Seduced by Moonlight - Page 10/34

"We have to tell the queen that we have the chalice," Rhys said.

"No." Doyle shook his head hard enough to set the heavy braid of his hair swinging.

"She will be pissed if we keep this from her, and I for one do not want to spend another night in the Hallway of Mortality." The Hallway of Mortality was the torture chamber for the Unseelie Court. Christians once thought the Unseelie were demons from hell. If any part of our court was the punishing hell that came to be after Dante's Divine Comedy, it was the Hallway of Mortality.

"Nor I," Frost said.

"Me, either," Galen said.

"No," Nicca said, "no."

I leaned against the kitchen cabinets and looked at Doyle. He had been the Queen's Darkness for more than a thousand years. Her left-hand man. Her ultimate assassin. He was loyal to her, though lately he'd begun to be loyal to me. But it still wasn't like him to keep something this big from the queen, especially since eventually she would find out. She was the Queen of Air and Darkness; everything said in the dark would eventually float back to her. And words like cauldron, chalice, and such would prick her interest. It was just too big a secret to keep forever.

"Why don't you want to tell the queen?" I asked.

"Because this is not our relic. This cauldron belonged to the Seelie Court. We nearly went to war over its disappearance centuries ago, when Taranis suspected us of stealing it. What would he do if he knew we actually had it?"

"The queen would never tell him," Galen said.

Doyle gave him a look of such withering scorn that Galen took a step back. "Do you truly think that there are no spies among us? We certainly have spies at the Seelie Court; I must assume that Taranis has the same among us." He motioned at the gleaming cup, sitting so innocently on the table. "This is simply too large a thing to keep secret. It will get out once it is known outside this room. We must think what to do when that happens."

"What do you mean?" Frost asked.

"Taranis will demand the cup back. Do we give it to him? And if we don't, are we willing to go to war for it?"

"We cannot give it to Taranis," Nicca said.

We all turned and stared at him. It was so unlike him to be adamant about anything, and totally out of the question for him to say something so decisive and so potentially disastrous.

"Even if it means war?" Doyle said.

Nicca paced closer to the table. "I don't know, but I do know this: Taranis has broken our most sacred taboos. He's been hiding his own infertility for at least a century, because he exiled Maeve for refusing to marry him on the grounds that he was infertile. He has knowingly condemned his own court to a fading of their power, their fertility, and everything they are. When he feared Maeve would reveal his secret to us, or had already, he freed the Nameless. He set loose our most feared powers to stalk the land, yet he didn't have the power to control it. Innocents died because of that, and Taranis seems not to care. We were here to save Maeve and slay the Nameless, but without us here, she would be dead, and the Nameless might have laid waste to Los Angeles. If the humans found out it was sidhe magic that did it, the consequences could have been devastating for us. Who knows how the human government would have reacted. This is the last country that will accept free sidhe, without restricting our culture, our magic, us." Nicca had a small glow to him as he spoke, as if his words had power to them.

"We all agree that what Taranis has done was selfish and not deeds fit for a king," Doyle said, "but he is king. We cannot accuse him of his crimes, and see him punished."

"Why not?" Kitto asked, still huddled in his chair, sipping his hot chocolate.

"He is king," Doyle repeated.

"Among the goblins, if you know the king has broken our laws, you can confront him in open court. It is our way, and our law."

"The sidhe are not so straightforward," Doyle said.

"Yes, it is what has allowed you to best us for centuries, the fact that you are more devious than we are."

I glanced at Rhys, and something on my face must have shown because he said, "I'm not going to argue with him. The sidhe are more devious than the goblins. Goddess knows that the sidhe are more devious than any of the fey."

"So good to hear a sidhe admit the truth," Sage said.

I looked at the little man on the counter. He looked so harmless sitting there with his oversize mug of cocoa. There was even a rim of chocolate foam around his mouth so that the illusion of childish innocence was even stronger than normal. The demi-fey traded on the fact that they looked cute. I'd seen a flock of them tear the flesh from Galen's body while he lay chained and helpless. Prince Cel had ordered them to do it, but they'd enjoyed the feast.

He half fell and half pushed himself off the cabinet to hover in midair. "This is all moot, my sidhe friends, for I must tell Queen Niceven. It is all well for you to think of concealing things from your queen, because Merry may yet be queen in her stead, but Niceven's hold upon her court is secure, and I cannot chance her anger." He fluttered to the edge of the table, landing as if he had no weight, though I knew he actually weighed more than he appeared to. It always seemed like it should be the other way around, but there was substance to Sage that you could feel when he walked on your body.

