“I believe that one isn’t typically supposed to be held fully responsible for one’s words while under the influence of certain…concoctions.”

  “That only applies to alcohol,” YeoWoo retorted, and added, “And there’s a significant amount of debate about whether or not it ought to apply, if it comes to that. You can’t claim that the poison made you do it.”

  “A great shame,” he murmured. “One presumes that you’re here to take a little lunch before you go out again on your no doubt very important business.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m going to see someone who doesn’t want to be seen; you’d better come along and help me kick his door down.”

  “The elder doesn’t want to see you?”

  “I don’t know if he doesn’t want to see me, or if he’s playing games with me,” she said, surprising him by being more perspicacious than he had expected of her. “You said it yourself: someone who wasn’t HimChan moved the body back to the villa. I remember that when the elders wanted me to join the family, they sent gumiho around with gifts first, and then they sent them with chips on their shoulder.”

  “When you say gifts—”

  “Hearts, livers—some of the ones who were more eager to bring me into the family left other things. When they saw it wasn’t working, they began setting the younger gumiho around the neighbourhood to snap at my heels whenever I went out.”

  “It was not, I see, successful.”

  “No, but it was useful,” YeoWoo said. “I was able to exercise and train quite often in those days. It was while I was most busy trying to find the elders who were responsible for my family’s deaths—I was annoyed at the interruption at the time, but it was enough to prepare me for the elders when I did get to them.”

  “You’re of the opinion, I take it,” said Athelas slowly, who had had the same suspicion himself and was mildly surprised that YeoWoo had taken in the full import of his mockery last night, “that Peregrine has been doing something of the same kind. An attempt to bring you into the fold, so to speak.”

  “He probably thought that moving the body back was the same thing as turning me in himself,” YeoWoo said. “And he probably expected me to come to him for some kind of help instead of turning to you. He warned me off you.”

  “I can’t imagine he was the only one to have done so,” Athelas said mildly. He was quite certain that YoeWoo owed her current information to Zero’s answers; he was likewise certain that Zero would have made some objections to her connection with him, at the very least.

  He didn’t expect her to answer the implicit question, and she didn’t. YeoWoo said, “Now that Peregrine knows he’s got my attention, it’s likely that he’ll try to keep me waiting. He might think he can reel me in by being slow with his information.”

  “I take it that you intend to show him that his assumption is incorrect.”

  “I’m going to break into his house, at any rate,” she said. “I don’t like people playing games with me.”

  Athelas didn’t miss the small, narrowed look YeoWoo shot him as she said it. He held his hands up, palms out, and said placatingly, “Consider me sufficiently punished, my dear. I have, after all, spent the morning in a most unpleasant manner, after spending the night in a different yet no less unpleasant manner.”

  “That’s only Camellia’s payment,” she retorted. “If you do anything like that to me again, you won’t live to be miserable.”

  “I shouldn’t dream of it,” he said. He doubted she believed him, and that was amusing. Adding fuel to the fire, he said, “I’m not inclined to make myself useful, I’m afraid.”

  He would undoubtedly have to help her—in this as in other things—since the Inspectors Gu and Bae had made it clear that they at least considered him to be free only under YeoWoo’s aegis. But Athelas wished to create some space between them, and sooner was always better than later.

  There was a challenging tilt to her chin. “Really? I’m pretty sure I remember us making an agreement that I wouldn’t go telling tales about who you are so long as you make yourself useful. If you’re not planning on being useful, I don’t see why I should be quiet.”

  Athelas helped himself to a pleasantly savoury mouthful of curry before he replied. It had not occurred to him that she didn’t know of his—and by default her—current situation. So long as she learned exactly the right amount of information regarding that situation, he might feel himself free from any agreement whatsoever.

  “I fear that I will be of little use,” he said. “And it may interest you to know, my dear, that both the enforcers and Lord Sero know exactly who and where I am. I’ve been given permission to continue living as I am—provided I don’t make trouble and do assist the enforcers when required. I need not even remain glamoured. You will need to find someone else to assist you from here onward.”

  She didn’t mistake his meaning. She stared at him, then gave a short laugh. “Which would you have preferred—having to work with me every so often, or being at the beck and call of the enforcers?”

  Athelas sighed faintly. “How unpleasantly quick of you, my dear.”

  “I wouldn’t have tried to make you do things by the book, either,” she said. “I’d only have made sure you stopped hurting humans.”

  “As you may have noticed, my dear—”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” she said. “If there’s a next time, Camellia won’t need to do anything about it.”

  “What if that next time should prove to be useful in your search for your final elder?”

  YeoWoo’s eyes, stormy with warning, narrowed at him. “Don’t pretend I’m like you,” she warned. “I don’t move people around the board to get them where I need them to be so that I can get what I want.”

  “Humans are remarkably easy to injure,” pointed out Athelas, without pretending to misunderstand. “I really can’t allow for every one of them when it comes to my planning.”

  “Except when it comes to getting them where you want them,” YeoWoo pointed out, with regrettable accuracy. “I told you from the start that I wouldn’t be happy if you went about hurting humans while I was with you.”

