Ironside by Holly Black

of a man riding a rabbit and holding a lance.
    She held it up for Corny’s inspection. He laughed nervously. “It looks tight.”
    Ellen shrugged. “It’s from a book signing at a bar. Kelly something. Chain? Kelly Chain? It’ll look good on you. Your jeans are okay and so’s the jacket, but those sneakers aren’t working. Double up your socks and you can wear Trent’s Chucks. I think he left a pair over by the closet.”
    Corny glanced up at Kaye. Black dye ran in rivulets down the back of his neck, staining the collar of his T-shirt. “I’m going to retreat to the bathroom now.”
    As the water in the shower started, filling the tiny apartment with vapor, Ellen sat down on the bed. “While we’re primping, how about you do my eyes? I can’t manage that smoky thing you do.”
    Kaye smiled. “Sure.”
    Ellen lay back on the bed, while Kaye leaned over, carefully painting her mother’s lids in shining silver, shadowing and outlining the edge of her lashes in black. This close, Kaye saw the gentle crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes, the enlarged pores in her nose, the slight purplish discoloration below her lashes. When she brushed her mother’s hair out of the way, the shimmer of some strands revealed where the red dye covered gray. Kaye’s fingers shook.
    Mortal. This is what it means to be mortal.
    “I think I’m done,” Kaye said.
    Ellen pushed herself into a sitting position and kissed Kaye on the cheek. Kaye could smell the cigarettes on her mother’s breath, could smell the decay of teeth and the faint traces of sugary gum. “Thank you, baby. You’re a real lifesaver.”
    I’m going to tell her, Kaye told herself. I’m going to tell her tonight.
    Corny emerged from the bathroom in a gust of steam. It was odd to see him in the new clothes with the shorter and darker hair. It shouldn’t have made as much of a difference as it did, but the hair made his eyes shine and the tight shirt turned his scrawniness into slenderness.
    “You look good,” Kaye said.
    He plucked self-consciously at the fabric and rubbed at his neck as though he could feel the stain of the dye.
    “What do you think?” Ellen asked.
    Corny looked back toward the bathroom, as though remembering his reflection. “It’s like I’m hiding in my own skin.”

Chapter 4
    Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
    —P ABLO N ERUDA , “L OVE S ONNET XI”
    The ride on the subway was awful. Kaye felt the iron all around her, felt the weight of it and the stink pressing down, suffocating her. She gripped the aluminum pole and tried not to breathe.
    “You look kind of pale,” Corny said as they climbed the concrete steps to the street.
    She could feel her glamour being eaten away, weakening with each moment.
    “Why don’t you kids walk around awhile?” Ellen’s lips shone with gloss and her hair was sprayed so thickly that it didn’t move when the breeze hit it. “It’d be boring watching us set up.”
    Kaye nodded. “Also, if I would just see how cool New York was, I would move up here instead of wasting my time cooling my heels in Jersey?”
    Ellen smiled. “And that.”
    Kaye and Corny walked a little ways through the streets on the edge of the West Village. They passed clothing shops displaying ruffled hats and plaid shorts, tiny record stores promising imports, and a fetish shop featuring a vinyl ball/gag mask with cat ears against a backdrop of holiday red-and-white velvet. A guy in a torn army jacket stood near a corner playing Christmas carols on a nose flute.
    “Hey,” Corny said. “Coffee shop. We can sit down and warm up.”
    They walked up the stairs and through the gold-stenciled door.
    Café des Artistes was a series of rooms leading one into another through large passageways. Kaye walked past the counter and through a doorway into a chamber that featured a mantel covered in melted white candles, like a monstrous sand castle eroded by waves.