He moved toward the chalice, and Doyle put a hand out, almost but not quite in front of him. "You see enough from where you are."

Sage put his hands on his slender hips and stared up at the much larger man. "What do you fear, Darkness, that I will steal it away, take it back to my court, my queen?"

"It is a sidhe gift, and it will remain in sidhe hands," Doyle said.

Sage sprang into the air, fluttering around the overhead light like some great moth, though in truth there was more of butterfly than moth to him. "But I still must needs report this to Queen Niceven. You can debate all you wish about telling your queen, but because I must tell mine, you might as well tell yours."

"We will be at the courts tomorrow night," I said. "Can you wait that long to tell your queen?"

"Why should I wait?" he asked, and came to hover in front of my face so that the wind of his wings danced in my hair.

"Because it would be safer for all of us, including your people, if fewer people know of the chalice."

He pointed a finger at me. "Tut, tut, Princess, logic will not win me. I stayed away today though your magic called me like the love song of a siren." He lit upon the table in front of me. "I did not come because I have witnessed all the amazing sidhe sex I ever wish to see, since I am not invited into your bed. I am not really much of a voyeur."

"I agreed to share blood with you once a week, Sage. That was the price of alliance with your people. I've kept my end of the bargain."

He paced in front of me on tiny butter-colored feet that matched the yellow of his wings. "Blood is a fine thing, Princess, but it does not take the place of a good thrusting." He leaned his hands on my hand, as if I were a fence, and gazed up at me with tiny black eyes. "Let me in your bed tonight and I will tell no one until we arrive at the courts."

I moved my hand quick enough to make him stumble, and he took to the air, his wings an angry blur. "Are you really still trying to make a bid to be my king, Sage? I thought we had been clear about this."

He got near enough to my face that I heard the whir of his wings. Real butterfly wings didn't make that noise. He sounded like an angry hummingbird. "Yes, originally my queen wished to make a bid to put me on the Unseelie throne as her puppet, but Flora save me, Princess, I don't care about that anymore."

"What do you care about?" Doyle asked.

Sage turned in midair and rose high enough to look at both of us. "I want sex. I want to lie with a woman again. Is that so hard a thing to believe?"

"No," Doyle said.

"No," I said.

It was Kitto who said, "The demi-fey don't care about sex any more than the goblins do, not if they can have power and blood."

Sage turned and stared at the goblin who had become sidhe. "Your kind still roasts us on spits and thinks us a delicacy. Forgive me if I don't give your opinion much weight." The sarcasm was thick in his voice.

Kitto hissed at him, and he hissed back.

"Enough," Doyle said. "What would you take to keep our secret until we arrive at the courts tomorrow night? Do not ask again for sex with the princess, for that is not going to happen."

Sage crossed his arms and did a very good imitation of a child's pout, complete with the chocolate mustache on his mouth, but I'd seen him with my blood smeared across his tiny mouth too many times to fall for it. He acted cute because it was what was left to the demi-fey, but he wasn't. He was dangerous, treacherous, lecherous, and spiteful, but not cute.

"How about the blood of a god?" Rhys asked.

Sage turned in midair like some fantastic helicopter to face Rhys. "Are you offering Maeve's blood, or Frost's?"

"Mine."

He shook his head. "You are no god."

"My power has returned. Doyle called me Cromm Cruach again this day."

Sage turned to Doyle. "Is this true, Darkness?"

Doyle nodded. "I give you my word that I called him Cromm Cruach this day."

Sage hovered in front of Rhys so that the white curls moved around Rhys's face. He went close and closer until his body almost touched Rhys. He darted in and licked Rhys's forehead, then darted away before Rhys could catch him, or swat him. Though Rhys didn't try for either. Galen would have, but Galen had the same reason to hate the demi-fey that Rhys had to hate the goblins, and it had been much more recent.

"You don't taste like a god, Rhys. You taste good, powerful, but not a god."

"When's the last time you tasted a god?" Rhys asked.

Sage fluttered over toward Frost, though he stayed out of reach. Frost wasn't tolerant of unwanted touch from anyone. Centuries of forced celibacy had made him most un-fey-like in that regard. I could touch him, but few others could.

"Let me taste your skin, Frost. No blood, not yet."

