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"I haven’t heard of that story," his sister said "Will it be a musical?"

"I don’t know yet," said Rafe "I don’t think the cast can sing"

His mother frowned and called Mary over to chop up a summer squash

"I want you and Victor to come live with me," Rafe said as his sister turned away from him

"Your place is too small," Rafe’s mother told him

She had never seen his apartment "We could move, then Go to Queens Brooklyn"

"You won’t want a little boy running around And Mary has the cousins here She should stay with us Besides, the city is dangerous"

"Marco is dangerous," Rafe said voice rising "Why don’t you let Mary make up her own mind?"

Rafe’s hed and bit his tongue and Mary gave him a sisterly roll of the eyes It occurred to him that that had been the most normal conversation he had had with his ht Rafe, wearing the silvery coat, went back to the woods and the river

The dancers were there as before and when Rafe got close, the faery woman left the circle of dancers

"Your coat is as lovely as the ht of objecting, but he also thought of the faery woe the course of events It would be better if he caught her off-guard He shouldered off his coat "I agree"

As before, the faery wo toward him before the faery could touch his broith her lips

Lyle turned to hi for a nao with a distant memory, as if Lyle didn’t recall hiered drowsily to the ave Rafe His mouth moved, but no sound escaped hiht Rafe tried a different way of rousing Lyle He pressed his mouth to Lyle’s slack lips, to his forehead as the faery woman had done He kissed the hollow of Lyle’s throat, where the beat of his heart thruainst his skin He ran his hands over the Lyle’s chest He touched his lips to the sain, he kissed Lyle, but it was as terrible as kissing a corpse

Before he slept, Rafe took the onyx and silver ring off his own pinkie, pulled out a strand of black hair from his own head and coiled it inside the hollow of the poison ring Then he pushed the ring onto Lyle’s pinkie

"Remember me Please remember me," Rafe said "I can’t remember myself unless you remember me"

But Lyle did not stir and Rafe woke alone on the ht of dawn

That day he sewed a coat froht sky He stiched tiny black crystals onto it and embroidered it with black roses, thicker at the he as they climbed At the cuffs and neck, ripped ruffles of thin smoky purples and deep reds reminded him of sunsets Across the back, he sewed on silver beads for stars Stars like the faerie wo Raphael had ever created He kneould never et your ideas from?" his father asked as he shuffled out to the kitchen for an evening cup of decaf "I’ve never been much of a creative person"

Rafe opened his s he’d seen and drea his father said "You made that bumper for the old car out of wood," Rafe said "That was pretty creative"

Rafe’s father grinned and addedcoat and walked to the woods

The faerie woht of the nificent coat

"I must have it," she said "You shall have hiht if he could not rouse Lyle, he would have to say goodbye Perhaps this was the life Lyle had chosen--a life of dancing and youth and painlessto try and take hiht beside Lyle

She brought Lyle to him and he knelt on the mattress The faerie woman bent to kiss his forehead, but at the last moment, Lyle turned his head and the kiss fell on his hair

Scowling, she rose

Lyle blinked as though awakening froer He turned toward Rafe and smiled tentatively