Read Online Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Seanan McGuire
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of yourself or your friends until it gets too close to ignore. When did the last call come? Was I already home? If I hadn’t been such a selfish brat, if I’d listened to my messages, could I have saved her?
My car started easily despite the lingering December cold. That’s part of why I like the original Volkswagen bugs: they break down constantly, the parts are impossible to find, and the mileage sucks, but they always seem to start when you need them to. I pulled out of the garage without checking for traffic and barely avoided a collision with a group of teenagers packed into Daddy’s Lexus. We traded expletives across a narrow strip of asphalt before heading in opposite directions—them toward downtown and me toward the South City, where you can find some of the most expensive residential neighborhoods in San Francisco.
Most purebloods Evening’s age live full-time in the Summerlands rather than dealing with the daily stresses of mortal living. Even Sylvester, the most “human” pureblood I’ve ever known, lived entirely on the other side of the hill. Evening was stubborn. She saw San Francisco built around her, watching it grow from a little dock town into a thriving city. Somewhere along the way, it became her home, and after that, she simply refused to leave.
I asked her about it once. “I prefer San Francisco,” she said. “The lies are different here. When you’ve lived as long as I have, you start appreciating new approaches to dishonesty.”
I don’t remember how I found my way to her apartment. When I try to think about the drive, all I can think is that I must have had my eyes closed the whole time, because I was praying so damn hard. The fae aren’t big on gods, but I prayed anyway—prayed that my ears had lied to me, that this was some sort of cruel wake-up call on Evening’s part, or that maybe, just this once, the universe would see that it had made a mistake and would take it all back.
The neighborhoods had been getting more upscale as I drove, the buildings taking on an elegant, cookie-cutter uniformity. Evening’s choice of residence was nothing unique among the purebloods who live on this side of the hills. Not only do they tend to have bank accounts going back centuries, but the electronic age has broadened the horizons of magical fraud to an astonishing degree. Faerie gold can be used for more than just party tricks; it works pretty well on the stock market, for example, where money’s an illusion anyway. The only purebloods who live poor anymore are the ones whose magic is too weak or whose morals are too strong to let them lie on that sort of scale.
Evening never had those kinds of problems. Unfortunately for me, it doesn’t work like that for changelings. Sustaining illusions that strong for the amount of time required would kill me, assuming I could cast them in the first place. So the purebloods live on veal and candied moonbeams, while I’ve become a connoisseur of macaroni and cheese.
Oh, well. Pasta’s probably better for you anyway.
Police cars lined the street in front of Evening’s building, lights spinning in an endless flashing dance of red-blue-red and shattering the illusion of wealthy, untouchable serenity that the neighborhood worked so hard to project. Those lights made it impossible to pretend that everything was perfect or that this was the mythic San Francisco the pop songs promised; this was too real for that. The people walking by looked nervously at the police cars, like they were afraid whatever crimes or tragedies their imaginations had conjured would rub off on them. Humanity has always had a flair for guilt by association. What was Evening guilty of—dying?
I found a parking place at the end of the block, where I wedged my car into the space between a news van and a battered Studebaker. My fender dinged the news van, and I felt a flare of satisfaction. They’d never pick out the dent in the colony already established on my car, and they
My car started easily despite the lingering December cold. That’s part of why I like the original Volkswagen bugs: they break down constantly, the parts are impossible to find, and the mileage sucks, but they always seem to start when you need them to. I pulled out of the garage without checking for traffic and barely avoided a collision with a group of teenagers packed into Daddy’s Lexus. We traded expletives across a narrow strip of asphalt before heading in opposite directions—them toward downtown and me toward the South City, where you can find some of the most expensive residential neighborhoods in San Francisco.
Most purebloods Evening’s age live full-time in the Summerlands rather than dealing with the daily stresses of mortal living. Even Sylvester, the most “human” pureblood I’ve ever known, lived entirely on the other side of the hill. Evening was stubborn. She saw San Francisco built around her, watching it grow from a little dock town into a thriving city. Somewhere along the way, it became her home, and after that, she simply refused to leave.
I asked her about it once. “I prefer San Francisco,” she said. “The lies are different here. When you’ve lived as long as I have, you start appreciating new approaches to dishonesty.”
I don’t remember how I found my way to her apartment. When I try to think about the drive, all I can think is that I must have had my eyes closed the whole time, because I was praying so damn hard. The fae aren’t big on gods, but I prayed anyway—prayed that my ears had lied to me, that this was some sort of cruel wake-up call on Evening’s part, or that maybe, just this once, the universe would see that it had made a mistake and would take it all back.
The neighborhoods had been getting more upscale as I drove, the buildings taking on an elegant, cookie-cutter uniformity. Evening’s choice of residence was nothing unique among the purebloods who live on this side of the hills. Not only do they tend to have bank accounts going back centuries, but the electronic age has broadened the horizons of magical fraud to an astonishing degree. Faerie gold can be used for more than just party tricks; it works pretty well on the stock market, for example, where money’s an illusion anyway. The only purebloods who live poor anymore are the ones whose magic is too weak or whose morals are too strong to let them lie on that sort of scale.
Evening never had those kinds of problems. Unfortunately for me, it doesn’t work like that for changelings. Sustaining illusions that strong for the amount of time required would kill me, assuming I could cast them in the first place. So the purebloods live on veal and candied moonbeams, while I’ve become a connoisseur of macaroni and cheese.
Oh, well. Pasta’s probably better for you anyway.
Police cars lined the street in front of Evening’s building, lights spinning in an endless flashing dance of red-blue-red and shattering the illusion of wealthy, untouchable serenity that the neighborhood worked so hard to project. Those lights made it impossible to pretend that everything was perfect or that this was the mythic San Francisco the pop songs promised; this was too real for that. The people walking by looked nervously at the police cars, like they were afraid whatever crimes or tragedies their imaginations had conjured would rub off on them. Humanity has always had a flair for guilt by association. What was Evening guilty of—dying?
I found a parking place at the end of the block, where I wedged my car into the space between a news van and a battered Studebaker. My fender dinged the news van, and I felt a flare of satisfaction. They’d never pick out the dent in the colony already established on my car, and they
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