  “Perhaps we might define our terms a little? For instance, should a human choose to attack me—”

  “Self-defence is expected,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “Using humans as pawns isn’t. Does Camellia know you’re talking with Harrow in the garden, by the way?”

  “Harrow was speaking with me in the garden,” said Athelas. “A small but salient distinction to make considering the unpleasant manner in which I spent this morning.”

  YeoWo’s sharp grin should have irritated him but didn’t; he held too many cards to be annoyed by obvious bait. She asked, “Do you think Camellia will agree?”

  “I’m not entirely certain,” Athelas said pleasantly. “However, given that she provided us with lunch, I would venture to say that she is at least aware of the fact.”

  “I would have checked the curry before I ate it, at any rate,” she said, with a rude sniff of laughter.

  “You may have noticed that the boy and I are sharing a pot.”

  “Remind me again,” YeoWoo said, “whether or not you and Camellia were sharing a pot of tea?”

  “Indeed,” said Athelas, sitting back. “And I should very much like to know how she managed the thing. I saw and smelt nothing in the teacup itself, and of course it was freshly washed this morning.”

  “I’ve got the impression that Camellia is used to imbibing poisons,” YeoWoo said.

  She said it in the malicious kind of way that Athelas was aware meant that she knew something he didn’t. He would have to see if Harrow could be pumped for information on Camellia’s obviously pertinent past until Athelas was well enough in charity with her to apply for that information to the lady herself.

  That was, in fact, what everything came down to, Athelas thought. He had not lied when he told Harrow that he would do him good for his own reasons; he fully intended to do all the good he could for the boy. He needed to do all the good he could possibly do, because his campaign was not now to reach Pet or Zero, but simply to win over Camellia. He was well aware of the good a solid connection could do, and he fancied that he couldn’t have asked for a better advocate had he tried. The most difficult part of the entire business would be in persuading Camellia that he had changed—and he couldn’t think of a better way to do so than to assist her in her chief project.

  Everything else would, as it was said, fall into place.

  FOX ON THE DEFENSIVE

  YeoWoo hadn’t wanted to work with Athelas from the first. It had been merely necessary and useful. That being the case, she found it irritating that he had been the one to sever the connection. She also regretted that it had been severed so very quickly as to make it impossible for him to assist her in anything further.

  As she went to leave the house again that afternoon after lunch, YeoWoo huffed out a small, annoyed hiss of air, unable to stop her thoughts from circling back to the point of irritation. It wasn’t as though she couldn’t break into Peregrine’s house without Athelas—she could and had, in the past, done everything that needed to be done by herself. She didn’t need Athelas. He would have been useful, but she had always been alone, and likely always would be; it was ridiculous to get used to having someone with her—especially when that someone was as likely to stab her in the back as any of her enemies were to stab her in the front.

  As YeoWoo passed the sitting room at the front of the house, the scent of behindkind hit her nose at just about the same time as Athelas’ voice hailed her from the same room.

  “My dear,” he said, approaching the door. “You’re not leaving already, are you? I believe we were supposed to go together.”

  YeoWoo threw him a cold look. What was the twisty old fae up to now? She had ignored the knock on the front door that she’d heard some fifteen minutes previously, for the two very good reasons that Camellia would see to it and YeoWoo herself simply didn’t want to bother. She would have expected the same from Athelas.

  Inspector Gu’s voice said from within the room, “We did say that we’d call on you if we needed you.”

  Athelas turned his head to address the inspector over his shoulder, just in time to avoid seeing YeoWoo’s malicious smile. “Miss YeoWoo has some business with the Elder Peregrine today,” he explained. “Of course, if you insist that your business is more important, there’s nothing else to say; I will be entirely at your disposal.”

  Now close enough to see the inspector through the door and to watch the play of emotions across the fae’s face, YeoWoo watched disbelief, insecurity, and finally, irritation spread across the inspector’s face.

  “You’re saying that you wish to help me with what I’m doing?” she asked Athelas sweetly. See if he could wriggle out of every kind of commitment now! He might be able to word his way around some of it, but he wouldn’t be able to get away whole, either. Fae were the most bound by words of all behindkind, and if she could get something in words out of him, she would be a great deal closer to getting what she wanted. “Earlier it didn’t seem as though you were particularly keen on it, so—”

  “Of course I’m eager to help,” Athelas said smoothly, and YeoWoo realised in irritation that she’d said too much; she’d given him something else to pin his words on instead of the sticky promise she’d hoped to extract.

  “You’ve decided to help me since lunch, then?” she asked. She managed to stop herself from adding anything else for him to bounce off, and merely waited, smiling coldly at him.

  Athelas’ grey eyes took on a touch of amusement that would have irritated YeoWoo a great deal if she’d thought it was directed at her. It wasn’t, she was rather sure. It was directed at himself.

  He sat back down, crossed one leg over the other, and said simply, “I have.”

  It wasn’t as comprehensive a commitment to help as she had hoped for, but it was enough to see him make himself useful today, at any rate. Anything after that would likely have to be bargained and allowed for according to all the usual fae rules.

