THERE WAS A STORM OF BUTTERFLIES OUTSIDE THE DOOR TO MY room, as if someone had broken a kaleidoscope and thrown the colors into the air, and those colors had stayed, floating, whirling. For a moment I didn’t see the tiny hands and feet, the gauzy dresses and loincloths. I saw only what their glamour tried to show me. A cloud of insects, rising like beauty itself into the air. I had to blink hard and concentrate to see them for what they truly were. Galen pulled back against my hand, stopping all of us just short of that rainbow cloud.
Galen’s reaction made me remember another time when I’d seen such a cloud of the demi-fey. Galen had been chained to the rock outside the throne room. His body was almost lost to sight under the slowly fanning wings of the demi-fey. They looked like butterflies on the edge of a puddle, sipping liquid, wings moving slowly to the rhythm of their feeding. But they weren’t sipping water, they were drinking his blood. Galen had shrieked long and loud, his body arching against the chains. The movement dislodged some of the demi-fey, and I glimpsed why he was screaming. His groin was a bloody mess. They were taking flesh as well as blood.
Galen’s hand tightened painfully around mine. I looked up at him now, and found his eyes a little too wide, his lips half-parted. I knew now why Cel had bargained with the demi-fey to try to ruin Galen’s manhood. At the time it had simply seemed like another of his cruelties.
The kaleidoscope of butterflies and moths parted curtain-like, and Queen Niceven hovered in midair on large pale wings like some ghostly luna moth. Her dress sparkled silver; the diamonds in her crown were so bright in the light that the dazzle of it obscured her narrow features. I knew what she looked like because I’d seen her thin, near skeletal beauty before. Though only the size of a Barbie doll, she was thin enough for Hollywood. Looking at her all asparkle and pale white, I understood why people had thought the fey were spirits of the dead or angels. She looked like both and neither. Too solid to be a ghost, too insect-like to be an angel.
If Galen hadn’t been clinging to my hand I would have moved forward to speak with her, one royal to another, but I couldn’t ask him to go closer to that pretty, bloodthirsty cloud. Doyle saw my dilemma, and went forward, to bow before her. “Queen Niceven, to what do we owe this honor?”
“Pretty words, Darkness,” she said, and her voice was like evil, tinkling bells, “but a little late, don’t you think?”
“A little late for what, Queen Niceven?” he asked in his polite, empty court voice. The voice that he used when he didn’t know what political storm he had fallen into.
“For courtesy, Darkness, for courtesy.” She flew a little higher so she could see me better over Doyle’s tall form. “Now I am not even good enough for the princess to address me directly.”
I called to her, as Galen’s hand convulsed around mine. “You know full well why Galen doesn’t want to come closer to you and your kin.”
“And are you attached to your green knight? Are you one with him in flesh, so that you cannot come closer without him coming, as well?” She’d moved her head to one side, and I could see her pale eyes now. She wasn’t even trying to hide how angry she was. I’d seen her crown a thousand times, and never seen the jewels catch the light so brilliantly. Only then did I realize that the light in the hallway was brighter than normal, closer to the brightness of electric lights.
“See, she pays no attention to us. The roof of the hall holds more interest for her than my court.”
I blinked and looked back to the flying queen. “My apologies, Queen Niceven, the brilliance of your crown quite dazzled me. I have seen your beauty many times, but it has never been so eye-catching as tonight. It made me realize that the light in this hallway is finally bright enough to do you and your finery the justice it deserves.”
“Pretty words, Princess Meredith, but empty ones. Flattery will not wipe away the insult you have laid against me and my court.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. Was I so tired that I had forgotten something important? For I was tired, an aching tiredness that comes after being up too long, or after too many things happen in too short a space of time. I had no idea what time it was. There were no clocks in faerie. Once it had been because time moved differently here than outside. Now there were no clocks allowed because they would work. Just another reminder that faerie wasn’t what it used to be.
“What insult has been done to your court?” Doyle asked.
“No, Darkness, she did the insulting, let her do the asking.” Her wings looked like some great moth, but they did not move like moth wings, not when she was angry. They blurred and buzzed as she flew past Doyle to hover in front of me.
Galen pulled back so hard, I stumbled against him. He caught me automatically, but that put him closer to the tiny hovering fey. He seemed to freeze against me, his arms pinning mine.
Niceven hissed, flashing tiny needle-like teeth, and darted in. I think she only meant to land on my shoulder, but Frost put his arm in her way. He didn’t try to hit her, but her guard reacted, flying toward their queen. They descended on us like a swirl of rainbow leaves, with tiny pinching hands, and sharp biting teeth.
