Discord’s Apple by Carrie Vaughn Page B

“You know he got a dog? This huge Irish wolfhound. She’s great—I’ll have to send you pictures.”
    The misdirection meant the situation there was bad. As terrible as it was being stranded in a security lockdown across town from Callie, he wouldn’t want to trade places with Evie.
    “That’d be cool,” he said, not really interested in the dog but wanting to be supportive. “I should get going. We’ve got work to do, right?”
    “Right.”
    Work always gave them something to hide behind.
    They signed off, and Bruce didn’t feel any better after the conversation than he had before it. It seemed like all their lives were blowing up at the same time.
    The sunset’s orange faded to brown.
    The woman shed her coat and pulled off her gloves, tossing them over the back of the desk chair in the matchbox thatpassed for a hotel room in this village. The carpet was brown, worn; the bedspread a garish paisley in shades of red and orange; the cheap paneling was coming off the walls. The place smelled of mice. So unsuitable. In her own mind, she was still the Queen, though she hadn’t worn a crown in centuries. The day would come again, and she had suffered far worse conditions than this over the years. She had spent the last three thousand years crawling out of ruin.
    There was a closet near the bathroom. She knocked sharply on the closed door, three distinct raps. In response, the door slid open, pulled from the inside, and a few wisps of fog trailed from darkness. The young man who stepped out of the passage looked eighteen or nineteen, lithe and fine-boned, with tanned skin and curly brown hair. His hazel eyes flashed; his movements were quick and precise. He closed the door, then set about buttoning the cuffs of his white silk shirt.
    “Finally,” he said. “I was so
bored.
”
    “Then I’ll give you work,” the Queen said.
    He looked up from his shirt cuffs to meet her gaze at last. His smile was crooked, disguising who-knew-what mischief. He made an ostentatious bow. “It is my fate to serve the powerful.”
    “As if you had no power of your own. I know differently. You’re only bitter that the stories have reduced you to a friendly, harmless spirit.” She pinched his chin lightly.
    He grinned all the wider. “Not so bitter as I would be if the stories had reduced me to a frigid old harridan.”
    He was too much to bear by half. She turned away and spoke easily, as if she had not heard him. “The Marquis was correct. The trail he’s been following ends here. There are only two of them, father and daughter. But I can’t get inside to get at the Storeroom. Can you find a way into the house?”
    “Simple. A task for children. I’ll be there and back before you know I’ve gone.”
    “Not likely,” she said with a purr.
    “A turn of phrase, milady,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Yet you will be amazed at my speed, startled at the thoroughness with which I complete my task, awed by the—”
    “Robin—don’t overexert yourself, hm? This is only just starting.”
    “I hear you and obey.” He bowed and blew her a kiss, though the look in his eyes was dark, and walked out the door in a perfectly casual manner.
    She went to the bathroom to draw a hot bath, sighing at the Fates that left her to make deals with one such as him. Still, she’d had worse servants, even at the height of her power. She wouldn’t make an enemy of someone who could help her. So few these days had the skills she needed. A hedge-witch here, a self-styled magician there—obscure saints of obscure miracles. Under her guidance, they’d become useful. She hadn’t been able to find the Walkers herself, but she had found the Marquis, and he had found someone else searching for the Storeroom, and the path became clear.
    That man who’d been at the Walker house—he might be another one she could use. The daughter hadn’t even seemed aware that the house was protected, but the man . . . She hadn’t heard that language