It was a great deal later. The sun was setting outside of the window, and a minor army of coffee cups were littering the table, along with a number of sandwich wrappings.
"Okay, okay, I've got an even better one," Jenny said. "Scenario thirty-one. Ready?"
"Hit me."
"Josey did it." Jenny leaned back, crossed her arms and looked smug.
"Which part?" Jameel said.
"All of them." Jenny started counting off points on her fingers. "First, he got Mercher on his side by promising him that he'll get to be Head of Garbage Disposal in the worker's paradise that Josey will establish once he gains power."
"Head of Garbage Disposal?"
"Yep." Jenny nodded sagely. "It's his life-long dream."
"He's a Boggan. They hate everything that's dirty."
"Ah, but Mercher had a traumatising experience with a bar of soap when he was a young childling," Jenny said. "So now he hates cleanliness. He has become the long-prophesised and much dreaded Anti-Boggan. It's really quite tragic."
"Right," Jameel said. "What about Big Brian?"
"Oh, Josey has him under a spell of Sovereignty," Jenny said.
"And Gretta?"
"I didn't want to insult your intelligence by pointing out that she's obviously Josey's lovechild with a charming Slaugh witch he met in his wild youth, and that she's now trying to build a relationship with her long-lost Daddy."
"Jax?" Jameel said in a tone of morbid curiosity.
"Being a member of the Shadow Court and thereby an incarnation of all that is evil and un-American, he is course completely in favour of worker's paradises and wants to help Josey in any and all ways."
"Okay." Jameel nodded slowly. "And… why?"
"Josey wants to impress me with his mad scheming skills," Jenny said, "in the hopes that that will make me succumb to him and become his love slave."
"And what's my part in this?" Jameel said.
"Oh, everyone knows that the raw, bloody heart of a Kinain is an industrial-strength aphrodisiac."
"Yuk!"
"Don't blame me. All Satyrs are perverts. So, what do you think?"
Jameel sat silent for a moment. Then he sighed and held out his hands.
"I give! You win! I can't think of a single scenario that's more stupid and implausible than that one!"
Jenny laughed and punched the air.
"Yes! I am victorious! I am unbeaten! I am amazing in countless amazing ways! Everyone sucks but me!" She got up from her chair and started gyrating to an imagined beat. "Go me! Go me! Go – go – go me!"
"Have you ever heard of winning gracefully?" Jameel said dryly.
"I have. It sounded boring." Jenny leaned her elbows on the back of her chair. "Mind you, I have to admit that you almost had me with scenario twenty-eight."
"The one where this was all master-minded by hyper-intelligent chimerical entities from another dimension?" Jameel said.
"Yeah, that one was a sweetheart." Jenny smiled wryly. "But seriously, we're pretty much not going to get anywhere today, are we?"
"I guess." Jameel got up and swept his cloak around him. "Let's go home."
The two of them walked back out into the cold and started off down the street.
"And first thing tomorrow," Jenny said, "we go out and start twisting arms. Brains have failed us, let's try some brawn."
"Got to study, first thing tomorrow," Jameel said. "How about first thing tomorrow afternoon?"
"Okay. I guess." Jenny glanced at him. "Except now I'm wondering how I can even get near you without Mennavere going into remission from Banality overexposure. You'd seriously rather study than go adventuring?"
Jameel's mouth twitched, like he was suppressing a smile.
"Twisting arms doesn't sound that adventurous," he said. "More like beating on a lot of different people in turn until one tells you anything."
"Yeah." Jenny shrugged. "But, I mean, every job has these long, boring streaks between the excitements. Learning to fence wasn't much fun either, but I knew I had to get good at it before I could go on adventures. And now, we need to find the bad guy before we can kick the bad guy's ass. You sort of have to focus on why you're doing what you're doing. Like, 'I know my muscles are aching and my armour is chafing and I've got three more places to try before lunch, but it's all to uphold my liege-lord's honour and defeat the evil-doers like a true knight should.'"
"Right," Jameel said.
They walked in silence for a few minutes.
"But," Jameel then said, "right now your liege-lord is this nutty sorcerer who seems like he's trying to suck every scrap of Glamour out of the duchy, and never mind what happens after it's all gone, and who – correct me if I'm wrong – pretty obviously forged those documents proclaiming him regent. Yes?"