Galen yelled and threw up a hand, turning so that he used his own body as a shield against them. He started to run, but he tripped and fell, landing on the ground with me underneath him. He caught himself with one arm so that I didn’t take his full weight. My face ended up buried in the rich green smell of crushed leaves. I opened my eyes and found myself nearly buried in greenery. I thought for a moment that Galen and I had been transported, but my fingers found the bareness of the hallway stone underneath. I looked at the far wall, and saw the other guards still standing around us. Plants had sprung from the naked rock.
Galen had curled himself over me, shielding me with his body. He was still tense and waiting for the first blow. A blow that did not come. I turned enough to see his face, his eyes screwed tight. He had given himself over to one of his greatest fears to protect me. He hadn’t seen the flowers yet, but the others had.
Niceven’s voice hissed, “Evil sidhe, evil, evil sidhe. You have bespelled them.”
“Interesting,” Doyle said, “very interesting.”
“Most impressive,” Hawthorne said, “but whose work is it?”
“Galen’s,” Nicca said.
Galen’s body had begun to relax above me. He opened his eyes, and I watched his puzzlement as he looked at the plants that had filled the hallway. “I did not do this.”
“Yes,” Nicca said again, in a voice that was very certain, “yes, you did.”
Galen raised up on one arm, so that he was half sitting above me. He turned and looked behind us, and whatever he saw covered his face in astonishment. I sat up and looked, too.
Flowers filled a small space of hallway. The winged demi-fey were cuddled into those flowers, rolling in the petals, covering themselves with pollen. They were reacting like cats to catnip.
Queen Niceven hovered above them untouched by the call of the flowers. Less than a handful of her winged warriors were at her side. All the others had fallen to Galen’s flowers. It was an enchantment, that much I understood, but beyond that I was as lost as the look on Galen’s face.
“He’s the only one who has not had new power manifest.” Frost poked at one of the nodding blossoms with the tip of his sword.
“Well,” Doyle said, gazing at the flowers and the drugged demi-fey, “this is certainly manifested.” He grinned, a quick flash of teeth in his dark face. “If his power continues to grow he could do this to human, or even other sidhe, armies. I had almost forgotten that we ever had such nice ways to win battles.”
“Well,” a voice said from behind us, “I leave for a few minutes and you’ve planted a garden.” It was Rhys, back from escorting the police outside the sithen. Nicca told him what had happened. Rhys grinned at Galen. “What is this, the hand of flowers?”
“It’s not a hand of power,” Nicca said. “It’s a skill, a magical skill.”
“You mean like baking or doing needlepoint?” Rhys asked.
“No,” Nicca said, not rising to the joke, “I mean it is like Mistral’s manifesting a storm. It is a manifestation, a bringing into being.”
Rhys gave a low whistle. “Creating something out of nothing. The Unseelie haven’t been able to do that in a very long time.”
Galen touched one of the largest cupped blossoms, and it spilled a tiny demi-fey out into his hand. He jerked as if he’d been bitten, but he didn’t drop the delicate figure. A female dressed in a short brown dress, with her brown and red and cream wings fanned out on either side of her as she lay on her back in his hand. She was tiny even by demi-fey standards. Her entire body did not fill Galen’s palm. She lay almost completely limp, a smile on her face, her eyes rolled back into her head. Her body was covered in the black pollen of the flower she’d crawled into. She wasn’t just drunk, she was passed out, happy-drunk.
Galen looked more and more puzzled. He gazed up at Doyle, half holding the little fey up to him. “For those of us under a century, what in the name of Danu is going on? I didn’t do this on purpose, because I didn’t know it was possible. If I didn’t know it was possible, then how could I have done it at all? Magic takes will and intent.”
“Not always,” Doyle said.
“Not if it is simply part of what you are,” Frost said.
Galen shook his head. “What does that mean?”
“Maybe we should save the magic lessons for later,” Rhys said, “when we’re more alone.” He was looking at the tiny queen who was still hovering above us, gazing at her fallen army.
“Yes, white knight, keep your secrets from me,” she said, “for the princess has broken the bargain she made with me. My people are her eyes and ears no longer. We serve Prince Cel once more.”
I got to my feet, careful not to step on the demi-fey who were passed out in and among the flowers. That would be bad on so many levels. “I did not break our bargain, Queen Niceven; you took Sage away. He could not take blood if he was not allowed near me.”