Frost scowled up at the little man, and shook his head. "I am no one's blood whore."

"What does that make me?" I asked, and my voice was as cold as my anger was hot. I'd had about all I could handle of Frost's moods for one day. I was the one who'd almost died; when was it my turn to be in a mood?

Frost looked confused. "I didn't mean..."

I walked toward him. "If I'm willing to donate a little blood for the cause, then what makes you too good to do it?"

He motioned at the hovering demi-fey. "I do not want that laying its mouth on me."

"I do it once a week, Frost. If it's good enough for a princess, it's good enough for you."

His face was the arrogant mask he wore when he was hiding what he was thinking. "Are you ordering me to do it?" His voice was very cold, and I knew that here could be something that would drive a wedge between us, maybe for a day, maybe forever. You never knew with Frost.

I stepped close to him, and when he jerked away, I let my hand fall to my side. "Not exactly, but I am asking you to please do this. Please help us."

"I don't want to..."

I touched his lips with my fingertips and he let me. His breath was warm on my skin. "Please, Frost, please, it is a small thing. It hurts only a little, and Sage is very good at glamour. He can make it hurt not at all."

"I have not agreed that Frost's blood will buy my silence," Sage said. "I have not tasted him. He may be no more godling than Rhys."

"Both of us," Rhys said, "both Frost and me, and all you do is wait to tell your queen until we arrive at the courts in person." Rhys moved so that he was staring up at the small hovering man. "The blood of two sidhe nobles for less than twenty-four hours of silence. It's not a bad deal."

Sage slowed his wings enough that you could see the eyes of red on the inside of them, and the blue iridescence that matched the broader blue stripe on the outside. It was almost as if he floated rather than flew toward where Galen stood.

Galen leaned with his back to the far cabinets, arms crossed. The look on his face was as hostile as it ever got. "Don't - even  -  ask." His voice held a note of enraged finality that caused Sage to sink for a moment toward the floor, like a human might stumble.

He regained his height, then added more so he was close to the ceiling, out of reach. "But you were so tasty."

Galen looked at me. "Why don't we just bespell him for twenty-four hours?"

"Tempting as it is," I said, "Niceven might consider hostile magic on her proxy to be a violation of our treaty."

"It would solve the problem," Rhys said.

"Very well," Sage said. "For a taste of Frost and a taste of the white knight, I will agree to hold my tongue until I see my queen."

"In the flesh at her court," I added.

He whirled up near the ceiling like some lazy bird. He laughed and came to hover near me. "Are you afraid I will cheat?"

"Say the words, Sage," I said.

He gave me a smile that said he would do what I wanted, but he would be a pain in the ass while doing it. It was his way. In fact, it was the way of a lot of the Unseelie demi-fey. A cultural thing, perhaps.

He put his wee hand over his tiny chest and stood straight in midair, toes pointed downward. "For the blood of both men, I will wait to tell my queen about the chalice until face to face and true flesh to true flesh we are." He darted upward, so that I had to crane my neck to keep track of him near the ceiling. "Satisfied?"

"Yes," I said.

"I have not agreed to this," Frost said.

"I'll be there," Rhys said.

I slid my arm through Frost's arm, over the silk and the pull of his muscles. "I'll be there, too."

"Frost," Doyle said.

The two men looked at each, and something passed between them, some knowledge, some comfort. Whatever it was, it softened Doyle's face, made him seem more... human.

Frost nodded. "What if the new magic tries to harm Meredith again?"

"Rhys will be there to see that that does not happen."

Frost opened his mouth as if he would say something more; then he stopped, closed his mouth, and gave one sharp nod. "As my captain commands, so will I do."

The rest of the guards seemed to forget sometimes that Doyle was the captain of the Queen's Ravens, then suddenly they'd remember. They'd use a title long disused. The respect was always there, and the fear, but the titles came and went.

"Good," Doyle said. "Now that that is settled, we have other business to discuss. Once our respective queens know of the chalice's return, it will come to Taranis's attention. What do we do when he demands its return?"

I glanced around the room, tried to read their faces, and couldn't read most. "You aren't seriously thinking about keeping the chalice once Taranis asks for it? It would be a fight, if not an outright war."

"We cannot give it to him," Nicca said. "He no longer deserves it."

"What do you mean, Nicca?" Doyle asked.

