The rumor mill of the court had me dead. Some of the sidhe had access to television, and they'd spent a good part of the afternoon watching the tapes from the press conference. The shooting, the downed policeman, and finally Galen carrying me out with blood running down my face. The human media reported only that I'd vanished into the back of a limo, and there were no reports of me at any hospital. We hadn't had time to tell anyone anything, and our very own little press agent, Madeline Phelps, didn't know anything to tell. We had been met at the door to the sithen by guards and taken straight to the queen. No one else had seen us. No one else knew we had actually arrived, safe or otherwise.
The queen and her men were cleaning the blood off and getting dressed for the banquet. She and her entourage would go into the great hall as if nothing were wrong. She would take her throne. Eamon would take the consort's throne. They would leave the prince's throne and that side of the dais empty, as it had been since I left and Cel was imprisoned.
Doyle would enter with the queen, but not at her side. He would be one of the guards at the doors, so that he could scent all the nobles as they came in. He would search for the magic that the wine held. If he had appeared in his old place at the queen's back, there would have been questions, but no one would question him wishing to return to her service and no longer be exiled from faerie. No one would question that she would punish him by keeping him farther from her royal person.
The queen and her men would answer no questions. In fact, the plan was for her to be totally silent. To ignore all questions, until someone was finally bold enough to go to the throne and ask permission to speak. That would be my cue to come through the door with my entourage. I would still be covered nearly head to foot in blood, blood not my own, making the point, better than anything we could have planned that I was a fit heir to Andais. Some of the men were leaving the blood on them, and some were cleaning themselves free of it. It depended on who wanted to be part of the floor show.
We waited in the outer room before the big doors that led to the great hall. The silence was filled with a thick slithering of some giant snake, but what moved on the ceiling and against the walls wasn't reptilian. Roses filled the room. They'd been dying for centuries, until they were only dried vines and naked thorns, but they had awakened to my blood, my magic. Now months later the walls were lost in the deep green of leaves and fresh canes. Huge scarlet roses bloomed everywhere, their scent so heavy on the air that it was like swallowing perfume, almost overwhelming in its sweetness. The roses moved in the dimness of the chamber. It was the sound of vines and stems and leaves sliding over each other that filled the waiting room. A blossom would get pulled too far into the writhing mass, and a shower of scarlet petals would rain down upon us. I knew that some of the thorns near the ceiling were the size of daggers. The roses were not ordinary in any way. They were meant as a last-ditch defense if any enemy managed to get this far. The fact that most of our enemies were welcome here made the roses more a symbol than an actual threat.
Our plan to find Nuline and ask her where the wine had come from had failed. Sholto's sluagh had found Nuline, but she'd been beyond questions. Her head was still missing. Her death meant either that the would-be assassin was taking no chances, or that he, or she, or they, already knew they'd failed to kill the queen. It changed nothing about our plans, but it did make a person wonder.
Sage stood just behind Rhys and Frost at my back. We'd had to introduce his new form, along with its tricolored eyes, to his Queen Niceven. She was furious that he couldn't change back, but intrigued with his being newly sidhe. Intrigued enough to help us. The demi-fey were the ultimate spies - so tiny, so inoffensive. The sidhe ignored them as if they were truly the insects that they mimicked. They were not considered a power in the courts, and thus they could be anywhere, everywhere. Queen Niceven had scattered her people among the court. They would listen and report back. They would spy for me and for Queen Andais.
King Kurag, with his many-armed queen on his arm, was behind us in the waiting room. He and his entourage of goblins would enter as part of my entourage. He would take his throne at the end of the hall, closest to the doors, farthest from the throne, but we would enter together, and some of his warriors would stay with me as we walked the length of the hall.
In person Ash and Holly looked both more sidhe and less. Handsome and arrogant as any the court could boast with that flawless golden sunlit skin, but the eyes, vibrant green and burning red, respectively, were pure goblin, huge and oblong, taking up more of the face than sidhe or human eyes. It gave the goblins superior night vision, but marked them as other. Physically, they were bulkier, seeming to have more muscles under that lovely skin than they should have. I was betting they were stronger than a pure sidhe.
