Fair Game

put her purse on the table. “Someone gave something to me, a long time ago—and I’ve never used it. I think mostly because I was afraid. What if I’d tried to use it and it failed?”
    She opened her purse, dug down until she found her wallet, and slipped a plain white card out, handing it to Beauclaire. It looked like a business card to Anna, but instead of a name, the word GIFT was typed in the center of the card.
    Beauclaire took it and rubbed his fingers across it, and a faint smile crossed his face. “And how did you get this?”
    Leslie looked uncomfortable—almost embarrassed. “It’s real, right?”
    He nodded, still playing with the card. “It’s real, all right.”
    She took a deep breath. “It happened like this,” she said, and spun a tale of monsters who ate children and childhood dreams—including Leslie’s puppy—and a fierce old woman who knew a little of the fae, and about a debt owed and a bargain made.
    “You can use it to fix your daughter’s knee?” Leslie asked.
    Beauclaire shook his head and handed the card back to Leslie. “No. But I’ll remember you offered—and I’ll give you some advice, if you don’t mind. The fae who gave that to you did it with the best of intentions. For all that we do not reproduce, we tend to be a very long-lived people. Treasach was very old, and powerful, too. But death comes for us all, eventually, and it came to him.”
    Leslie tucked the card away and rubbed her eyes with the edge of her finger so her makeup wouldn’t run. “I don’t know why I’m feeling this way. It’s stupid. I met him once, for less than ten minutes…and…I won’t forget him.”
    “No,” agreed Beauclaire gravely. “Treasach was a marvel. Poet, fighter, joyful companion, and there are no more of his like to be found. None of us will forget him. Fae magic, though, sometimes has a mind of its own. That was given to you to resolve a debt. He intended it to be a gift and a blessing, but his death means that his will no longer binds that bit of magic. Use it or not, as you wish—but use it for a small thing, or for something that equals the grief of a good man who could not spare a child the pain of her puppy’s fate. If you remember his exact words, use it for that—by his words and by the debt this magic is tamed. Go beyond those things with your wish, and it will cause havoc of an unpleasant kind.”
    “Do you have healers?” Anna asked.
    “Healing is among the great magics and we have very few healers left among us—and most of them are even less trustworthy than Treasach’s gift would be.” He took a drink of his beer and nodded to Leslie. “My daughter will walk again, but she will not dance. It is the way of mortals. They fling themselves at life and emerge broken.”
    “She survived,” said Anna. “She’s tough. She fought them every step of the way. She’ll make it.”
    Beauclaire nodded politely. “Some mortals do. Some of them make it just fine when horrible things happen to them. Some of them…” He shook his head and took another sip of his beer and then said with quiet savagery, “Sometimes broken people stay broken.” He looked at her. “Why am I telling you all of this?”
    Anna shrugged. “People talk to me.” She didn’t know what else to say, so she followed her impulse. “I’ve been where Lizzie is, brutalized and terrified. Someone rescued me before my captors were able to kill me. Next to that…losing something she loves is tragic. But she doesn’t seem to be the kind who will think that she would be better off dead—not in the long run.”
    Beauclaire looked at his glass. “I’m sorry to hear that you had to be rescued.”
    She shrugged again. “That which does not destroy us makes us stronger, right?” It came out sounding flippant, so she added, “I knew a woman when I was in school. She was smart, a talented musician, and hardworking. She came to college and found out that those weren’t enough to make her a first violin, or even a second—and she tried to kill herself because she had to sit with the third violins. It was the first real disappointment she’d ever had in her life and she didn’t know how to deal with it. Those of us who live in the real world and survive horrible things, we emerge stronger and ready to face tomorrow. Lizzie will be okay.”
    Beauclaire frowned at her. He looked away and then said, “You might visit her and tell her that.”
    She didn’t want to. She wasn’t a