"Now," he said, "show me how you breathe."
Sometimes Val and Dave and Luis and Lolli would talk about the strange things they'd seen or the creatures they'd spoken with. Dave told them about going all the way out to Brooklyn only to get chased through the park by a creature with short antlers growing from his brow. He'd screamed and run, dropping the bottle of whatever-it-was, and not looked back. Luis told them about running around town to find unsprayed flowers for a bogan that lived up near the Cloisters and had some kind of wooing planned. For his trouble, Luis had been given a bottle of wine that would never empty so long as you didn't look down the neck. It must have really been magic, too, not just glamour, because it worked, even for Luis.
"What else do they give you?" Val asked.
"Luck," Luis said. "And the means of breaking faerie spells. My dad never did anything with his power. I'm going to be different."
"How do you break spells?" Val asked.
"Salt. Light. Eggshell soup. Depends on the spell." Luis took another pull from the bottle. He reached up to finger the metal bar that ran through his cheek. "But mostly iron."
There were no sword moves at the next practice, just stance and footwork. Back and forth across the dusty boards, keeping the half broomstick trained on Ravus as Val advanced and retreated. He corrected her when she took too large a step, when her balance was off, when her toe wasn't straight. She bit the inside of her cheek in frustration and continued moving, keeping the same distance between them, as though waiting for a battle that never began.
He turned suddenly to one side, forcing her to follow awkwardly. "Speed, timing, and balance. Those are the things that will make you into a competent fighter."
She gritted her teeth and stepped wrong again.
"Stop thinking," he said.
"I have to think," said Val. "You said I was supposed to concentrate."
"Thinking makes you slow. You need to move as I move. Right now, you're merely following my lead."
"How can I know where you're going to go before you've gone there? That's stupid."
"It's no different from knowing where any opponent might move. How do you know where a ball is likely to go on the lacrosse field?"
"The only things you know about lacrosse are what I told you," Val said.
"I might say the same about you and sword fighting." He stopped. "There. You did it. You were so busy snapping at me that you didn't notice you were doing it."
Val frowned, too annoyed to be pleased, but too pleased to say anything more.
Lolli, Dave, and Val walked through the streets of the West Village, magicking fallen leaves into a slew of jeweled frogs that hopped in chaotic patterns, enchanting strangers to kiss, and otherwise making what trouble the three of them could imagine.
Val glanced across the street, through the gauzy drapes of a ground-floor apartment at a chandelier hung with carved monkeys and glittering with drops of crystal in the shape of tears.
"I want to go in there," Val said.
"Let's," said Lolli.
Dave walked up to the door and pressed on the bell. The intercom by the door buzzed to life and a garbled voice said something indecipherable.
"I'd like a cheeseburger," Dave said with a loud laugh, "a milk shake, and onion rings."
The voice spoke again, louder, but Val still couldn't understand the words.
"Here," she said, pushing Dave aside. She pressed the buzzer and held it until a middle-aged guy came to the door. He was wearing faded cords and a loose T-shirt that covered his slight paunch. Glasses rode low on his nose.
"What's your problem?" he demanded.
Val felt Never fizzing inside her arms, bursting like champagne bubbles. "I want to come in," she said.
The man's face went slack and he opened the door wider. Val smiled at him as she walked past and into his apartment.
The walls were painted yellow and hung with gilt-framed finger paintings. A woman was stretched out on the couch, holding a glass of wine. She started as Val came in, splashing her shirt with the red liquid. A little girl sat on a rug by the woman's feet, watching a program on the television that seemed to be about ninjas kicking each other. The little girl turned and smiled.
"This place is so nice," Lolli said from the doorway. "Who lives like this?"
"No one," said Dave. "They hire cleaners—maybe a decorator—to fake their life."
Val walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. There were boxes of take-out, a few withered apples, and a carton of skim milk. She took a bite of the fruit. It was brown and mealy on the inside but still sweet. She couldn't understand why she'd never eaten a brown apple before.
Lolli picked up the bottle of wine from the coffee table and swigged from it, letting red juice run over her chin and cheeks.
Still eating the apple, Val walked to the couch where the woman sat numbly. The lovely apartment, with its stylish furniture and happy family, reminded Val of her dad's house. She didn't fit in here any more than she fit in there. She was too angry, too troubled, too sloppy.
And how was she supposed to tell her dad what had happened with Tom and her mom? It was like confessing to her father that she was bad in bed or something. But not telling him just let his new wife label her as Lifetime movie material, a troubled teen runaway in need of tough love. "See," Linda would say. "She's just like her mother."
"You never liked me," she told the woman on the couch.
"Yes," the woman repeated robotically. "I never liked you."
Dave pushed the man into a chair and turned to Lolli. "We could just make them leave," he said. "It would be so easy. We could live here."
Lolli sat down next to the little girl and plucked a ringlet of her dark hair. "What you watching?"
The girl shrugged.
"Would you like to come and play with us?"
"Sure," the little girl said. "This show is boring."
"Let's start with dress-up," Lolli said, leading the little girl into the back room.
Val turned to the man. He looked docile and happy in his chair, his attention wandering to the television.
"Where's your other daughter?" Val asked.
"I only have one," he said, with mild bafflement.
"You just want to forget about the other one. But she's still here."
"I have another daughter?"
Val sat down on the arm of his chair and leaned in close, her voice dropping to a whisper. "She's a symbol of the spectacular fuck-up that was your first marriage. Every time you see how she is, you are reminded how old you are. She makes you feel vaguely guilty, like maybe you should know what sport she plays or what her best friend's name is. But you don't want to know those things. If you knew those things, you couldn't forget about her."
"Hey," Dave said, holding up a bottle of cognac that was mostly full. "Luis would like some of this."
Lolli walked back into the room wearing a leather jacket the color of burnt butter and a string of pearls. The little girl had a dozen glittering rhinestone pins in her hair.
"Are you happy at least?" Val asked the woman.
"I don't know," said the woman.
"How can you not know?" Val shouted. She picked up a chair and threw it at the television. The screen cracked and everyone jumped. "Are you happy?"
"I don't know," the woman said.
Val tipped over a bookcase, making the little girl scream. There were shouts outside the door.
Dave started laughing.
The light from the chandelier reflected in the crystals, sending shining sparks to glitter along the walls and ceilings. "Let's go," Val said. "They don't know anything."