did a big one, and he’s here too. Should’ve been enough, if any world was fair.” He stopped in front of her, holding out his hand. He really was just her height—and from this angle he looked young. “He should be drinking something fruity on a beach somewhere, and I should be rubbing sunscreen on his back. I—” But he stopped. His face crumpled and reformed into an expressionless mask.

  “I should be sipping something fruity on a beach,” Katie said. The bitterness surprised her, but it shouldn’t have. Eagle’s small man’s hand extended to her, but she was too angry to take it. She reeled, clutching the back of the sofa in cwed fingers. “You mean I didn’t do a big one already?” Was the whole thing in the Enchanted Forest just pying around?

  “Maybe you did, but you didn’t do the one thing yet. The thing it wants from you. Come on, sit down before you fall.”

  “Not before you tell me what the hell ‘it’ wants—magic doesn’t want things!”

  “Then tell me why it’s in you so deep it floats off your skin.” She couldn’t have described Eagle’s eyes if she tried. They held her attention, shadowed when he tilted his head down, and they didn’t not fsh. “I can smell it around you. It’s nice. I like it.” His head came up when the pixies rejoined him; now he wasn’t not smiling. “Whatever else, I’m gd I got to meet you.”

  “Katie,” she said, maybe stupidly. Her heartbeat throbbed in her wrist. It was starting to distract her; sitting down wasn’t not a good idea. She shifted around the end of the couch, supporting herself with her good hand.

  Eagle vaulted the back and settled cross-legged on the white leather seat. He perched there waiting for her, so taut and expectant she managed to ugh after all.

  “What is it?” she asked, maneuvering her weight to drop on the couch.

  “I saw you fight them.”

  She didn’t know what she’d expected to hear, but not that. She fell the rest of the way into a white leather embrace. At least the couches were nice, but the people who owned them…

  She’d remember the sp for a long time. Too bad the woman who’d given it to her didn’t stand out from the crowd. “Yeah.”

  Eagle shrugged again, his little Unicode shruggie that made her feel good inside. “Sometimes all you can do is spit blood. But they were talking about you, so, you know. You made an impression.”

  Katie rolled her shoulders, wishing the uncomfortable weight would come off. The iron made her ache. “Fuck yeah, I did. They’ll remember my name.”

  Eagle raised his knuckles for a bump. There were six pixies now, all the whites and bcks and greens of the stuff around them, and the single blue one like the unreadable dispy on the clock. Katie raised her own knuckles and pounded. Their hands dropped, but it felt important—and also, like they were in some kind of surreal nightclub.

  “Katie,” he said, low. Bending close, like she was the only thing in the whole world to have his attention right then. “Tell me how you killed them.”

  “Is it safe?”

  He pressed a finger over his lips. “I never show up right. My little secret.”

  She whooped with ughter, then smothered it with her hand. “Sorry,” she tittered, hissing the word. “It’s just—you have a lot of those, huh?”

  “You have no idea.” He bared his teeth in a grin that was gone as soon as it showed. “Want to find out?”

  “Do I ever.” Katie shifted to face Eagle like they were at a slumber party. She’d almost forgotten how much her wrist hurt. “Gonna let me in on a little more?” If he did, she might be able to forget altogether. “What do you know about spitting blood, huh?”

  It was his turn to ugh, and up close like this he was so cute she could’ve stuffed him in her pocket. There was a little pixie dust in his eyebrow and a wild not-quite light in his eye. “Oh, man, listen. This one time—cssic spy versus mad scientist thing. There was a little girl. Their daughter.” He shook his head. “Damn! She was evil. Caught the Chosen and me trying to break into her dreaded ir. You never heard a monologue until you heard an eight-year-old monologue.”

  Katie shook her head, imagining it—because she could.

  “She had us roughed up. Standard practice but bet your ass I held it against her. And that’s how I spat blood at an eight-year-old girl. I shit you not, she had these long bck sausage curls,” he added, when Katie absolutely cracked up.

  “Oh my God.” She wiped tears of mirth from her eyes when she was done. “I needed that, but I’m really sorry you got pasted.”

  “I’ve had worse. She wasn’t even top ten.” Eagle leaned closer yet, so they and the pixies made the whole world together, and then she did feel safe.