She buzzed to hover in front of my face, her white wings moving in a blur of speed that would have shredded true moth wings. I knew from Sage that that blur meant she was angry.
“I bargained for a little blood, a little sexual energy to come to my proxy, and thus to me. I did not bargain for him to be made sidhe. I did not bargain for him to lose the use of his wings. I did not bargain for him to…”
“Be too big for your bed,” I said.
“I am married,” she said, and that last word sounded like a curse. “I have no lover save my king.”
“No, and because you cannot have your favorite lover, you forbid him the pleasure of anyone else.”
The wind from her wings played along my hair, buffeted my face. The air was cool, though her anger was not. “What I do with my court is my business, Princess.”
“It is, but you accused me of breaking our bargain, and I did not. I am still willing to offer a taste of royal blood to you.” I held my hand out slowly, gently, offering her my upturned wrist. I did not want another misunderstanding. “Do you wish to take the blood personally? You sent Sage as your proxy because the Western Lands are far from faerie, but now I am here.”
She hissed at me like a startled cat and buzzed high into the air above me. “I would not taste your sidhe flesh for all the power in the world. You will not steal my wings from me.”
“But Sage was always able to change to a human size. You are not, so you can’t get stuck in a larger size.”
She hissed again, shaking her head, sending rainbow dazzles to dance around the walls, on us, and the flowers. “Never!”
“Then choose another proxy,” I said.
“Who would take such a risk?” she said.
A small voice came. “Someone who has no wings to lose.”
I looked down until I saw a cluster of demi-fey against the far wall. None of them had wings, but they had other means of transport. Carts pulled by sleek, cream-colored rats, and one dainty chariot that had more than a dozen white mice tied to it. There were two ferrets with multiple tiny riders, one the standard black mask, the other an albino with white fur and reddish eyes. A Nile monitor that was nearly four feet long had two of the larger riders. The monitor was not only harnessed but muzzled like a dog that you’re afraid will bite. Nile monitors could be vicious and ate anything small enough to catch and kill. If I’d been the size of a Barbie doll, I wouldn’t have wanted one anywhere near me.
Movement on the wall brought my attention to the fact that there were tiny many-legged demi-fey clinging there. Some looked like tiny spider centaurs, eight legs combined with a rounded fey body hidden under a sway of gauzy cloth. One looked like a black beetle, so like that only staring showed the pale moon of a face under the insect camouflage.
“I spoke,” said one of the men in a rat-drawn cart. There was a woman in the cart with him. She was pulling on his arm, trying to stop him from waving. “No, Royal, no,” she said, “don’t do it. There are worse things than not having wings.”
He let go of the reins that led to a lovely rat, and grabbed the woman’s arms. “I will do this, Penny. I will do this.”
Penny shook her head. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t lose me.”
“I will if she makes you sidhe.”
“I have no other size, Penny. She can’t trap me in human size the way she did Sage, because it’s not one of my abilities.” He hugged her to him, petting her short dark hair, and looked up at me. His hair was short and black, and just under his bangs were two long graceful antennae, as black as his hair. His eyes were large and almond-shaped, and a perfect blackness like Doyle’s, or Sage’s come to that. His skin was very white in contrast to all that darkness. The woman turned her head to gaze up at me, and she, too, had long graceful antennae. It was rare for any of the demi-fey to have antennae, but for those without wings it was doubly surprising.
The two pale oval faces stared up at me. There was a little more squareness to his jaw, a somewhat daintier curve to hers. He was a little taller than she, a little more broad of shoulder, narrow of hip, but beyond the basic differences that made them male and female, they looked identical.
“You’re twins,” I said, “Pennyroyal, Penny and Royal.” It was a custom among the demi-fey to divide a name up among twins.
He nodded. She just stared at me. They were even dressed alike in gauzy tunics of deep purple. They were both dressed in more clothing than the majority of the demi-fey. Her dress covered her from neck to knees. His tunic covered him from neck to knees, as well. I realized as I looked at the wingless ones that they were all dressed in a similar fashion. The winged fey men went for what amounted to kilts or loincloths of gauze. The women were in mini-dresses or less. Only Queen Niceven wore a gown that swept to her ankles. She was their queen, she got more clothes, but I’d never noticed the marked difference in clothing between those who had wings and those who did not.
“I have not agreed to this,” Niceven said, and came to hover at my shoulder.
“Please, Your Majesty, let me try. You do not know what it is like to be without wings, doomed to walk or ride forever.”
