The girl checking IDs at the door took a long look at her this time but didn't say anything. The last time Ellen's car had been broken into, they'd done it for a secondhand coat and a bag of towels. You couldn't leave anything in a car in Philly. She went back inside, intent on getting her mother in the car before someone smashed the window and stole the equipment. It only took her a few minutes to get the car loaded up. The city always smelled like metal to Kaye. The cool autumn air outside the bar was a welcome relief, even stinking as it was with iron and exhaust fumes and the subways. Kaye picked up Ellen's stuff and started hauling it through the crowd. He took the money and ambled off to the bar, probably to get some beer to go. Delivering Chinese food might pay crap, but it still paid better than being in a band. She had more, and he probably knew it-she'd come straight from Chow Fat's. 'Hey kid, got any money on you?' Kaye shrugged and took out a ten-dollar bill. Lloyd glared at her as she started to pick up the stuff randomly, so she stuck to what was her mother's. Kaye slid off the counter and leapt up onto the stage in one easy move. Her lipstick was rubbed off the inside of her lips but still clung to the edges of her mouth, smudged a little.

She was smoothing damp hair back from her face. 'Go help load up the car,' Ellen said, voice hoarse from singing. Kaye couldn't help the wicked laughter that escaped her lips. Then her mother was next to her, taking a deep swallow of the beer before spitting it all over the counter. The bartender leered at her again and offered her a drink 'on the house.' 'Milk,' Kaye smirked, brushing back her ragged, blond hair and pocketing a couple of matchbooks when his back was turned. It didn't really matter, the sound system was loud and scratchy and everyone had kept drinking and smoking and shouting so she doubted the manager minded. It had been a bad set and watching them break down the equipment, she could see that they knew it. They were up on stage still, Ellen and Lloyd and the rest of Stepping Razor. She figured that would be a good test for how drunk Ellen was-see if she would swallow a butt whole. Housman, 'Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff' Kaye took another drag on her cigarette and dropped it into her mother's beer bottle. TITHE A MODERN FAERIE TALE by Holly Black Contents Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Acknowledgments For my little sister Heidi 'And pleasant is the faerie land But an eerie tale to tell, Ay at the end of seven years We pay a tithe to Hell I am sae fair and fu o flesh, I'm feard it be mysel.' -'Young Tam Lin' Prologue Contents - Next 'And malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man.' -A.

A modern faerie tale