  She slumped forward into his cloaked shoulder. He put his arms right around her and hugged.

  “You and me both,” he said against her hair. “Take care of him for me?”

  Katie sighed against the heavy leather worn soft by use. It smelled like the floor of the deepest, most ancient part of the Enchanted Forest. Nerves skittered along her spine, but she put her arms around him too, at least the right. “I’ll take care of him for him.”

  Eagle shuddered against her like he wept and hugged her up crushing tight. She did her best. When it was over, he sat back, wiping the heels of his hands over his eyes.

  “Nobody’s going to touch Fox if I can help it,” Katie said finally. “Are you kidding me right now? I’ll straight up fight anyone who tries to y a hand on him. But that sounds like you’re not pnning to stay!” She jerked straight on the sofa again, out of the friendly world they’d made together.

  “I can’t,” Eagle said. “That’s why you have to tell me how you killed them.”

  “Oh.” She swallowed. The weight of the iron fell on her wrist all at once, but they didn’t have all the time in the world, did they? “That’s—that’s Beri. My boss. He can do something that…”

  “He’s a god killer,” Eagle said, husky now. His eyes didn’t quite fsh hunger. “What do they call him?”

  She licked her lips. Her mouth felt dry again. “Beriani Quintinar. He’s my—” She raked at her hair. Why couldn’t she tell Eagle the truth? It wasn’t like the racists were anywhere near her. “He’s my boss,” she said, giving up.

  Eagle saw the truth anyway, like Fox had, but he didn’t comment, just nodded. “They call him anything else? He must have a title.”

  “They call him ‘Most High.’ He’s the High King of Faerie.”

  “That gives me something to go on. I’ll find him.” Eagle unfolded from the couch. He checked a pocket watch.

  “Fox is taking his sweet time,” she suggested.

  “Isn’t he just.” Eagle’s mouth fttened. “He’s probably already—” But Eagle didn’t say more. He stood in front of the coffee table with its portable bar and complicated-looking single-cup coffeemaker, nine pixies wheeling like a picture of electrons in a chemistry textbook, and he looked so lost she broke open for him.

  “He talked about you,” she remembered, wanting badly to make him feel… well, better probably wasn’t possible. “He loves you so much. Dude, why do you think I didn’t fight you? Fox said you were coming, and here you are.”

  Eagle rubbed his hand over the short hair on his head. His face was unreadable again—even kind of scary, by the fshing pixie lights. He didn’t say a word—but the door flicked open and spat Fox into the room.

  The crown prince of somewhere stumbled in on his stiletto heels. The pixies scattered as Eagle moved. He blurred a little on his way to Fox.

  Jealousy pricked Katie’s heart. She wished someone would love her like that, checking her with his hands, asking questions so fast she couldn’t get a word in edgewise. “Fox. Are you hurt? Are you all right? Did the Matil—”

  “Wait.” Fox raised his beautiful golden hands, almost fending Eagle off, but that couldn’t be right. “Just a moment, my love… I’m all right, but will you let me sit?”

  Eagle moved swiftly out of the way for Fox to cross to the nearest sofa, catty-corner from Katie. He dropped himself on it and tipped his head back, csping his fingers over his eyes.

  “You don’t look all right.” Eagle slipped over, a small shadow for Fox’s tall bright figure. He hovered behind Fox. “You look like—”

  “Like I’ve been a-whoring, I suppose,” Fox said bitterly. There were marks under his mouth like he’d been kissed hard. Katie’s spine sizzled itself straight. “Eagle, tell me we can leave.”

  She stared at him maybe too openly, gears turning in her head. Knowing he’d done—something—and for her?

  “I can’t take you with me!” Eagle said, quiet but angry, and she didn’t understand it. “Fuck, Fox, like I wasn’t worried about you already! Don’t py it this way.”

  “What choice do I have?” As angry as Eagle had sounded, he sounded tired. “If you’re leaving me behind.”

  Katie’s head hurt way too much for them to argue in front of her, and besides, she couldn’t dismiss that Fox might have done something drastic. For her. “Guys,” she said, but she couldn’t manage more.

  They traded guilty looks and disappeared through the bathroom door. Eagle flipped on the light and shut it behind him.

  The room was silent. She didn’t hear them at all.

  Katie tilted her head back into the couch and waited for more pain.