She crossed her arms over her thin chest. “I feel for your plight, Royal, and all of you who are so cursed, but you might get a great deal more than just wings from touching this one.” She motioned at me. “Look what has happened with the green knight.”
“Would having one of your people able to conjure such enchantments be a bad thing, Your Majesty?” he asked.
She came to hover near my face. “How can I trust you, Princess, when you have insulted me and my court so severely?”
Doyle said, “You spoke of an insult when you first arrived. You said the princess had done it. What has she done?”
Niceven turned in the air so she could see him, then moved backwards so she could see us both as she spoke. “You arrested one of my people without asking my permission. Beatrice was not sidhe, she was mine. Though trapped in her human-sized form, she was demi-fey. Beatrice was cursed but she was not Andais’s or yours. The murderer is one of mine, the victim is one of mine, and you did not give me even the courtesy of a message. No other court would have been so ignored.” She moved close enough that the air from her wings brushed my hair against my face. “You would have at the very least contacted Kurag, Goblin King. He would not have had to learn of such a thing from rumor and gossip as I did. Sholto, King of the Sluagh, sat in the consort’s throne for you last night. You would not have arrested his people without asking him first.” She flew to the ceiling, and stayed there fluttering like an angry butterfly back and forth above us.
I watched her, all white and glittering, all hurt pride and wounded arrogance, and fear. Fear that her court had become so little among us that she truly was queen in name only. She was right.
“I should have sent you a messenger when we arrested Peasblossom. I should have sent you a message when we discovered that one of the murdered was a demi-fey. You are right, I would have notified Kurag, Goblin King. I would have contacted Sholto. I would not have done to them what I have done to you.”
“You are a princess of the sidhe,” Frost said. “You explain yourself to no one.”
I shook my head and patted his arm. “Frost, I spend a great deal of time explaining myself to everyone.”
“Not to demi-fey,” he said, and his face was arrogant, cold, and heartbreakingly handsome.
“Frost, either the demi-fey are a court unto themselves, worthy of respect, or they are not. Queen Niceven is within her rights to be angry about this.”
His hand gripped the hilt of his sword, but he didn’t say anything. To insult them beyond a certain point was to break them as a court, as a people. He wasn’t willing to do that.
“Merry’s right.” Galen stood slowly, being as careful where he put his feet as I had been. He still held the tiny brown winged fey asleep in his hand. “I may not like Queen Niceven and the demi-fey, but she is a queen and they are a court. We should have sent someone to tell her what was happening.” He gazed up at the tiny queen. “I don’t know if you care what I think, but I’m sorry.”
She came slowly down from the ceiling. Her wings had slowed, fanning gently, so that the illusion of some graceful moth was back. “After what we did to you, it is you who offers us an apology.” She looked at him, as if she had never truly seen him before. “You fear us, hate us. Why would you show us courtesy?”
He frowned, and I watched him try to put into words what was simply him. It had been the right thing to do, and for once it had even been the politically smart thing to do, but that hadn’t been why he’d done it.
“We owed you an apology,” he said at last. “Merry explained it. I wasn’t sure that anyone else would agree with her, so I did.”
Niceven floated over to face me. “He apologized to us because it was the right thing to do.”
“Yes,” I said.
She looked back at him, then at me. “Oh, Princess, you must keep this one close, for he is too dangerous to be left alone among the sidhe.”
“Too dangerous,” Galen said, “dangerous to whom?”
“To yourself, for one,” Niceven said, fluttering over to him. She put thin, pale hands on the hips of her white dress. “I see goodness in your face, goodness and gentleness. You are in the wrong court, green knight.”
“My father was a pixie, and my mother an Unseelie sidhe.” He shook his head, vigorously enough that Niceven moved a little back from him. “No, the glittering throng wouldn’t touch me.”
Niceven gazed down at the flowers and her besotted people. “They might now.”
“No,” Hawthorne said, “Taranis doesn’t forgive a sidhe who joins the darkling court. If you take your exile to the humans and wander lost for a few centuries, maybe he’ll forgive you, but,” he lifted his helmet off, “once you’ve been accepted here, there is no going back.”
“Perhaps,” Niceven said, “or perhaps not.”
“Queen Niceven,” I said.
She turned to me, her face carefully passive, her thin hands folded in front of her.
“What do you mean ‘perhaps not’?”
She shrugged. “Oh, someone who can be a fly upon the wall hears things.”
“What sort of things?” I asked.
“Things that I might share with someone who was my ally, and honored their bargains.”