"He is not..." Nicca seemed at a loss for words, then finally spread his hands wide and said, "He is not worthy to wield the chalice. If he were worthy, it would have come to him  - but it hasn't. It came to Merry."

Doyle sighed loudly enough that I heard it halfway across the room. "And that is yet another problem. If Taranis fears that his hold as king is slipping because of his infertility, then to have the chalice appear to another sidhe noble, especially one half-Unseelie, will only feed his fear."

"He should be afraid." Rhys came to stand beside me, on the other side from Frost's solid presence. "Bringing Maeve and Frost to godhood, maybe that's just her being the only goddess-shaped vessel, just like Doyle said." He put his arm around my waist, hugging me a little to him, while my arm was still linked with Frost's. It made his hand bump into Frost, and I felt the bigger man tense. Rhys didn't seem to notice, but gazed out at the other men. "But the chalice coming to her, that's not just because she's the right sex for the power. The cauldron was originally given to men, not women. What if it came to her because she's the only sidhe noble fit to be its caretaker?"

"I don't think that's it," I said.

"Why isn't it?" Frost said.

I looked up the length of his own body to meet Frost's gaze. "Because I'm mortal. I'm not even full sidhe by some standards,"

"By whose standards?" Frost said. "All those would-be gods who stand around and talk about the glories of the past?"

"The Seelie Court does sound like someone's high school reunion," Rhys said. "They talk about the old days when they were younger, stronger, better. The nostalgia is deep."

I frowned up at him, then glanced back at Frost. "Fine, yes, by the standards of the people who lost the chalice in the first place, I don't count. But regardless, Frost, Taranis will never accept that we have the chalice, not without a war."

"She's right," Rhys said, "because all the Seelie will think that with the chalice back, they could regain their powers."

"And with that logic," Doyle said, "if the Unseelie have it, then we could regain ours."

"I don't think that's true," Frost said. "I have not regained my powers. I have acquired powers that belonged to sidhe I once called master. And the chalice did not give me these powers, Merry did."

Rhys hugged me close. "Our queen will be pleased, but Taranis won't."

"He would be, if he thought she could do for him what she's done for Frost," Doyle said.

Rhys's face showed a moment of absolute panic, before he covered it with a grin and a joke. "I don't know which is more dangerous, that he thinks he can use Merry to regain his lost vitality, or that her new powers would make her a strong queen."

"A rival, you mean," Doyle said.

Rhys shook his head. "No, not a rival. Even if Merry could bring all of us into our full power, it wouldn't help her in a fight. There is still right of combat among sidhe nobles, and the king is just another noble to some of our laws." He gazed down at me. "I know you have two really nifty hands of power, but I've seen Taranis in a duel." He kissed my forehead, and spoke with his lips against my skin. "You would lose."

"The last time Taranis fought a duel was before the third and final weirding," Doyle said. "Who's to say what powers he still possesses, and what was lost?"

Rhys looked at him. "She would die."

"I have no intentions of our princess fighting the King of Light and Illusions in personal combat, Rhys, but do not give him more power than he has. We all lost things with the weirdings. Some of us are just better at hiding it."

"Maybe," Rhys said, arms still holding me close as if he was afraid Doyle would whisk me away for a duel right that moment, "maybe I do overestimate Taranis and his court, but maybe you give them too little credit."

"Do not mistake me: They are very dangerous, and very powerful. Their court holds more magic than ours. They still have the great tree in their main hall, and it still holds leaves, though colored with autumn now. Their power is still there." Doyle shook his head and sat down at the table, resting his chin on his arms so his face was even with the goblet. "We are not ready to accuse Taranis of his crimes. Maeve cannot testify to them because she is exiled, and an exile may not give testimony against another member of faerie. Bucca-Dhu's testimony about helping Taranis release the Nameless could so easily be used against Bucca himself."

"What do you mean?" Nicca asked.

"You've seen what Bucca has become. He was once one of our great lords - a leader of the Cornish sidhe when there were enough of us to have many courts. Now he is like some misshapen dwarf. The Seelie will not want to believe he is who he says he is, and even if they do believe that, they could try him with his own words. If he says that Taranis is guilty then he himself is guilty as well. Taranis could simply deny, and force them to execute Bucca for the crime. Someone is punished for the crime, the mystery is solved, and the only witness to Taranis's part in it is dead. It would be very neat."

"Sounds like him," Rhys said.

