Ironside by Holly Black Page A

Dimly lit by black chandeliers that hung from a black tin ceiling and reflected in the glass of the aged prints and gilt mirrors, the rooms felt shadowy and cool. A faint and reassuring smell of tea and coffee in the air made her sigh.
    They sat down in ornate gilt armchairs, worn so that white molded plastic showed on the hand rests. Corny picked at a golden swirl, and a small piece chipped off with his fingernail. Kaye idly opened the drawer of the small cream-colored table in front of her. Inside, she was surprised to find a collection of paper—notes, postcards, letters.
    A waitress walked over and Kaye pushed the drawer shut. The woman’s hair was blond on top and a glossy black underneath. “What can I get you?”
    Corny picked up a menu off the middle of the table and read from it, as though he were picking things at random. “An omelet with green peppers, tomatoes, and mushrooms, a cheese plate, and a cup of coffee.”
    “Coffee for me, too.” Kaye grabbed the paper out of his hands and ordered the first thing she saw. “And a piece of lemon pie.”
    “Real well-balanced diet,” Corny said. “Sugar and caffeine.”
    “There might be meringue,” Kaye said. “That’s eggs. Protein.”
    He rolled his eyes.
    As the waitress walked away, Kaye opened the drawer again and picked through the cards.
    “Look at these.” Girlish handwriting described a trip to Italy: I couldn’t stop thinking about Lawrence’s prediction that I would meet someone in Rome. A card with a hastily drawn mug in one corner had words written in blocky print with a pencil: I spit into my coffee and then switched with Laura’s boyfriend so that he would taste me in his mouth. Kaye read the words out loud and then asked, “Where do you think these came from?”
    “Garage sales?” Corny said. “Or maybe these are notes people never mailed anywhere. You know, like if you want to write something down, but don’t want to let the person it was intended for read it. You leave it here.”
    “Let’s leave something,” Kaye said. She fumbled with her bag and pulled out two scraps of paper and an eyeliner pencil. “Be careful. It’s soft and it smears.”
    “So, what, you want me to write down a secret? Like, how about I always wanted a comic book villain for a boyfriend, and after Nephamael, I’m not sure a nice guy is ever going to do it for me.”
    A couple at another table looked up as though they had caught a few of the words, but not enough to make any sense of what he’d said.
    Kaye rolled her eyes. “Yeah, why would one sadistic lunatic put you off sadistic lunatics in general?”
    Smirking, Corny took the piece of paper and wrote on it, pressing hard enough that the letters were fat and smudgy. He spun the slip in her direction. “’Cause I know you’re going to read it anyway.”
    “I won’t if you say not to.”
    “Just read it.”
    Kaye picked up the paper and saw the words: I would do anything not to be human.
    She took the eye pencil and wrote hers: I stole someone else’s life. She turned it toward Corny.
    He slid them both into the drawer without comment. The waitress came with silverware, coffee, and cream. Kaye busied herself making her coffee as light and sweet as she could.
    “You thinking about the quest?” Corny asked.
    She’d been thinking about what he’d written, but she said, “I just wish I could talk to Roiben one more time. Just hear him say that he doesn’t want me. It feels like I got broken up with in a dream.”
    “You could send him a letter or something, couldn’t you? That’s not technically seeing him.”
    “Sure,” Kaye said. “If he got mail that wasn’t, like, acorn-based.”
    “There’s stuff you still don’t understand about faerie customs. Everything that happened—it might not mean what you think it means.”
    Kaye shook her head, shaking off Corny’s words. “Maybe it’s good that we split up. I mean, as boyfriends go, he was always busy working. Running an evil