  And that, she reminded herself, was something that was far better not to happen. Fae bargains were distinctly more onerous on the fae, but they still held enough weight to make life significantly uncomfortable for most other behindkind caught in them. And YeoWoo wasn’t naive enough to imagine that she would get the best of most fae bargains, let alone one with someone so tricky as Athelas. Today’s help would have to be enough.

  “In that case,” said Inspector Gu, his eyes moving from Athelas to YeoWoo, “we’ll remove ourselves.”

  “That was an odd way to put things,” said Athelas thoughtfully, when Camellia had ushered the enforcers out the front door and YeoWoo was waiting impatiently for him to get up.

  “He was pleased, too,” YeoWoo pointed out. She didn’t think that Athelas had missed the odd, almost satisfied look that warred with the irritation on the inspector’s face as he had declared his intention of pulling back from his request, but she wanted to underline it anyway.

  Let Athelas spend some time with the annoying thought that the enforcers had drawn back for their own reasons and not his. It would probably keep him awake for a good few nights trying to figure out exactly how they had managed to outsmart him—and what it was they had outsmarted him in.

  “I’m aware,” Athelas murmured, and there was that amusement to his eyes again. “I rather think that the Inspectors know something we do not.”

  YeoWoo was tempted to point out, “That you don’t know about, at least,” but managed to stop herself. Instead, she remarked, “We’d better go now if you really are coming with me. Peregrine should have been lulled into thinking that I’ve given up for the day by now; I don’t want to let him get too comfortable.”

  “Of course not,” said Athelas, with something that sounded very like a sigh.

  He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward as if to rise just as Camellia, Harrow behind her, entered the room—in order to gather the tea things it seemed. At least, Camellia had come to do so and Harrow had come as her shadow just as he usually did. YeoWoo wondered how the housekeeper could stand to have that sort of sticky, warmth-draining shadow sticking to her all day long, sucking the patience and effort and energy out of her.

  “Are you going out?” Camellia asked, setting her tray on the coffee table and piling used saucers on it as Athelas rose.

  “It would seem,” said Athelas, “as if we have some business that needs to be taken care of. Together. For now.”

  YeoWoo flicked him a look to let him know that she had heard the implied warning in the words, then transferred her gaze to Camellia. “I’m going to see about a lead,” she said. She was quite sure that Camellia wouldn’t misunderstand, and she didn’t. “I need to make sure that the person who promised it to me hasn’t forgotten their promise.”

  “I see,” Camellia said, slow and thoughtful. She was a muted sage green presence this morning, though her earrings were big and golden, and YeoWoo, without realising it, had felt her presence as a soft and calming thing.

  She wondered if Camellia had chosen the colour on purpose.

  “We’ll be gone for some hours,” she added. She didn’t particularly feel as though she needed to keep anyone apprised of her whereabouts these days, but dinner warm was always better than dinner cold.

  “You can see Harrow home, in that case,” Camellia said, gathering the sugar spoons. Her voice was as pleasant as usual, but she didn’t say it as if it was a request.

  Harrow stared first at Athelas and then YeoWoo as if he would desperately like to object, but said nothing. YeoWoo wasn’t surprised. They all, in some measure, obeyed Camellia without question.

  She saw, and was maliciously pleased by, the swiftly appearing and disappearing surprise that flickered across Athelas’ face. He was still learning when it came to Camellia—but he would learn in the end.

  When they set out, the day was warmer than it had been earlier, and the neighbourhood shops had opened. Fronted by jumbles of either potted plants or askew dummies modelling clothing, each store they passed had enough colour and froth to draw the eye of any child, but the human boy didn’t look at them like another child would have; he seemed to look down at his feet most often. YeoWoo didn’t know what to do with him and didn’t try to do anything. She would do her best not to hurt humans and would prevent others from doing so at nearly any cost, but already-broken humans weren’t something she could do anything about, and she was pragmatic enough to know that trying to do so would only make her care for something she couldn’t ultimately help.

  Camellia was the one who did that sort of thing. YeoWoo had, in fact, been slightly afraid that the woman would try something of the sort with her and had been prickly in response to every word Camellia had directed at her until she learned better. Harrow, at least, could be left safely in Camellia’s hands—which was just as well, because YeoWoo had no intention of taking on a broken human boy when she had so much of her own business to attend to. Paying attention to such a child would only put him in more danger as she grew closer to attaining her own goals, and it would certainly divide her focus.

  Still, when they approached the battered, pressed-metal gate in the cement wall from which YeoWoo had seen Harrow emerge from time to time, the human who was waiting for the boy scratched irritatingly at her like a prickle in her sleeve.

  He was sour-faced and scruffily bearded—white, most likely Australian like Harrow—and when he saw Harrow and his companions, his eyes darkened. YeoWoo instinctively disliked him. If she had still been human, she probably would have crossed the street to avoid getting too close to him; as a gumiho, she felt the desire to have his neck locked in her jaw so she could shake him like a small animal.

  The man shot an unfriendly look at YeoWoo and Athelas, and grabbed Harrow by the arm, hauling him toward the gate, where even the pressed-metal storks seemed to keep an austere, golden eye on him. “You’re late,” he said. “Your stepmother has been looking for you.”