Welcome to Bordertown by Ellen Kushner, Holly Black (editors) Read Free Book Online Page A

going through it. I see it all the time, these days. You’re all in shock.”
    “What about you?”
    “I was born here. I’ve got nothing to worry about.”
    “Well, um, thanks for worrying about me, then.”
    “No worries!” Cam grinned. “That’s what the kids from Brisbane say all the time. ‘No worries!’ I think it’s cute.”
    Trish smiled shakily back. No worries.
    “So, listen,” Cam said. “I’m on my way to work now, but you wanna come over to our place tonight? We’re at the Chimera, over on Carmine Street. You know, the big place down from Wish You Were Here, across from the Pumpkin Coach?”
    She’d heard of the galleries and shops and clubs on Carmine Street. She’d thought there’d be nothing for her sort of person there. But now, it seemed, there was.
    “Okay,” Trish said. “Chimera. Do I need a special pass to get in or something?”
    Cam laughed. “Hell, no. It’s just a squat—well, a squat and a little more. You’ll see.”
    *   *   *
     
    “You will like this party of Windreed’s,” his lady said. “Have you ever even been to Dragon’s Tooth Hill?”
    Anush remembered his disastrous early attempts to collect data there, and kept his mouth shut.
    “You will meet and mingle with the finest of our kind. I can show you off, and you can ask all Windreed’s Trueblood guests your most impertinent questions. It will be vastly amusing: They will all be furious, but none will dare retaliate, as you’re under my protection.”
    “Protection?” Anush looked up between his hairy hands. “Is that what you call it?”
    “Well …” He shivered as she stroked his hideous head. “You cannot be spelled by two of the folk at once. It’s beyond rude, and Windreed’s crowd are very point-device.”
    “Well, that’s a relief. I’d sure hate to be ugly day and night. I’d sure hate to upset any more Truebloods. I’d sure hate for my questions to be—”
    Her silvery laughter silenced him like a slap. “It’s so funny, when your voice gets all squeaky like that—”
    “Then fix it!” he shouted—or tried to. He sounded ridiculous, even to his own ears. She was laughing again. He jumped for the table (jumping was something he did well) and swept off a candelabra that only last night had lit a feast for them both, sending it crashing to the floor.
    “Beware,” she said coldly. “Just because you wear a beast’s form does not mean you may behave as one in my presence.”
    “You want questions?” Anush cried. “Well, here’s a question for you! Did you know all along about this thirteen years thing? Was it you? Was it your pals in the Realm, just finding a new way to mess us up and ruin all our lives?”
    The woman looked coolly at him. “That was three questions, my creature. You will never thrive in your quest for the truths of the Realm if you do not learn to count.”
    Anush took a deep breath. It was true; he’d grown up on a diet of myth and fairy-tale books. He did know better. And he dimly remembered being that promising young student out in the World, believing that he’d be the one to crack the secrets of the Realm with his fabulous bicultural understanding of myth and magic. It was just that, when it was real, it was so complicated. He’d landed in the middle of a story himself. And the Truebloods hadn’t read the same books.
    He tried again, as calmly as he could: “Was it the Truebloodswho made thirteen years in the World pass as thirteen days here in Bordertown?”
    She walked to the other end of the room. He was learning that when she didn’t look him in the eye, didn’t face him directly, she was most likely to be telling the truth.
    “We do not meddle in the World’s affairs. And I know of none with such power, in the Realm or on the Border. This little spell”—she waved her fingers at him in that irritating way—“is the strongest that I can work here. And even that will break when you pass out of the Borderlands.”
    And there it