"Did that ever work with me? You tried to make all my decisions for me, and see where it got us both. I'm not going to make the same mistake with Kaye. So what if she doesn't want to go to high school? High school sucked when I had to go, and I can't imagine it's any better now. Kaye can read and write—that's more than plenty of high school seniors can say—she's probably read more books than most girls her age."

"Ellen, don't be stupid. What's she going to do for a living? What's in her future? Don't you want something better for Kaye than what you have?"

"I want her to have the future she wants." Kaye slid out of the room. They would be arguing for long enough that they wouldn't notice or care for a while. She just wanted to sleep.

The phone rang close to her head, where she'd dropped it. Kaye groaned and pressed the on button.

"Hello," she said groggily. She hadn't managed more than a fitful sleep, tossing and turning. The blankets were too warm, but kicking them off had made her feel unsafe, exposed. Her dreams were too full of slit-eyed things poking her with clawed fingers.

"Fuck. You're there." She recognized the voice as belonging to Corny. He sounded astonished and very relieved.

"Corny! I got thrown out. I couldn't find a way back to you." She looked at the clock. It was one o'clock in the afternoon. "I thought maybe the hill was only open at night."

"I'm coming over."

She nodded and then, realizing he couldn't see her, spoke the thought aloud. "Yeah. Definitely. Come over. Are you okay?"

The phone clicked off, and she scrubbed a hand restlessly through her hair before letting her head fall back onto the pillow.

"The glamour looks good," was the first thing that Corny said as he walked into her bedroom. Then he looked around. "Hey, you've got rats."

She blinked up at him. "How did you get out? I was going crazy looking for you. If the cops had seen me they would have thought I was some nutjob grave robber trying to dig up bodies with my bare hands."

"I woke up outside the hill this morning. I figured that you'd ditched me and I was going to do a Rip Van Winkle and find out that it was the year 2112 and no one had ever even heard of me." He grinned wryly.

"Roiben threw me out. I'm sorry. I didn't want to leave you, but I was afraid if I told him that he would figure out who I was."

Corny smiled. "He didn't know?"

She shook her head and shuddered. "So, what did you think of the Unseelie Court?"

A slow, wicked smile spread on his face. "Oh, Kaye," he breathed. "It was marvelous. It was perfect."

She narrowed her gaze. "I was joking. They were killing things, Corny. For fun. Things like us."

He didn't seem to hear her, his eyes looking past her to the bright window. "There was this knight, not yours. He…" Corny shivered and seemed to abruptly change the direction of his sentence. "He had a cloak all lined with thorns."

"I saw him talking to the Queen," Kaye said.

Corny shrugged off his jacket. There were long scratches along his arms.

"What happened to you?"

Corny's smile widened, but his gaze was locked in some memory. He shifted it back to her. "Well, obviously I got inside the cloak."

She snorted. "What a euphemism. Did he hurt you?"

"No more than I wanted him to," Corny said.

She didn't like it, neither what he was saying nor the way he looked when he talked about it.

"How about you, Kaye? Did you revenge yourself on Robin of the White Hair?"

She couldn't help the blush that crept across her cheeks.

"What?" he demanded. And she told him, the blush growing hot as she did. It sounded even more pathetic out loud.

"So what you're telling me is that you got him to kiss you once on the lips and once on the ass."

Kaye glared at him, but she couldn't help giggling.

"I don't know if I should call that slick or be really afraid what you are going to use that name of his for in the future. Can you just keep ordering him around indefinitely?"

Kaye aimed a mock-kick in his direction. "What about you and your knight? I mean, look at your arms; is that normal?"

"Makes me shiver when I touch them," Corny said reverently.

"At least we're scaring each other."

"Yeah, well, I better get back home. What's next on the faerie agenda?"

Kaye shrugged. "I get sacrificed, I guess."

"Great. When is that?"

Kaye shook her head. "Wish I knew. Samhain, that's Halloween, right? Probably at night."

Corny looked at her incredulously. "Halloween is in two days."

"I know," Kaye said. "But it's not like I have to do anything. I just have to yell and scream and pretend to be human for a while."

"What if they get pissed that they were tricked?"

Kaye shrugged. "I don't know. It's not my problem, right? All I have to do is be a good victim."

"Yeah, hopefully not too good a victim."

"Spike and Lutie wouldn't ever put me in any real danger."

"Yeah, okay. Well, that's good."

"You think they would?"

"I think it sounds dangerous. I think we haven't seen too much so far that is part of Faery and isn't dangerous."

"True," Kaye said.

"Oh," Corny said. "Jimmy saw me when I went by the house. He said that if you want that job, you can start tonight at six. It's the shift before mine, so I guess I'm not fired after all."

She smiled. "So I guess I'll see you tonight. I'm glad you're okay."

"I would be even better if I was still there," Corny said, and all her worry returned in a flood.

"Corny…"

He smiled, that weird distant smile that he'd gotten under the hill, and she wanted to shake him by the shoulders. Something had to snap him out of it.

"See you tonight," he said, slipping on his jacket. He flinched as the lining brushed his arms, and, uncharitable as it was, she hoped that it was because the scratches hurt.

As Corny left, she looked at the pink sticky notes posted on the back of her door. They were the messages that her mother had taken for her. One was from Jimmy—probably about the job—and the others were all from Kenny.

Kaye settled on the mattress on the floor, picked up the phone, and dialed the number on Kenny's first note. She could leave a message for him about where she was working tonight. It was a public place. If he came to visit her there, she could take off the enchantment, and then everything with Janet could go back to normal.

"Hey," a male voice answered. There was a vaguely metallic whirring and grating in the background.

"Oh. Hi," she stammered. "I thought you'd be at school."

"You called my cell phone," Kenny said. "I'm in shop."

"This is Kaye." She felt stupid again, as though a few words from him were some kind of benediction of which she was unworthy.

"I know. Teacher is about to have a hernia, so we got to talk fast. I want to see you. Tonight."

"I have to work. You could come by—"

"What time?" he said, interrupting her. She felt awkward, hyperaware of each word she spoke, waiting for him to start teasing her and absurdly grateful when he did not.

"Six."

"Meet me after school. You know which one my car is?"

"No. Why don't you just come by my job?" She tried to wrest back control of the conversation.

"By the entrance, then. The big one. I have to see you."

She hesitated, but she had no real reason not to meet him there. After all, removing the enchantment would only take a moment. What happened after, well, maybe it would be better if she was somewhere she could leave. "Okay."

"Good." With that, the phone hung up, leaving her feeling as though she had drunk two-day-old coffee on an empty stomach. Her nerves were fried. When she lifted a hand, she was unsurprised to find it vibrating slightly, like a struck guitar string. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then shucked off Corny's butchered clothes and put on some of her own. They fit over the illusion of a smooth back easily, but her dual senses could feel the soft cotton of the T-shirt against her wings.