"You're not wrong," Jenny said. "Not that anyone can prove it, mind."
"And the 'evil-doer' in this case," Jameel went on, "is Old Josey, faithful friend to good old Duke Drackus, and generally regarded as the noble rebel outlaw fighting the oppressive regime."
"Your point?" Jenny said.
"Well, doesn't that sort of take the fun out of it?" Jameel said.
Jenny glared at him. He didn't look like he was trying to annoy her, though. He just looked puzzled.
"It beats sitting in a tower day in and day out, holding a nine-year-old prisoner," she said. "So I'm not going to complain. But yes, if you have to know. It does take most of the fun out of it."
"So why do it?" Jameel said. "I mean, I don't have a choice, but you?"
Jenny shrugged.
"This is what I do. This is who Mennavere is."
"Well, correct me if I'm wrong," Jameel said, "but isn't Mennavere just half of you?"
Jenny closed her eyes for a moment. She wondered if she should snap at him. She would have, if he hadn't insisted on sounding so polite and reasonable. He was prodding her every sore spot, but he wasn't doing it rudely enough that she felt she could chew him out for it.
"She's the half with a life," she said. "There's nothing for Jenny anymore. Look, can we not talk about this? You're nice and all, but I just met you today, and this is all kind of personal."
"Sorry." Jameel smiled. "I'm nosy. It's an occupational vice for sorcerers, I think."
"Apology accepted." Jenny rubbed her ears. The points were starting to go numb. One of the side effects of wearing a padded helmet was that it warmed you up very nicely. "So, this is where I catch my bus." She pointed to an approaching bus stop. "Meet me here tomorrow at one?"
Jameel shrugged.
"Works for me." He made a sort of sloppy salute. "See you then."
He strolled off down the street. At about the same time, the bus appeared around the street corner and approached the stop. Jenny considered for a moment, then called after Jameel.
"And I'm not out of your league!"
He turned, wide-eyed.
"You're… not?" he said.
"Heck no." Jenny grinned. "I've boinked guys who were much homelier than you!"
"Thanks, that's…" Jameel considered. "… not a compliment at all, actually…"
"Wasn't trying to give you a compliment," Jenny said. "I'm just saying, you'll never accomplish anything if you're that quick to decide things are hopeless!"
Her timing was impeccable – right after her delivering that line, the bus stopped and she got on it, leaving Jameel flabbergasted. A Sidhe who didn't know how to make an exit was no Sidhe at all.
---
Jameel trudged homewards, feeling very wiped out and in a particularly sulking mood. It wasn't the bare fact that Jax was back and out to get him. It was the way the world seemed to go out of its way to pile mysteries and setbacks on him. Jax and Josey and unlikely conspiracies and no more Glamour and damn Jenny anyway for thinking that part shot had been funny…
It was a harsh day indeed, when one had to go through all that he had gone through, and end with having one's manhood insulted. Even the fact that that probably hadn't been what Jenny had intended didn't help much. To the best of Jameel's guess, it had been something like a matter of principle to her. She was a Fiona, after all, and the Fiona were lechers with wide tastes – as far as they were concerned, everything was sexy, if properly considered. What Jenny had thrown him, he supposed, had been partly a tease and mostly a philosophical rebuke.
Well, that was damn easy for her to say, wasn't it? Sidhe never felt insecure about their bodies, on account of them all having perfect bodies, so they failed to see why someone else should.
The only girl who'd ever wanted to sleep with Jameel had turned out to be trying to turn him over to the cause of darkness and evil. He'd be willing to bet money he didn't have that Jenny couldn't say that.
Damn women.
Damn Sidhe.
Damn full-blood fae, with their stupid Birthrights and their stupid immortality and their stupid ability to actually believe in all that naïve crap they always spouted, and by believing it making it true…
Jameel's paranoia, honed to perfection over a summer where everyone really was out to get him, suddenly began yelling at him that there had been a motion in the shadows of a dark alley, and that it didn't like that motion at all. Jameel went rigid, then slowly turned.
Jax stepped out of the alley mouth, smoking a cigarette. He had a long wound stretching down his face, roughly stitched together with thick, black thread.
"Hey, Jameel." The Redcap smirked. "I always knew you were trouble. That's what I like about you."