Ash had been more than happy to take part in our show of unity. Holly had not wanted to help. It was beneath him to sit at a woman's feet, especially a sidhe woman. I had had to let Holly have a little preview, and once he licked the blood along my skin, he hadn't argued again. They were goblin enough to value the sidhe blood that covered me. For tonight that was good; for later, when they came to my bed, it was a little unnerving. But one problem at a time; tonight had enough without borrowing.
Sage said, "Queen Niceven says that one of the royals has knelt on the floor before the queen." He took in a breath, then said in an excited voice, "Now!"
Barinthus and Galen pushed the doors open, and the stronger light of the great hall spilled around us. We were moving as the doors opened. I walked a little in front of Rhys and Frost; then came Nicca and Sage, and beyond that everyone just picked a partner and followed me two by two, with Galen and Barinthus coming at our backs just ahead of the goblins.
Doyle stayed by the door, as planned, and we gave no acknowledgment of him, as if he'd angered us. The plan, as it were, was rolling along.
Gasps, furious whispers, and even one muffled scream met me at the door. I think for a moment the herald at the door didn't recognize me. The only part of me that wasn't pasted with blood were my eyes, and even the lashes of one eye were stiff with it. I'd spent my life being treated as lesser, as someone not of importance, and certainly not dangerous. I admit that a large part of me enjoyed that first moment when they watched me cross into the hall. I enjoyed their fear, their surprise, their worry. What had happened? What had changed? What did this mean? They were some of the best court politicians in the world, but now all their plans were thrown into the air simply because I walked into the throne room covered in blood.
Queen Andais sat on her throne, her white skin clean and pure where she'd scrubbed the blood away. Her dress was black and bared her shoulders and arms. Diamonds gleamed in her hair, hiding the metal of the tiara behind the dazzle of their light. A line of diamonds graced her neck and spilled across her chest as if the necklace were a rope, or a serpent, caught in midmotion. The diamonds were the only color to her simple black dress and the long gloves that covered her arms and hands. Though perhaps color wasn't the right word for the effect. It was more as if the jewels bent the light around her head and neck like a halo sliding down her body.
Mistral stood behind and to one side of her throne in his armor, with his spear resting against the dais. Mistral as her new captain did not surprise me, but her new second in command did. Silence was hidden behind his armor, only his long braid of pale brown hair showed from underneath his helmet. He was called Silence because he never spoke except to whisper in the queen's ear, or Doyle's. How can you command if you will not speak?
Tyler curled at her feet on the end of a bejeweled chain, his only clothing the shining of the collar. Eamon sat in the smaller throne just below hers, the consort's throne. He was dressed all in black except for a silver circlet at his pale brow.
We passed the empty table and throne where the sluagh sat, because the sluagh were behind the queen. Nightflyers like a cross among giant bats, tentacled horrors, and airborne manta rays clung to the stones at her back, going up and up like a living curtain of dark flesh. Things with more tentacles than flesh stood behind the throne. The hags, Black Agnes and Segna the Gold, were cloaked and waiting behind the queen, taller than the guards at her back. The hags normally stood at their own king's back, but Sholto had a new place to sit.
An empty throne that had once been reserved for the heir, but had become known as the prince's throne, awaited me. Sholto's throne had been placed on the dais, just below mine. For tonight, it was to be a consort's throne as well. My consorts, though, not the queen's. For me, it would be whomever I was going to sleep with that night.
Sholto, King of the Sluagh, Lord of That Which Passes Between, Lord of Shadows, sat on the dais for the first time, tall and pale, with moonlit skin to make any Unseelie sidhe proud. His hair was white as snow, long and silken, and, as was his wont, tied back in a loose ponytail. His eyes were tricolored; a circle of metallic gold like mine, then a circle of amber, and last a line the color of leaves in the autumn. He was as fair efface and body as any sidhe who graced the court, sitting there in black-and-gold tunic, black pants tucked into knee-high boots of softest black leather, with more gold edging the turned-down tops. His cloak was fastened with a gold brooch carved with the device of his house.
