Страница 65 из 92
I watched her, all white and glittering, all hurt pride and wounded arrogance, and fear. Fear that her court had become so little among us that she truly was queen in name only. She was right.
“I should have sent you a messenger when we arrested Peasblossom. I should have sent you a message when we discovered that one of the murdered was a demi-fey. You are right, I would have notified Kurag, Goblin King. I would have contacted Sholto. I would not have done to them what I have done to you.”
“You are a princess of the sidhe,” Frost said. “You explain yourself to no one.”
I shook my head and patted his arm. “Frost, I spend a great deal of time explaining myself to everyone.”
“Not to demi-fey,” he said, and his face was arrogant, cold, and heartbreakingly handsome.
“Frost, either the demi-fey are a court unto themselves, worthy of respect, or they are not. Queen Niceven is within her rights to be angry about this.”
His hand gripped the hilt of his sword, but he didn’t say anything. To insult them beyond a certain point was to break them as a court, as a people. He wasn’t willing to do that.
“Merry’s right.” Galen stood slowly, being as careful where he put his feet as I had been. He still held the tiny brown winged fey asleep in his hand. “I may not like Queen Niceven and the demi-fey, but she is a queen and they are a court. We should have sent someone to tell her what was happening.” He gazed up at the tiny queen. “I don’t know if you care what I think, but I’m sorry.”
She came slowly down from the ceiling. Her wings had slowed, fa
He frowned, and I watched him try to put into words what was simply him. It had been the right thing to do, and for once it had even been the politically smart thing to do, but that hadn’t been why he’d done it.
“We owed you an apology,” he said at last. “Merry explained it. I wasn’t sure that anyone else would agree with her, so I did.”
Niceven floated over to face me. “He apologized to us because it was the right thing to do.”
“Yes,” I said.
She looked back at him, then at me. “Oh, Princess, you must keep this one close, for he is too dangerous to be left alone among the sidhe.”
“Too dangerous,” Galen said, “dangerous to whom?”
“To yourself, for one,” Niceven said, fluttering over to him. She put thin, pale hands on the hips of her white dress. “I see goodness in your face, goodness and gentleness. You are in the wrong court, green knight.”
“My father was a pixie, and my mother an Unseelie sidhe.” He shook his head, vigorously enough that Niceven moved a little back from him. “No, the glittering throng wouldn’t touch me.”
Niceven gazed down at the flowers and her besotted people. “They might now.”
“No,” Hawthorne said, “Taranis doesn’t forgive a sidhe who joins the darkling court. If you take your exile to the humans and wander lost for a few centuries, maybe he’ll forgive you, but,” he lifted his helmet off, “once you’ve been accepted here, there is no going back.”
“Perhaps,” Niceven said, “or perhaps not.”
“Queen Niceven,” I said.
She turned to me, her face carefully passive, her thin hands folded in front of her.
“What do you mean ‘perhaps not’?”
She shrugged. “Oh, someone who can be a fly upon the wall hears things.”
“What sort of things?” I asked.
“Things that I might share with someone who was my ally, and honored their bargains.”
“If you will not take blood directly from me, then I will need a new magical proxy,” I said.
She turned in the air, and looked at Royal and his sister in their rat-drawn cart. “Royal,” she said.
He stood straighter, almost to attention, though without wings he could not be in Niceven’s guard. “Yes, my queen.”
“Would you taste the blood of the princess and share the essence with me?”
“Gladly, my queen.”
Pe
He drew her away from him, and looked down into her face. “How long have we dreamed of wings?”
She let her arms fall limp to her sides. “Forever,” she said.
“I didn’t give Sage wings,” I said.
“No,” Royal said, “you gave him wings.” He pointed at Nicca.
“But Nicca wasn’t tasting my blood when it happened.”
Royal nodded, and stepped from the cart. He gazed up at me. “It was during sex.”
I looked at him. He was about ten inches tall, a little shorter than a Barbie doll, but not by much. I tried to think of a polite way to say it, and finally settled for, “I think the size difference is a little much.”
He flashed me a grin. “Sage has given a very full report to the court. I am willing to take blood while you have sex with others, in hopes that it will bring my wings.”
I shook my head. “Nicca may have been a special case.”
Royal gripped the hem of his tunic and lifted it off in one smooth movement, letting it drop to the floor. He was naked before me, miniature and perfect. He turned around, displaying a perfect tattoo of wings covering his back down to his upper thighs. The wings were almost black, with lines of charcoal ru
He turned so that I could see that the black and scarlet was edged by a thin stripe of the dark, almost spots, cut with white, and a thin line of gold. That edging strip curved over the side of his hip, so that the sides of his hips were striped with color, too.
Nicca’s wings belonged to some long-lost moth. Something that had flown the skies of Europe more than a thousand years before. But I knew what had painted itself upon Royal’s skin.
“You’re an underwing moth, an Ilia Underwing.”
He looked back over his shoulder at me, smiling. “That’s one of the names humans use.” He seemed pleased that I’d known what his wings belonged to. His small face suddenly became very serious. “Do you know the other name for the Ilia?”
My pulse sped just a bit, which was silly. He was the size of a child’s toy. The heat in his eyes shouldn’t have had that strong an effect, but my mouth was dry and my voice just a little whispery. “The beloved underwing.”
“Yes,” he said. He started toward me, and if it hadn’t been silly, I would have backed up. A man that is shorter than my forearm couldn’t possibly have been intimidating, but he was.
Galen said softly at my shoulder, “He does know he’s not getting sex, right?”
“So it’s not just me who wants to back up a step.”
“No,” Galen said.
“You are very good,” Doyle said.
I looked at Doyle, but all his attention was on the little man. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Glamour,” Doyle said.
“Are all the demi-fey as good at glamour as Sage and this one?” Rhys asked.
“Not all of them, but a great many, yes,” Doyle said.
Rhys shivered. “I am not sharing the bed with this one. Sage taught me my lesson, I don’t need another one.”
“You’re not on the menu for tonight, Rhys.”
“For once, I’m glad,” he said.
“Then who do I get to share you with?” Royal asked. As I looked down at him, the feeling of sex and intimidation became more intense.
“It’s stronger when I look at you.”
Royal nodded. “Because looking is all you’re doing. Now, who am I sharing you with tonight?”
Galen answered, “Me, but, truthfully, I’m not sure I can do it. I may have apologized for us, but I still don’t want them touching me.”
“You touch one of us right now,” Niceven said.
Galen glanced down at the still sleeping fey in his hand. “But that’s different,” he said.