"But Bucca has the queen's own protection," Nicca said. "He is being guarded at this moment by the Unseelie."

"Yes," Doyle said, "and the queen told none of Bucca's guards why he was being guarded, yet the rumors have already begun."

"What rumors?" I asked.

"Whispers about the Nameless and who would gain from its attack on Maeve Reed. The rumors are only in the faerie courts, but the attack was on all the major news sources, and some of the sidhe of both courts keep up with the human news." He stared at the cup while he spoke, as if mesmerized by it. "Most know that Taranis personally had her exiled. The rumors are already beginning. If he'd had other magicks that could have slain Maeve from a distance, I think he would have used them. The Nameless may not be able to be traced back to him directly, but it is a major power, and everyone now knows that whoever released it, it was used to hunt Maeve."

"His very fear will be his undoing," Frost said.

"Perhaps," Doyle said, "but a cornered wolf is more dangerous than one in the open. We do not want to be around Taranis when he feels himself out of options."

"Which brings me back to why he wants me to visit the Seelie Court," I said. I pushed away from the comforting weight of both men. There were too many questions, too much happening, for a mere hug to make it all right. It was very human and very un-fey-like of me, but I just didn't want to be held right that moment.

"He says, he wishes to renew your acquaintance now that you are about to be heir to the Unseelie throne," Doyle said.

"You don't believe that any more than I do."

"It has the kernel of truth, or it would be an outright lie, and we do not lie to each other."

"Maybe, but a sidhe will omit so much of a truth that it might as well be a lie," I said.

Sage laughed, and it was like the ring of golden bells. "Oh, the princess does know her people."

"We bought your silence," Doyle said. "Let it be true silence for this discussion, unless you have something of true worth to add." He stared up at the little man, who was circling lazily near the ceiling. "Remember this, Sage: If the Unseelie Court falls, you will be at the mercy of the Seelies, and they will never trust you."

Sage came to stand on the edge of the table, his handsome wings folded back from his shoulders. He gazed up at Doyle  -  though with Doyle's chin resting on his arm on the table, they were nearly the same height. "If the Unseelie fall, Darkness, it will not be the demi-fey who suffer the most at the hands of the Seelie. They distrust us, but they do not see us as a threat. They will destroy all of you. We will be swatted like flies on a summer day, but they will not see us as worth destroying utterly. We will survive as a people. Can the Unseelie say the same?"

"That is as may be," Doyle said, "but wouldn't it benefit your people to do more than survive? Survival is better than the alternative, Sage, but merely surviving can get tiresome."

"More half-truths and omissions to trick me, is that it?"

"Believe what you like, little man, but I tell you truth when I say that the fate of the demi-fey of one court is tied to the fate of the sidhe of that court."

They stared at each other, and it was Sage who took to the air and broke the staring contest. I'd never doubted who would break first. "The princess is right, Darkness, none of the sidhe can be trusted."

Doyle raised himself up from the table enough to shrug. "That this is true of many of us, I cannot argue with." He looked across the room at me. "I would give much to know Taranis's true purpose in inviting you to the Seelie Court. No one seems to know why he's doing it. His own court is amazed that he wants you back. That he would throw a feast for a mortal."

"He is my uncle," I said.

"Has he ever acted like an uncle to you before?" Doyle asked.

I shook my head. "He almost beat me to death as a child for asking about Maeve Reed's exile. He doesn't give a damn for me."

"Why not just refuse the invitation?" Galen said.

"We've been over this, Galen. If we refuse the invitation, then Taranis will see it as an insult, and wars, curses, all sorts of unpleasantness among the sidhe have begun over things like that."

"We know it's a trap of some kind, yet we're still walking into it. That makes no sense to me."

I looked at Doyle for help. He tried. "If we go at Taranis's invitation, then he is guest-bound to treat us well. He cannot challenge any of us to a personal duel, or cause us harm, or allow harm to come to us while we are his guests. Once we step outside his mound, his court, then he can challenge us on the spot, but not inside his own court. It is too old a law among us for even his own nobles to stomach a breach in it."

"Then why are we so worried about taking enough guards inside the court to keep Merry safe?"

"Because I could be wrong," Doyle said.

Galen literally threw his hands up. "This is crazy."

"Taranis could be crazy enough to try to do harm on the spot. His court could be more corrupt than I know. Prepare for what your enemy can do, not what they will do."