He looked every inch the sidhe prince, but I knew, better than most, that looks could be deceiving. Sholto was wasting magic to hide what lay under his clothes. Almost all his stomach, down to his lower abdomen, was a mass of tentacles. Without his glamour, it would have bulged under even the generous cloth of a tunic. Modern clothing was nearly unwearable without his magic to make everything lie smoothly. His mother had been Seelie sidhe. His father had been a nightflyer.
As King of the Sluagh he could have any female of his court in his bed. As a member of the queen's guard, no one at Andais's court could sleep with him but the queen herself. I don't think it would ever have occurred to her to take him to her bed. She called him my perverse creature, or sometimes simply my creature. Sholto hated the nickname, but you didn't complain to Queen Andais about nicknames, not even if you were the king of another court. If Sholto had been content with the females of his court, then I would have had nothing to bargain with, but he was not content. He wanted sidhe skin against his body. So our bargain was struck, and if not tonight, then tomorrow I would find out if I could stomach all the extra pieces he had growing from his body. I hoped I could, because like it or not, I would have to bed him for tonight's help.
Afagdu stood to one side of the dais. He'd been on his knees before the throne when the doors opened. He, too, was dressed in black, as most of the court was. Courtiers often dressed in their sovereign's favorite color, and black had been Andais's signature color for centuries. Afagdu's hair was so black it seemed to melt into his cloak, and the beard on his face made it seem as if his tricolored eyes floated in his face, lost in all that blackness. His voice carried through the hall, cutting across the whispers and gasps. "Princess Meredith, is that your blood, or someone else's?"
I ignored him and went to stand before the dais, directly below the queen. I bowed, but only from the neck. "Queen Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness, I come before you covered in the blood of my enemies, and my friends."
"Meredith, Princess of Flesh and Blood, join us."
There were more gasps at the new title. Doyle had wanted to keep my new power secret so we could surprise my enemies, but Andais had overruled. She wanted the court to fear me, as they feared her. She could not be persuaded from it, and she was queen.
Sholto stood and came down the two steps left him. He smiled and offered me his hand. I took it, and found his palm sweaty. Why would the King of the Sluagh be nervous?
I gave him a smile, and wondered if the effect was friendly, or frightening, from my mask of blood.
He led me to my throne, and once I was seated went back to his own. The others crowded around. Kitto took his place at my feet, and all we needed was a jeweled collar to mimic Tyler at the queen's. Rhys and Frost took their places on either side of my throne. The men whom I had taken to my bed spread out behind me and to either side. Barinthus had included himself in this list, and I could not protest. The queen had been both puzzled and intrigued, but left it for later. The others, hers and mine, filled out around the room. Andais wanted it clear that the guards were there not to protect us, but to be a threat to the rest of the Unseelie.
The nobles did not like the guards scattering throughout the room. They did not like it at all. Afagdu went back to his own throne to the left side, smiling, outwardly at ease. He was not one of Cel's toadies; nor was he a fan of the queen. He kept his own counsel, and made sure the nobles attached to his house did as well.
Two Red Caps strode forward. If the goblins were the foot troops of the Unseelie, than the Red Caps were the shock troops - stronger, bigger, more uniformly vicious than the goblins themselves. The Red Caps were eight and near ten feet tall, respectively. Small giants, even among the fey. You would expect creatures so tall, so wide, so muscular to move like a lumbering bull, but they didn't. They moved like huge hunting cats, eerily graceful. One was the yellow of old paper, and the other the dirty grey of dust. Their eyes were huge oblongs of red, as if they looked out at the world through fresh blood.
On their heads were the round scarlet caps that gave their people their name, but the cap of the tallest one was not merely scarlet cloth. Thin lines of blood ran from his cap down his face, to trail down shoulders as broad as I was tall. Blood ran from his cap in near-continuous rivulets, never quite reaching the floor, almost as if his body absorbed it, though there were dark lines in his clothes. Perhaps the cloth soaked it up?
I was betting that this one's hat had begun life as pure white wool. Once all Red Caps had had to dip their hats in blood to get that crimson color. The blood dried up, and you would have to have another battle to dip your hat in the blood of your enemies. The custom had made the Red Caps some of the most feared warriors among us; for sheer bloodthirstiness, it was hard to beat them.
