A Caress Of Twilight

He moved his leg away from mine, putting physical distance between us. I watched his face grow cold and hard and arrogant, the old mask he'd worn in the court for all those years, and I couldn't bear it. I took his hand in mine. He frowned at me, clearly puzzled. I raised his knuckles to my lips and kissed them, one by one, until his breath caught in his throat. For the second time today I had tears in my eyes. I kept my eyes very wide and very still, and managed not to cry.

Frost was smiling again, visibly relieved. I was glad he was happy. You should always want the people you love to be happy. Rhys just looked at us, his face neutral. He'd had his turn last night, tonight was Frost's turn, and Rhys had no problem with that.

Doyle caught my gaze, and his face was not neutral, but worried. Kitto stared up from the floorboard, and there was nothing I could understand on his face. For all that he looked so sidhe, he was other, and there were times when I had no idea what he was thinking or feeling. Frost held my hand and was happy with that. Happy that I hadn't turned away. Of all of them, only Doyle seemed to understand exactly what I was feeling and thinking.

"What does it matter why she was exiled?" Rhys said.

"Perhaps it doesn't matter," Doyle said, "or perhaps it matters very much. We won't know until we ask."

I blinked at him. "Ask, ask outright, without an invitation to ask something so personal?"

He nodded. "You are sidhe, but you are also part human. You can ask where we ca

"I have better ma

"We know you have better ma

I stared at him. Frost's fingers rubbed along my knuckles, over and over. "Are you saying I should pretend to not know any better?"

"I am saying we should use all the weapons in our arsenal. Your mixed heritage could be a decided advantage today."

"It would be almost the same thing as lying, Doyle," I said.

"Almost," he agreed, then that small smile of his curled his lips. "The sidhe never lie, Meredith, but shading the truth is a long-honored pastime among us."

"I'm very well aware of that," I said. My voice held enough sarcasm to fill the van.

His smile flashed suddenly white in the darkness of his face. "As are we all, Princess, as are we all."

"I don't think it's worth the risk," Rhys said.

I shook my head. "We had this conversation once, Rhys, I do think it's worth the risk." I looked up at Frost. "How about you?"

He turned to Doyle. "What do you think? I would not risk Meredith's safety for anything, but we are badly in need of allies, and a sidhe that has been exiled from faerie for a century might be willing to risk much to come back."

"You're suggesting that Maeve wants to help Meredith to be queen," Doyle made it half question, half statement.

"If Meredith is queen, then she could offer Maeve a return to faerie. I do not think that Taranis would risk all-out war for one returned exile."

"You really think a royal of the Seelie Court would be willing to come to the Unseelie Court?" I asked.

Frost looked down at me. "Whatever prejudices Maeve Reed might once have had against the Unseelie, she has been without the touch of fey hands for a century." He raised my hand to his mouth, kissed my fingertips, blowing his breath along each of them before he touched me. It brought shivers up and down my skin. He spoke with his mouth just above my skin. "I know what it is to want the touch of another sidhe and be denied. I at least had the court and the rest of faerie to comfort me. I ca

It took effort, but I drew my attention away from Frost to look at Doyle. "Do you think he's right? Do you think she's looking for a way back into faerie?"

He shrugged, making the leather of his jacket creak with the movement. "Who can say, but I know that after a century of isolation, I certainly would be."

I nodded. "All right then, we're agreed. We go in."

"We are not agreed," Rhys said. "I'm going in under protest."

"Fine, protest all you want, but you're outvoted."

"If something really awful happens to us in there, I get to say I told you so."

I nodded. "If we're alive long enough for you to say it, knock yourself out."

"Sweet Goddess, if we die that quickly, I'll just have to come back and haunt you."

"If there's anything in there that can kill you, Rhys, I'll have died long before you."

He frowned at me; even through the beard I could see it. "That isn't comforting, Merry, that isn't comforting at all." But he turned around to face the big gates and leaned out his open window to press the intercom and a