“If you will not take blood directly from me, then I will need a new magical proxy,” I said.
She turned in the air, and looked at Royal and his sister in their rat-drawn cart. “Royal,” she said.
He stood straighter, almost to attention, though without wings he could not be in Niceven’s guard. “Yes, my queen.”
“Would you taste the blood of the princess and share the essence with me?”
“Gladly, my queen.”
Penny clung to him. “Don’t, Royal, don’t do it.”
He drew her away from him, and looked down into her face. “How long have we dreamed of wings?”
She let her arms fall limp to her sides. “Forever,” she said.
“I didn’t give Sage wings,” I said.
“No,” Royal said, “you gave him wings.” He pointed at Nicca.
“But Nicca wasn’t tasting my blood when it happened.”
Royal nodded, and stepped from the cart. He gazed up at me. “It was during sex.”
I looked at him. He was about ten inches tall, a little shorter than a Barbie doll, but not by much. I tried to think of a polite way to say it, and finally settled for, “I think the size difference is a little much.”
He flashed me a grin. “Sage has given a very full report to the court. I am willing to take blood while you have sex with others, in hopes that it will bring my wings.”
I shook my head. “Nicca may have been a special case.”
Royal gripped the hem of his tunic and lifted it off in one smooth movement, letting it drop to the floor. He was naked before me, miniature and perfect. He turned around, displaying a perfect tattoo of wings covering his back down to his upper thighs. The wings were almost black, with lines of charcoal running through them. The edges curled over his shoulders like the draping edge of a shawl. Bright scarlet and black graced his lower back and buttocks in soft curving stripes, like the ruffled edge of a petticoat.
He turned so that I could see that the black and scarlet was edged by a thin stripe of the dark, almost spots, cut with white, and a thin line of gold. That edging strip curved over the side of his hip, so that the sides of his hips were striped with color, too.
Nicca’s wings belonged to some long-lost moth. Something that had flown the skies of Europe more than a thousand years before. But I knew what had painted itself upon Royal’s skin.
“You’re an underwing moth, an Ilia Underwing.”
He looked back over his shoulder at me, smiling. “That’s one of the names humans use.” He seemed pleased that I’d known what his wings belonged to. His small face suddenly became very serious. “Do you know the other name for the Ilia?”
My pulse sped just a bit, which was silly. He was the size of a child’s toy. The heat in his eyes shouldn’t have had that strong an effect, but my mouth was dry and my voice just a little whispery. “The beloved underwing.”
“Yes,” he said. He started toward me, and if it hadn’t been silly, I would have backed up. A man that is shorter than my forearm couldn’t possibly have been intimidating, but he was.
Galen said softly at my shoulder, “He does know he’s not getting sex, right?”
“So it’s not just me who wants to back up a step.”
“No,” Galen said.
“You are very good,” Doyle said.
I looked at Doyle, but all his attention was on the little man. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Glamour,” Doyle said.
“Are all the demi-fey as good at glamour as Sage and this one?” Rhys asked.
“Not all of them, but a great many, yes,” Doyle said.
Rhys shivered. “I am not sharing the bed with this one. Sage taught me my lesson, I don’t need another one.”
“You’re not on the menu for tonight, Rhys.”
“For once, I’m glad,” he said.
“Then who do I get to share you with?” Royal asked. As I looked down at him, the feeling of sex and intimidation became more intense.
“It’s stronger when I look at you.”
Royal nodded. “Because looking is all you’re doing. Now, who am I sharing you with tonight?”
Galen answered, “Me, but, truthfully, I’m not sure I can do it. I may have apologized for us, but I still don’t want them touching me.”
“You touch one of us right now,” Niceven said.
Galen glanced down at the still sleeping fey in his hand. “But that’s different,” he said.
“In what way is it different?” she asked.
“This one’s not scary.” He motioned his hand up toward Niceven.
Royal laughed, and it was like chimes in a happy wind. “And am I scary, green knight?”
I was close enough to see Galen’s pulse beating against the side of his throat. “Yes,” he said, and his voice sounded as dry as mine felt.
Royal’s laughter trailed away to something darker. “Such talk will turn a man’s head, green knight.” The look on his face showed just how pleased he was that Galen was afraid of him.
“Some glamour grows stronger with physical touch,” Adair said. He’d kept his helmet on.
“Are you asking if mine grows stronger, oak lord?” Royal asked.
“Speculating, not asking,” Adair said, as if to ask a question of a demi-fey was beneath him.