"Don't quote at me, Doyle." Galen was pacing up and down one side of the kitchen as if he needed to use up some of the nervous energy floating around the room. "We are endangering Merry by going to the Seelie Court, I know it."

"You do not know it," Doyle said.

"No, I don't know it. But I feel it. It's a bad idea."

"Everyone agrees it's a bad idea, Galen," I said.

"Then why do it?"

"To find out what Taranis wants," Doyle said, "in the least dangerous way."

"If going to the Seelie Court and standing next to the King of Light and Illusion is the least dangerous way, I'd like to know what the most dangerous way would be."

Doyle finally stood and walked toward Galen, who was still pacing the kitchen. He stopped the pacing by simply standing in front of Galen, forcing him to stand still. They stood and looked at each other, and for the first time I felt something between them. Some test of wills that had happened with Doyle and Frost, Doyle and Rhys, but never Galen.

"The most dangerous way would be if we refused Taranis's invitation and gave him an excuse to call Meredith out for a duel."

"It's been centuries since anyone's dueled over matters of court etiquette," Rhys said.

"Yes," Doyle said, but his gaze never left Galen. For the first time I was aware that Galen and Doyle were the same height, and Galen's shoulders were actually a touch broader. "But it is still an acceptable reason to give challenge. If Taranis wants Merry dead, it would be perfect. She could not refuse him outright, because to do so would force her into exile. A sidhe noble who refuses challenge, for whatever reason, is branded a coward, and cowards cannot rule at either court."

Galen's shoulders rounded a little, as if he slumped. "He wouldn't dare."

"He released the Nameless to slay one sidhe woman, for fear she would whisper his secret. I think Taranis would dare anything."

"I didn't think..." Galen started.

"No," Doyle said, "you did not."

Galen stepped back from him. "Fine, I'm stupid, I don't understand court politics, and I don't understand being that devious. I'm useless at strategy, but I'm still scared for Merry to go into the Seelie Court."

Doyle gripped his arm. "We are all worried about that."

They had a moment when their eyes met, and then it was okay between them again. Had Galen been challenging Doyle in small ways for a while, and I just hadn't noticed, or had this been the first? As challenges went, it was mild, but even a mild challenge from Galen was something I'd never seen. He just wasn't a leader. He didn't want to be. But for fear of my safety he'd stood up to Doyle.

I went to Galen and hugged him from behind. He rubbed his hands over my arms, sliding the silk of my robe up so he could touch my skin. He was wearing only the dress slacks he'd started the day in, so that I had the warm skin of his stomach against my hands. "I can't tell you it will be all right, Galen, but we're going to do our best to have enough muscle and political allies on our side to make even Taranis hesitate."

"I don't like that part of the plan, either," Galen said. "You cannot agree to sleep with all the half-goblins."

I started to pull away from him, and he caught my hands, held me pressed against his stomach. "Please, Merry, please, don't be mad."

"I'm not mad, Galen, but I am not going to argue about this with anyone else. I mean it. We have our plan, it's the best we can do, and that is that." I pulled my hands out of his grip, and he didn't fight me. I turned to Doyle. "The chalice complicates things, but it doesn't really change anything."

He gave a small nod. "As you say."

"What if Merry keeps the chalice on the grounds that the Goddess gave it to her?" Nicca said. He'd gone to kneel by the table so he could look at the goblet more closely.

"I don't think divine intervention is a good enough reason," Rhys said.

"But it is our tradition," Nicca said. "They may have messed the story up and confused it with other stories, but Whosoever pulls this sword out of the stone is rightful king is still true. The Ard-Ris of Ireland had a stone that would cry out at the touch of the rightful king."

"There are those who believe that when the Ard-Ri was no longer chosen by the stone, that is when the Irish lost to the English," Doyle said. "They forsook their heritage, their great magic, and the line of true kings was broken."

I looked at him. "I didn't know you had Fenian leanings."

"You do not have to be a Fenian to understand that the English have tried to destroy the Irish through any means - political, cultural, even agricultural. The Scots were treated badly, but the Irish have always been the special whipping boys of the English."

"The Irish fight among themselves, that's why they keep coming up short," Rhys said.

Doyle gave him an unfriendly look.

"It's the truth, Doyle, they're still killing each other over who crosses themselves when they bend a knee to the Christian God. You don't see the Scots, or the Welsh, slaughtering each other over a matter not of which god they pray to, but of how they pray to the very same God. I mean, that's a crazy reason to kill each other."