Either the big grey one had dipped his hat freshly for the banquet, or he had that rarest of natural abilities: He could keep the blood fresh and flowing. Once, when the Red Caps had been a nation of their own and not part of the goblin empire, it was a prerequisite to be war leader among them.
The smaller one did not argue when the larger pushed his way in front and knelt first. Kneeling, he was as tall as I was sitting in the big chair, on steps above him. A very big boy indeed.
His voice was like rocks sliding against each other, a sound so deep that it made me want to clear my throat. "I am Jonty, and Kurag, Goblin King, has ordered me to protect your white flesh. The goblins honor the alliance between Princess Meredith and Kurag, Goblin King." Having said that, he leaned that great face toward me. His face was nearly as wide as my chest. I'd spent too much of my life around such giants to be afraid, but when he grinned and flashed teeth like jagged fangs, it did take a certain amount of trust to let him lower that mouth over the hand I held out for him.
"I, Princess Meredith, Wielder of Flesh and Blood, greet you, Jonty, and return the honor of the goblins by sharing the blood that I have spilt with them."
He did not touch me with his hands, as that was not necessary for this show of solidarity. He merely put his nearly lipless mouth against my skin, and touched the tip of his tongue against my hand. His tongue was sandpaper-rough, like some great cat. As that rough surface scraped the dried blood from my hand, the palm of my left hand pulsed. I'd had the hand of blood hurt, ache, fill me with so much pain that I screamed for release, but I'd never felt it just give a small pulse.
The goblin kept his mouth pressed to the palm of my hand, but he rolled his eyes up to look at me. It was a strangely intimate look, like the way a man looks up when his tongue caresses much more intimate things than the palm of a woman's hand. My palm felt warm, and wet. That warmth ran up my arm, spilled over my body in a wave of heat that left me gasping, and wet. Wet with blood, as if I'd just that moment rolled in it. The blood ran from my hair into my face. I raised a hand to keep the drips out of my eyes, but the other Red Cap was suddenly there. He ran his rough tongue over my forehead, making a sound low in his chest. I half expected Jonty to push him away, but he stayed kneeling over my hand, staring up at me with that intimate look in his eyes.
A voice came from behind them, "Kongar, away from her, now!"
The Red Cap grabbed my half-raised hand and licked it while he held it in his big hands. It was an insult to touch me. It implied sexual favors among the goblins. Hands closed on him and jerked him backward. Ash and Holly sent the much larger man spinning across the floor, sliding backward just in front of the doors.
"He lacks control, Kurag," Holly said, "I don't trust him around sidhe flesh."
Kurag's rumbling voice filled the hall: "Agreed." He motioned, and two other Red Caps went to fetch the fallen one from the floor. Kongar got to his feet before they reached him. Blood ran down his face. For a moment I thought Ash and Holly had injured him; then I realized his hat was bleeding. His hat, covered in dried blood, was bleeding like the blood on my body.
He raised a hand to touch the blood, put it to his tongue, and looked at me the way I'd look at a good steak. One of the other Red Caps tried to touch the blood, but Kongar pushed his hands away. He allowed the other two to lead him back to stand with the other goblin guards, but he wouldn't let them touch the fresh blood.
Ash said, "You've had your fill, Jonty."
Jonty gave me those strangely intimate eyes again, then rose smiling with blood smeared around his mouth. He licked his lips as he went to stand behind me, to join my guards. I heard him mumble to Ash as he passed, "Queen's blood."
Ash had dressed in a green that matched his eyes and looked good with his blond hair and golden skin. He dropped to his knees at my right hand, and if his blond hair had been longer, he could have passed for sidhe. Holly dropped to his knees at my other hand. The red that he wore did bring out his eyes, but as he lowered his face to my hand, rolling his eyes upward in anger, I was reminded forcibly of the Red Cap's scarlet eyes. I wondered if that was what his father had been.