"Stay away from me." Jameel inched his hands towards appropriate pockets in his cloak. "Unless you want me to conjure living flame into your guts, you stay away from me."
"What's with the hostility?" Jax took a few slow, lazy steps closer. "I just want to talk to you for a bit. I can talk to my old friends, can't I?"
"What's with the hostility is that you set a giant psycho bird on me and then hung me from the ceiling in chains," Jameel said. He had his hand around what he had been after now.
"You shut up about Weekwaweel, man," Jax said. He scowled, showing a lot of sharp teeth. "I'm going to do that murdering fucking whore who killed him, just so you know. I'm going to fuck her through every hole she's got, and when I'm done, I'm going to start making her some new ones."
"That's charming. Really. So nice to see you. Bye-bye now." Jameel drew the silvery Christmas marble out of his cloak pocket and threw it into the air. Jax's eyes went wide, and he followed the marble's flight with a slack-jawed stare. Jameel turned and ran.
After a few seconds, he heard the marble smash against the street, and a few seconds after that he heard Jax's roar of fury as he came to and realised that Jameel was accelerating down the street.
Jameel didn't turn to see if Jax would follow him, because he knew damn well that Jax would follow him. He just ran, zigzagging between pedestrians, running red lights, and getting a lot of people swearing loudly after him. His heart was pounding, his lungs were screaming with pain, but luckily, the campus was close. He ran in through the door and stopped, gasping and wheezing.
Steps slowed down outside.
"So what happens if I walk over that threshold?" Jax snarled.
"Everything." Jameel turned around, still leaning against the wall for support. "Everything I could come up with. You'd need an army to get in here."
For another six hours, at least. Then the wards would need to be recharged. And Mercher had cut off his Glamour supply…
Jax sneered.
"It so happens that I've got one. Want me to fetch it?"
Jameel's heart sank.
"You'd lose half, forcing your way in," he said hoarsely.
"Half of my army could still take you apart."
"I'd get you first." Jameel scowled, resorting to bluster for lack of anything better. "I'd make sure of it. I've got a cold iron knife in my room, want me to levitate it into your heart? Want to die, Jax? Not just be human for a few months. Not just be disembodied and have to find some infant to merge with. Actually die, like us regular folks do."
Jax spat.
"Like I'm afraid of you, you fucking little sorcerer fag."
"Can't you just leave me alone?" Jameel hated himself for saying it, and he hated the plea in his voice even more. "I'm not a threat to you, I've never done anything to you, why do you hate me so much?"
"I don't." Jax spat. "You're a bug. Only problem is, you're a bug who doesn't get how this works. You owe the Shadow Court, and oh man, you do not skip out on that. I keep trying to tell you, but you just won't fucking get it."
He made a quick move forwards, as if to rush through the doorway, and laughed when Jameel took a leap backwards.
"So this is it," Jax said. "Last warning. You tried to run, but here I am, so get it into your head that it's not going to work. You will pay what you owe, in goods and services or in blood!"
Jameel stared at him for a moment. Jax looked half pissed off, half gleeful, like he was getting off on his own hatred for all things.
"If I said… I wanted it to be goods and services…?" Jameel finally said.
This was bad, and he knew it. The Shadow Court was evil. The Shadow Court was intentionally evil – evil for the sake of being evil, in a way that made no sense for human beings but made a whole lot of sense for faeries, because faeries were incarnations of dreams and evil was a very old and powerful dream. This was more than just wrong. This was selling your soul.
I haven't said I'll do it, he told himself. I'm just asking, that's all. No harm in just asking.
"Well…" Jax studied Jameel. "That cold iron knife of yours? Slice your Sidhe bitch's throat with it."
Jameel couldn't keep back a small gasp, only half a breath, at that. Jax noticed, and his expression of ecstatic gloating was horrible to see. But of course that wasn't enough. Jax wouldn't be Jax if he didn't twist the knife.
"After you've raped her," he added.
Jameel slowly shook his head.
"Oh, don't be such a pussy," Jax said. "It'll take five minutes and be fun. I'm being a nice guy here, you know. I could have told you you'd have to bend over for me, but no, I'm telling you to fuck a hot bitch. Can I have a 'thank you'?"
Jameel stared.
"Or else we can go for the blood option," Jax said. "Your call. Think it through, would you?"
He walked away, laughing. Jameel remained standing in the doorway, feeling cold.