Doyle let out a breath, then said, "The Irish have always been a hard people."

"Hard, and melancholy," Rhys said. "They make the Welsh look cheerful."

Doyle actually smiled. "Aye."

"Can Merry actually claim the right to keep the chalice on the grounds that it chose her?" Galen asked. "I'm not old enough to remember anybody getting to be king because some stone cried out, so will this actually work?"

"It should work," Doyle said, "but I can't say that the Seelie Court will bow to tradition. It has been so long since the great relics have been among us that many have forgotten how we acquired them in the first place."

"Forgotten because they wish to forget," Nicca said.

"Perhaps, but just saying Meredith owns the vessel because it came to her from the hand of the Goddess Herself will take some convincing."

"How do I prove that the Goddess gave me the goblet?" I asked.

Doyle waved a hand at the table. "The fact that we have the goblet is the proof."

"We prove that the Goddess gave me the chalice by simply having the chalice in my possession?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Isn't that a circular argument?"

"Yes," he said.

"I don't think they're going to buy that."

"I am open to suggestions," Doyle said. Doyle was the master strategist, so whenever he asked for suggestions on a plan, it made me nervous. When he didn't know what we were doing for certain, it didn't usually bode well.

"Whatever we decide, Merry must keep the chalice," Nicca said, "and that means that our queen can't have it, either."

"Oh, shit," Rhys said. "I hadn't thought of that."

I looked at Doyle. "You talked about spies, but that's really why you don't want her to know, isn't it?"

He sighed. "Let us just say that I do not know what she will do when she finds out. The reappearance of the chalice was most unexpected, and the method by which you gained it is also unexpected." He shrugged. "I do not know what she will do, and I do not like not knowing. It is dangerous not to know."

"I'm only her heir if I get pregnant before Cel gets someone else pregnant. She's still my queen, and if she demands the cup of me, I'm duty-bound to give it to her, aren't I?"

Doyle seemed to think for a moment, then nodded. "I believe so, yes."

"Merry must keep the chalice," Nicca said.

"You keep saying that," Rhys said. "Why are you so sure of it?"

"It vanished once because we weren't worthy to keep it. What if Merry hands it over to someone else who isn't worthy, and it goes away again?"

"I think our queen would allow Merry to keep the chalice on that logic alone," Doyle said. "She would not risk the loss of it again."

"If Taranis forces us to give him the chalice and it vanishes again," Galen said, "then it would be the ultimate proof that he isn't worthy to lead."

"And we might prevent him from taking the goblet by that logic," Doyle said, "but only in a private audience. We cannot by hint or faintest action allow anyone to guess that we do not think he is worthy to be king."

"Not my court, not my problem," I said.

"We will try very hard to keep it from being our problem," Doyle said. "Now, I think a little sleep is in order for all of us. We are leaving for the courts in less than a day, and there is much to do."

"What do we do with the chalice? We can't just leave it here on the table," I said.

"Wrap it in the silk and take it to the spare bedroom. Put it in a drawer beside you."

"We're not going to lock it up in the safe? The guest house does have one."

"I think that anyone who might want to steal it would have little trouble tearing the safe out of the wall."

"Oh," I said. "Maybe I've been too long out among the humans. I keep forgetting how very strong some of us can be."

"I think, Princess, you had best not be forgetting things like that. Once we return to the high courts of faerie, you will need to remember just how dangerous everything and everyone can be."

"Is the discussion finished?" Sage asked from midair.

Doyle looked around the room, meeting everyone's solemn face. "Yes, I believe it is."

"Good," Sage said. "I'm due some blood, and I want it now."

I heard Frost take a breath to argue, and I knew the sound so well that I said, "No, Frost, he's right. We bargained, and sidhe who don't keep their bargains are worthless."

"I will not go back on our bargain, but I do not like it."

I sighed. I'd been feeding Sage once a week for a month, but Frost had to open his own lily-white vein once, just once, and it was a major problem. I loved Frost when I was in his arms. I even loved Frost when I was looking at his beauty, but I was beginning to not love Frost when he pouted; to not love him when he made simple things so much harder than they had to be. It made me question whether I had ever been in love with Frost, or had it just been lust? Or maybe I was just tired. Tired of it always being my blood and my body on the line. It was Frost's turn to take one for the team, and I really didn't want to hear any whining about it, no matter how delightful he looked while he did it.