The feel of Ash's mouth on my skin turned me to look at him. He licked the blood from my hand in a long, sure stroke. Holly echoed him on my other arm. Their tongues were soft and strangely gentle as they licked the blood from my skin. They each took one of my hands in theirs, at the same time, as if it were choreography that they had practiced together. I tried to move my hands, and both of them squeezed down at the same time, pinning my hands to the arms of the throne. The sensation made me close my eyes, catch my breath. When I opened my eyes, the fresh blood had leaked down, and I tried to raise my hands to wipe my eyes, but they wouldn't let me. They pressed down harder, and moved like two shadows, so that both of their mouths reached my face at the same time. They licked just above my eyes, drinking the blood from my forehead as if I were a plate covered in something too good to lose.
They licked over my eyes, pressing just a little too hard, and it wasn't exciting in that moment. I was very glad I'd negotiated for no injuries. They could lick the blood off the surface, but no biting. They couldn't make more blood once this was gone, not unless we renegotiated. With both of them licking, nearly feeding at my face, I didn't think I'd be in a hurry to renegotiate. There was something unnerving about the two of them - exciting, but unnerving.
They leaned back enough so that I could blink and open my eyes. They loomed above me with the look on their faces... Sex was in that look, but there was a hunger that had less to do with sex and more to do with meat. They may have looked more sidhe than Kitto, but the look in their eyes made it clear that looks could be deceiving.
I'd been waiting for the queen to speak, or for some of the nobles to speak to her, while the goblins and I shared blood. I turned my head just enough to see the queen. She watched us with hungry, eager eyes, and I knew it was not just me, but the goblins. They moved like body and shadow, so synchronized that it would be nearly impossible not to wonder. Queen Andais was not accustomed to wondering about a man without some chance of having that curiosity satisfied. But if the queen tasted goblin it would be in secret, the way most of the sidhe treated them, and the sluagh, and others. Good for a dark night, but not good enough for daylight. That attitude was one of the reasons that Holly and Ash had been intrigued by my very public offer.
I understood why no one had interrupted the show. If the queen was enjoying herself, you interfered at your peril. If you spoiled her fun, she was apt to make you do something equally entertaining.
Movement made me look upward, and I found a cloud of demi-fey like huge butterflies dancing above my head. I knew what they wanted. Most things in the Unseelie Court liked a bit of blood. But the demi-fey, unlike the goblins, have fewer rules. I gazed up into those hungry little faces and realized that I could give what I'd promised their Queen Niceven now, instead of later. Fresh blood, sidhe blood, royal blood. I was covered in it.
"My goblin lords," I said, "I have coin for other allies."
They stared down at me, as if they would not give up their prize. I felt Rhys and Frost move behind me. "No," I said, "no interference from my guards, not when I do not need it." I looked up into the goblins' faces, and they gave a small bow, just from the neck, and both moved to take the places we'd bargained for, at my feet. This had been the thing that Holly fought against the most, but with his mouth smeared with blood, his hands covered with it, he didn't seem to mind. They both settled at my feet and began to lick the blood off their faces and hands, like cats cleaning cream from their whiskers.
I raised my arms into the air as if I expected birds to alight. "Come, little fey, you may take the blood that is on my skin, but no bite of my flesh are you allowed."
One of them hissed, and the tiny doll-like face was transformed into something frightening, but only for a moment. Then the black doll eyes were as blank and innocuous as the tiny body and lovely wings tried to be. I knew that left unchecked they'd have gladly eaten the flesh from my bones. But they weren't unchecked, and there was too much at stake for me to be squeamish.
They looked so dainty, but they were heavier, meatier than the insects they mimicked. It was more like being covered in small monkeys with graceful wings, grabbing hands, and feet that slid in the blood on my skin. Tiny tongues lapped at the blood, tickled along my skin. One grazed me with needle-like teeth, and I fought not to jerk away. I spoke softly, clearly: "Only the blood that lies on my skin is allowed, little ones."
One female swung forward in my bloody hair, as if my hair were a vine, so she could see my face and I could see her little white dress spattered with blood, her perfectly carved face smeared with it. She spoke in a sound like the tinkling of bells. "We remember what our queen said, Princess. We remember the rules." Then she stayed where I could see her, wrapped her hands in the strands, and rolled her body like a dog on a rug, until her pale beauty was covered in crimson.
