Лорел Гамильтон - A Kiss Of Shadows

Galen let me go and scooted away from me to the far side of the seat. "I'd like to know if Barinthus's touch makes the ring jump like that."

"So would I," I said.

Barinthus's voice came over the intercom. "We'll be at your grandmother's in about five minutes."

"Thanks, Barinthus," I said. I wondered what he was going to say when he saw the ring. Barinthus had been my father's closest adviser, his friend. He was Barinthus Kingmaker, and after my father's death he became my friend and adviser. Some at court called him Queenmaker, but only behind his back, never to his face. Barinthus was one of the few at court who could have defeated my would-be assassins with magic. But if he had stepped in and destroyed my enemies, I would have lost what little credibility I had among the sidhe. Barinthus had had to watch helplessly while I defended myself, though he had counseled me to be ruthless. Sometimes it's not how much power you wield, but what you are willing to do with that power. "Make your enemies fear you, Meredith," he had said, and I had done my best. But I would never be as frightening as Barinthus. He could destroy entire armies with a thought. It meant that his enemies gave him a wide berth.

It also meant that if you were going to swim with sharks, a six-thousand-year-old ex-god was a good swimming partner. I loved Galen, but I worried about him as an ally. I worried that being my friend would get him killed. I didn't worry about Barinthus. I figured that if anyone buried anyone, it would be him, burying me.

GRAN HAD TAKEN THE ROOMS AT THE VERY TOP OF THE HOUSE FOR HERSELF. In olden times when this Victorian monstrosity was new, the rooms would have been servant quarters. They would have been frigid in the winter and broiling in the summer. But air-conditioning and central heating are marvelous things. She'd knocked down some of the walls so that there was a cozy parlor area with a small full bathroom to one side, a small room, just for the hell of it, beside it, and a large bedroom that was all hers on the other side of the parlor.

The parlor was done in shades of white, cream, pink, and rose. We sat on a stiff-backed love seat done in a cabbage-rose print with more lace-edged pillows than I knew what to do with. I'd made a little mound of them to one side like an impromptu mountain of flowers and lace.

We were drinking tea from a flowered tea set. My second cup of tea complete with dainty saucer was floating from the small coffee table toward my hand. The trick to catching something that is being levitated to you is to simply hold still. Don't grab at it, or you'll spill it. Wait, and if the person doing the levitating is good, the cup or whatever will touch your hand, then you grab it. Sometimes, I think my first lesson in patience was waiting for a cup to float to my hand.

I'd been concentrating very hard on the moment. Concentrating on not spilling the tea, on how to get a sugar cube out of a floating sugar bowl. Concentrating on simply being with my grandmother after three years. But the back of my mind was crowded with questions. Who had tried to kill us in the car? Was it Cel? Why did the queen want me home so badly? What did she want from me? They call horse racing the sport of kings, but that's not the true sport of kings. The true sport is survival and ambition.

Gran's voice brought me back to the present with a jolt that made me jump. The levitating tea cup moved a little away, like a spaceship adjusting for docking. "Sorry, Gran, I didn't hear you."

"Dearie, your nerves are wound so tight, they're like to snap."

"I can't help it."

"I do na think that the queen would drag you back just to watch your enemies kill you."

"If she was ruled by logic, I'd agree, but we both know her too well for that."

Gran sighed. She was even tinier than I was, inches under five feet. I remembered a time when she'd seemed huge, and I'd believed that nothing could harm me when I was in her arms. Gran's long wavy brown hair spilled around her delicate body like a silken curtain—but it didn't hide her face. Her skin was brown like a nut and somewhat wrinkled, and it wasn't age. Her eyes were large, and brown like her hair, with lovely lashes. But she had no nose and very little mouth. It was almost as if her face were a brown skull. You could see the dual holes where the nose should be, as if the nose were cut away, but this was the face she was born with. Her mother, my great-grandmother, thought she was beautiful. Her human father, my great-grandfather, had told her as a little girl that of course she was beautiful. She looked just like her mother, the woman he loved.

I'd have liked to have met my great-grandfather, but he was pure human and lived in the 1600s. It was a few centuries before my time. I would have been able to meet my great-grandmother if she hadn't gotten herself killed in one of the great wars between human and fey in Europe. Killed for a war that, as a brownie, she had no reason to fight. But if you refuse a call to battle, then it's treason. Treason is an executable offense.

The sidhe leaders get you coming and going.

The china saucer touched my hand, and I carefully uncurled my fingers and took it out of the air. It would have been easier to put my entire hand under the saucer to cradle it, but that was not ladylike. I'd learned to drink tea to rules of etiquette that were a hundred years or more out of date. The next dangerous point with a hot beverage being levitated is that when the person takes the levitation away, the cup gets heavier. Almost everyone sloshes a little tea over the side the first few times. No shame in it.

I didn't slosh any tea. Gran and I had had our first tea party when I was five.

"I wish I knew what to tell you about the queen, child, but I don't. The best I can do is feed you. Have some pasties, dear. I know they're a little heavy for tea time, but they're your favorites."

"Mutton filling?" I asked.

"With turnips and potatoes, just the way you like it."

I smiled. "They'll have food tonight at the banquet."

"But will you want to eat it?" she asked.

She had a point. I picked up one of the meat-filled pastries. A small plate floated underneath the little handheld pie. "What do you think about the ring?"

"Nothing."

"What do you mean, nothing?"

"I mean, dearie, that I don't have enough information to even hazard a guess."

"Was it Cel that tried to kill me and Galen? I think I'm most angry about the fact that whoever put the spell in the car was willing to sacrifice Galen to get to me, as if Galen had no importance." The pastie smelled wonderful, but suddenly I just wasn't hungry. The tea I'd drunk was sloshing around in my stomach like it might come back up. I was never good at eating when I was nervous. I laid the pie on the floating plate, and the plate floated back to the table.

Gran gripped my hand. She'd painted her fingernails a deep rich burgundy that was almost the same color as her skin. "I don't know high magic, Merry; my magic is more innate ability. But if the assassin meant it as a death sentence, why the green cord? The color of faithfulness, of a fruitful family life. Why add that?"

"The only thing I can come up with is that they had the spell for some other purpose and used it for this at the last moment. Because what other reason could the spell have been there for?"

"I do na know, dearie; I wish I did," Gran said.

I held my hand up so that the ring glistened in the thick autumn sunlight. "Whoever put the spell in the car used this ring to fuel the magic. They knew the ring would be there. Who would the queen trust with such information?"

"The list is small for those that she trusts, but the list is long for those she knows are too afraid of her to go against her wishes. She could have given the ring and the note to anyone, and trusted that they would do as she asked with it. It would ne'r occur to her that her guard would disobey her." She squeezed my hand. "You're obviously not going to eat these good pasties. I'm going to send them downstairs. My guests will certainly appreciate them."