Well, Adair could be high-handed if he wished, but he wasn’t stripping down for the demi-fey. “Does your glamour grow stronger with physical touch?” I asked.
He grinned up at me. “It does.”
Galen whispered against my hair, “Can Nicca and you have this one? I’ll take the next one.”
I glanced back at him. “If you wish, yes.”
He sighed, and leaned his forehead against the top of my head. “Damn it, Merry.”
“What?” I asked.
“I can’t pass on the scary parts if you still have to do them. Are you sure you have to do this?”
“Don’t you want to know why Queen Niceven said that the Seelie Court might take you in if you offered them more power?”
“Yes,” he said, “yes, damn it.” He looked up at Niceven. “And she knew we’d want to know.”
“A spy is only as good as his information, green knight.”
“My name is Galen, please use it.”
“Why?”
“Because the only people who ever call me green knight tend to try to hurt me.”
She looked at him a moment, then gave a small bob in the air. “Very well, Galen. You have been truthful with me, so I will be truthful with you, but you will not find it comforting.”
“Truth seldom is,” he said. The tone in his voice made me hug his free arm around me.
“We feed not just on blood and magic.”
“You feed on fear,” Doyle said, and there was something about the flat way he said it that told me there was a story behind those few words.
“Yes, Darkness,” Niceven said, “as do many things here at the Unseelie Court.” She turned back to Galen and me. “I think the green… Galen will be a feast fit for a queen.”
“Then let’s begin the bargaining,” I said.
“We have struck our bargain, Princess.”
I shook my head. “No, the bargain about what Royal can do, and can’t do, in my bed and on my body.”
“Are we really such a fearsome thing that you have to bargain as closely with us as you would with the goblins?”
“You chastised me for treating you as less than the goblins, Queen Niceven. If I do not negotiate with you as I would the goblins, isn’t that just another kind of insult?”
She folded her arms under her small breasts. “You are not like the other sidhe, Meredith, you are always difficult, tricksy.”
“You would try and bat your tiny eyes at me, and have me think Royal and the rest of you are harmless? That you are the children’s storybook characters you ape? Oh no, Queen Niceven, you can’t have it both ways, not with me. You’re either dangerous or you’re not.”
She gave me a perfect child’s pout. “Do I look dangerous to you, Princess?” Her voice was wheedling, and for just a moment I felt like saying, “No, of course not.”
Galen gripped my arm tight, squeezing. It helped me think.
“I’ve seen your true face, Queen Niceven,” he said. “Your glamour won’t work on me now, not even with it pushing at me like some sort of wall.”
“Yes,” Nicca said, “I’ve never felt any of the demi-fey this strongly before.”
“The demi-fey are the essence of faerie,” Doyle said. “As faerie grows in power, so will they, apparently.” He didn’t sound entirely happy about it.
Niceven turned to him. “Why, Darkness, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were afraid of us, too.”
“My memory is as long as yours, Niceven.” The cryptic statement seemed to please her.
“You’re afraid to bring us back into our full power, and here the princess has bargained to help us do just that. Irony is sweet when it is on the right foot.”
“Be careful how much irony you enjoy, Niceven, too much irony can be bad for you.”
“Darkness, is that a threat?” Her voice didn’t sound gentle at all now.
“A warning,” he said.
“Am I important enough for the Queen’s Darkness to threaten? My, we have moved up at court.”
“You’ll know when Doyle threatens you, little queen,” Frost said.
She bobbed in the air, and again because of Sage, I knew it was their version of a stumble. “I am not afraid of Darkness.”
Frost leaned into her, the way you’d intimidate someone by invading their personal space. Some of the effect was ruined by her wings and her size, but not all of it.
“I am not afraid of the Killing Frost either,” she said.
“You will be,” he said.
And that was how the negotiations began. They ended with a crowd of wingless demi-fey inside my room, and none of the sidhe happy about it. Niceven’s idea was that perhaps it had been Sage’s continuing to feed from sidhe blood that had done the damage. I couldn’t argue her logic. If I didn’t like Royal after tonight, I could choose one of the others, but all of them got to be in the room. We compromised, but she wouldn’t tell us what she knew of the Seelie Court until after we had fed Royal. Tomorrow, she promised, if she had fed off him and scoured out our magic from his flesh. Tomorrow, we might learn some of the secrets of the Seelie Court. Tonight, we had to pay for those secrets in blood, and flesh, and magic. And, as usual, someone would be tasting my blood, taking a bit of my flesh. Where was a stunt double when you needed one?