I could feel another Barbie-size figure wrap its tiny body in the back of my hair. I could not see if it was male or female, but it made little difference. None of them was thinking sex; all of them were thinking food. Food and power, for the blood of the sidhe is power. We can pretend that it is not so, that blood has no magic, but it is lies. Pretty lies. Tonight, I wanted truth.
I was hidden under a blanket of slowly fanning wings when a voice came from the waiting nobility. "Queen Andais, if we are to have a show, should not the princess come down to the middle of the floor so we can all get a better view?" The voice was male, drawling, in a cultured sort of way. Maelgwn always sounded as if he were mocking someone. Most often himself.
"We will have a show, wolf lord," Andais said, "but this is not it."
"If what we have seen so far is not the show, I am breathless with anticipation."
I turned my head to look toward him. Wings flickered against my face as the demi-fey beat their wings fast and faster in their eagerness at the feeding. So many wings, so much movement, that it was like being touched by dozens of tiny breezes, tickling and dancing across my body. If I hadn't been afraid they'd take a bite out of me, it would have been interesting.
Maelgwn sat in his throne, and though he sat upright as any, he still managed to give the impression he was lounging. The look on his face was indulgent, as if he only humored us all. As if at any moment, he would simply get up and lead his people out to do something more important than attend silly banquets. The nobles at his table dressed as nearly everyone did in styles ranging from pre-Roman to the seventeenth century, though many people seemed to have stopped around the fourteenth century, and to modern designer fashions to nothing but the skin they were born with. The difference for Maelgwn's house was that almost every single one of them wore an animal skin somewhere. Maelgwn had a hood of wolfskin with the ears framing his face, and the rest of the huge grey-white fur trailing around his shoulders. His upper body showed muscular and nude under that fur. Whatever covered his lower body was lost to view behind the table. There were men and women at his table with boar's heads and bear's heads atop their faces. A woman with a swash of mink, another with fox, and some who boasted feathered cloaks, or merely small badges of feathers. But no one at Maelgwn's table wore the fur and feathers as a fashion accessory. They wore them because once it had held magic, or been a badge of what they could become. Maelgwn was called the wolf lord because he could still change shape to a great shaggy wolf. But most of the shape-shifters, like Doyle, had lost their ability to leave their human forms.
Not all shape-shifters were part of Maelgwn's house, but no one who called him master had not at some time been able to call animal form. Few could still do it. Another magic lost like so many others.
The thought made me look for Doyle. He was still at the far doors. Had he sniffed out the would-be killer? Did he know whose magic had nearly destroyed Andais and her guard? I wanted him to come to me, to tell me, but we were all playing our parts. We were letting the court believe he'd begged to return to Andais, and he was being punished by being put on door duty, far from the throne. Farther from the throne meant farther from royal favor, and that was never good. It was the only way to get him near the doors, close to everyone who had entered, without arousing suspicion. But how long did we have to pretend before the queen gestured for him to come forward?
I fought not to tense under the fanning wings, the tiny hands and feet. I wanted to brush them all away and call Doyle to me. I wanted to end this. But Andais had always liked to draw out her vengeance. I was more the kill-them-and-get-it-over-with type. Andais liked to play.
The tiny white fey, now scarlet from head to foot, leaned in toward my face and said in her bell-like voice, "Why so tense, Princess? Still afraid we'll take a bite?" She laughed, and most of the others laughed with her; some like the ringing of bells, some hissing like snakes, and others strangely human in tone. They rose in a laughing cloud, all stained-glass wings and blood-covered bodies, as if carrion birds had mated with butterflies.
Andais's voice resounded through the room, not in a ringing tone like an actor's but just conversationally, as if it was no effort at all for her voice to fill every corner. "And what would you give, Maelgwn, for your house to regain its abilities?"
"What do you mean, O Queen?" he said, and his voice still chided, but his eyes held something more cautious.
She looked down the center of the room until her gaze found Doyle. She called out, "Darkness, show him what I mean."
