Лорел Гамильтон - A Stroke Of Midnight

“Surprised how?” I asked.

“I used the death touch on him, but he did something to protect himself. My entire arm went numb. It’s good we had so many healers in the room though. They healed the wounds of sword and ax, but my arm… They bound it in a sling and told me to wait. I can finally feel something, pins and needles mostly, but I’m happy to feel anything in it.”

“What happened to the seelie you bespelled?” Nicca asked.

“They dragged him away insensible. He’ll be out of it for a day or two, at least.”

“Why didn’t it kill him?” I asked.

“Goblins have no magic of their own; the sidhe do,” he said, as if that explained everything.

“Did they give a reason for trying to kill you?” Galen asked.

He sighed again. “One of their royal ladies accused me and two others of raping her.”

“What?” I sat up too abruptly, then stopped in mid-motion, afraid I’d crush the moth.

“Had she gone mad?” Galen asked.

“Don’t know,” Rhys said, “but they were serious about it.”

“Who else did she accuse?” I asked.

“Me, Galen, Abloec.”

“Why?” I asked.

“That we do not know,” Doyle said, “but I doubt that the lady came up with such a desperate accusation on her own.”

“Taranis?” I asked.

“Keep his name to a minimum,” Rhys said, “just in case. I’d rather not be overheard.”

“I do not believe he can hear just because his name is invoked,” Doyle said.

“Humor me,” Rhys said.

Doyle nodded. “Very well. Yes, I believe he is somehow behind this new problem.”

“But why? What does he hope to gain?” I asked.

“That we will know as soon as the three of you have eaten.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The queen has requested your presence at her side when she contacts Taranis about this latest outrage.”

“Taranis’s men seemed to think we’d just let them arrest us,” Rhys said. “That we’d just give ourselves over to Seelie justice.” He laughed, and it was a bitter sound. “Justice? For the Unseelie at the Seelie Court? Please.”

“They still believe that to join this court is to be deformed and made monstrous,” Doyle said.

“I’ve never understood that one,” Galen said. “They can look at us and know that we look just as they do.”

“They believe we hide our deformities with our clothes,” Doyle said.

Galen raised an eyebrow. “The queen answers the mirrors covered in nude guards most of the time. Anyone with eyes can see that every inch of the guards is fine.”

“Ah, but that is evil Unseelie illusion,” Rhys said. “Understand, my young green friend, that one of the things that makes the Seelie sidhe prefer exile among the humans to joining our court is the belief, the absolute belief, that being in the dark corrupts us. Makes us twisted and perverse. Most of them believe we have tails, and hooves, and monstrous penises.”

“Well, big,” I said, but the look on Rhys’s face made me swallow my joke.

“They don’t mean big, Merry, they mean ugly and awful. They paint us as monsters, because if the Seelie ever truly believed that we were just like them”—he shrugged—“I think some of them would put up with less shit from him. They would then have someplace to go besides mortal land.”

“They fear Andais, as well,” Doyle said, “and she has fostered that fear with her bloody mirror calls and her orgies.”

“I have spoken with the king in the mirror, Doyle,” I said. “I know now that touching the flesh of the guard helps ground us and keep his power at bay. I think that torture may do the same for the queen that sex does.”

Doyle nodded. “Yes, it is a way to keep his power from overwhelming one.”

“I’ve never actually sat in on a call between the two monarchs,” I said. “Is it as scary as it sounds?”

“Disturbing,” Rhys said, “more than scary.”

“Disturbing how?” I asked.

“The king will try and use his magic to bespell and persuade us, including our queen. She will use her beauty to make him lust after her. She will also use those around her to distract both herself from his power, and the king in general.”

“We’ll have to warn her not to expose your new friends,” Rhys said.

“You mean the…” and I motioned at the moth.

He nodded. “He won’t like that we have them and his people don’t.”

“Did the queen see them?”

“She has been here, and seen what there is to see,” Doyle said.

“Why does that sound ominous?”

“She was thrilled,” Rhys said, and his voice was very dry.

“What did we miss?”

“Be glad you missed it,” he said.

Doyle nodded. “Do not be surprised if your aunt suggests that you come to her bed some night.” He frowned. “Though strangely she has lifted her ban about Nicca and Biddy. They are free to have sex when he feels well enough. She was very pleased at all of it. The wall and door exploding. The bewinged demi-fey. The dry pool. All of it seemed to…”

“Excite her,” Rhys said.

I shivered, and the moth fanned its wings, as if it felt my nervousness. Which made its body pull on my skin again. It was as if I could feel its legs inside my body. I had to swallow hard, to keep my stomach from being very unhappy with me.

“Did it move again?” Galen asked.

I nodded.

“I do not like feeling its legs move inside my body.”

I nodded again.

“Don’t worry,” Rhys said, “they won’t stay this alive.”

The door opened, and Adair stuck his helmeted head in to say, “The food has arrived, Doyle.” He looked at me, and added, “Good to see you awake, Princess.”

“Good to be awake.” I frowned around at the room. “Though a little more light would be nice.” The light that was everywhere and nowhere in most of the sithen began to seep through the room.

“My, my, my,” Rhys said.

“What?” I asked.

“When the lights went out in your room, the entire sithen went dark,” Doyle said.

“Nothing we did could get the lights back on,” Rhys said.

I swallowed a sudden lump in my throat. “Until…”

“Until you requested a little more light,” Rhys said. “Yeah, the queen is going to have mixed feelings about the sithen’s new affection for you.”

“Mixed how?” I asked.

“Happy you’re so powerful, pissed that the sithen isn’t listening to her anymore.”

I licked my dry lips.

“Enough of this until after they’ve eaten.” Doyle called for the food to be brought in. Kitto came with a tray, and others followed behind with drink. Frost came as the first of the guards that just carried weapons. He looked at me, and gave me a smile that seemed to be reserved just for me. If he had any of Doyle’s qualms about the new “tattoos” of power, they did not show. Maybe he was simply too relieved to see me awake. Or perhaps he worried less about power than Doyle did. Or maybe I didn’t understand my two men as much as I thought I did. Me, not understanding the men in my life? That I believed.

THE STEW WAS THICK WITH BEEF, THE BROTH DARK AND HEAVY with a faint tang of some meaty ale to balance the sweetness of the onions. Maggie May knew my favorite dishes, and this one had been on the list since before my father and I left faerie for the human world, when I was six. My eyes got hot, and my throat tight. It was the same stew it had always been, and it was nice to have something that hadn’t changed, something that was the same as it had always been.

“Merry,” Galen said, “are you crying?”

I shook my head, then nodded.

He put his butterfly-free arm around my shoulders, hugging me close. I must have bent over too much, because the moth on my stomach fluttered frantically. The feel of it struggling in my skin made the good stew roll uneasily. I sat up very straight. I had good posture, but until the moth was truly a tattoo, no slumping.