The queen's nerves were better than mine. I'd have made Doyle come and give me his news, his accusation, but instead she'd make a show of his traveling the length of the hall. Or perhaps it was that she was more fey than I was. Most fey are not a practical people. They will make a joke or play a game on the way to the gallows. It is their way, and one thing I lack. I wanted to scream at her to just get down to business. But I kept my seat, and my mouth, and let her unfold the events as she wished. In that moment, I wished I had not told her that some of the men's powers had returned. If she had not known about Doyle's return to power, this particular display would have waited.
Doyle pushed away from the doors, gliding down the center of the room, but he did not change. He simply walked to us while the court watched, at first in silence, then in a growing murmur of half-heard comments and laughter. By the time Doyle reached the dais, the queen was scowling at him.
He knelt in front of the dais, more in front of her throne than mine. Which was fine: It was her court.
Maelgwn said, "I think my house already has the power to walk the length of the throne room, my queen." He did not laugh outright, but it was there in the edge of his voice.
Doyle spoke, "I ask permission to give my weapons for safekeeping."
"Why should I give you permission for anything, Darkness? You have failed me once already tonight."
"Many of the enchanted objects that were lost years ago, went during a shifting of form." He undid his belt that held both his twin daggers, as well as his black-hilted sword. The daggers were nicknamed Snick and Snack. Once they'd had other names, but I'd never heard them. They hit whatever target they were thrown at. The sword was Black Madness, Bainidhe Dub. If any hand but Doyle's tried to wield it, they would be struck permanently mad. Or at least that was the legend. I'd seen the weapons used only once before, against the Nameless. I had not gotten to see all their powers in one battle. He slid the belt out from the loops of his shoulder holster with its very modern nonmagic gun. He left the gun in place, the shoulder holster flapping a little loose without the belt to hold it down.
He knelt with the weapons belt in his lap. "In the Western Lands I was wearing no weapons when the change came upon me. All that I was wearing vanished, and did not return with my human form. I would not risk the loss of these blades." He spoke low, and only those closest to the dais would have heard him.
The queen's anger faded under Doyle's caution. "Wise, as always, my Darkness. Do as you see fit."
He rose to his feet and walked up the steps with the belt and its precious weight held in his hands. Then he did what he had never done in my memory. He laid a kiss upon her cheek, and I was close enough and at an angle to see him whisper in her ear. The only reaction Andais gave was a knowing smile. It left the impression that Doyle had whispered something nefarious in her ear.
He moved to me then, and laid the same gentle kiss against my cheek. I had only moments to decide what my face would show, for I was not the actress that my aunt was. I'd already decided that if I could not control my face, I would hide it.
He whispered against my ear, "Nerys reeks of the spell."
I turned my head in against his so that my face was nestled in the bend of his neck. I drew in the rich scent of his skin, the warmth of him, and hid my shock. Of all the ones it could have been, Nerys was not on my list.
She was simply Nerys - it meant "lord" or "lady" - and though head of her own house, she had lost enough magic that she had given up her true name and adopted something that was more title than name. But she was not a creature of politics. She and her house were as close to neutral as any of the sixteen houses of the Unseelie Court. Nerys and her people were not fond of Cel, or of anyone. They gave the queen her due, but no more. They were cautious and kept to themselves, and were powerful enough to get away with it. The attack on the queen had been rash, so unlike Nerys. If it had been anyone but Doyle telling me this, I might have doubted him, but I could not doubt Doyle. I was glad that my face was buried against his neck, though, because I could not have fought off the surprise.
He seemed to understand that, because he leaned into me until I touched his shoulder, gently, let him know that I had my face politically correct. I would not look at Nerys and her people. I would not give it away before it was time.
He leaned back from me, and his dark eyes asked, without words, if I was up to this. I gave a small nod and a smile. I was his lover, but I could not make my smile as lascivious as the queen had made hers. He laid his blades in my lap, giving up the pretense that he had come back to Andais. Of course, I don't believe that any of them, except perhaps Eamon, would have put their most precious weapon in the hands of the queen. For some of them, it had been years since she'd let them even hold the last of their own magic. They would not have given the weapons back to her, for fear she would keep them. In that moment, Doyle showed not just his trust but also that I could be trusted to share, and not merely to take.