A Stroke Of Midnight

“It will not last, Merry,” Doyle said. “It will become like a drawing on your skin.”

“You mean like a tattoo?” I asked.

“Something like that,” he said.

“How long will it keep moving like that?” I asked.

“A few hours,” he said.

“You say that like you’ve seen this happen before.”

“He has.” Nicca propped himself up on one elbow, turning his body to face me. He had a white flower in the hollow between his shoulder and chest, startling against his deep brown skin. The flower had a yellow center and five petals raised above his skin, but the stem was lost in his flesh. Like the moth in me, the flower was alive, but embedded in his skin.

Galen rolled over onto his side and let me see his right arm. Just below the shoulder was a butterfly so large it took up all the width of his arm. Its yellow-and-black-striped wings folded back around his arm as the butterfly flexed, gentle and unhurried, as if it were feeding from some sweet-nectared flower.

“It doesn’t seem to be afraid that it’s trapped,” he said.

I stared down at the moth on my own body. “No, they should be panicking, trying to free themselves. Why aren’t they?”

“They are not real,” Doyle said.

“They are real,” Nicca said.

Doyle frowned, but gave a quick nod. “Perhaps ‘real’ is not the correct word. They are not free animals that would mourn their captivity.”

I touched the moth’s wings again, and it flicked them at me. Leave me alone, it was saying as clearly as it could. The sensation of having something alive wriggling inside me made my stomach roll uneasily. The more I touched the wings, the more irritated the moth became. I lay back against the pillows, closing my eyes and breathing around the sensation of it.

“Can you feel its legs inside you?” Galen’s voice didn’t sound any happier than my stomach felt.

“Yes,” I said.

“It’s not a good feeling,” he said.

I opened my eyes and looked into his face. He looked a little greener than usual.

“Stop trying to pet them and they won’t struggle,” Rhys said.

I stared at the black, red, grey, and even white that was smeared across my fingers. “What are these things?”

“They are the begi

I stared up at him. “You mean the tattoos that the sidhe once had? They were more like birthmarks, weren’t they?”

“Some are born with the marks upon them, but many are not.”

“Most of us acquire the marks as we enter our power in adolescence, or even adulthood,” Rhys said.

“I remember my father telling me that our tattoos were why our people painted themselves for battle. The mark of their deity to protect them.”

“Once, long ago,” Doyle said, “the marks on their bodies did protect our followers. Protected them better than any armor, for it was a conduit to the power of the sidhe they invoked.”

I realized that Doyle was talking to me like he used to, distant and formal. Was it Ivi’s presence that had made him distance himself, or had something else happened?

“We were their gods,” Rhys said.

“We were not gods,” Doyle said, and his voice went lower with anger. “We thought we were gods, but when the gods themselves departed, we learned otherwise.” He stared out into the darkness, as if he saw things long ago and far away. “They stripped for battle, painted themselves with our symbols, and were slaughtered because we no longer had the power to save them.”

“A stubborn lot, the Celts,” Ivi said. “They kept painting themselves long after it stopped working.” He sounded wistful.

“They thought they had done something to make themselves unworthy,” Doyle said, “so they strove to become worthy again.” He turned away, gave me only the braid that trailed down his dark cloak. “We were the ones who were unworthy.”

“All right, that’s it,” I said. “Why is Doyle beating himself up like this? What did I miss?”

“He’s pouting,” Rhys said.

Doyle turned his head, just enough to give Rhys a look that would have made most people run screaming. “I am not pouting.”

Rhys gri

“I don’t remember being told that it hurt to get the marks. I thought they just appeared.”

“Some did,” Rhys said, “but for the first few of us to gain them, it was bloody, and it hurt like hell.”

The three of us agreed.

“You were one of the first to gain the marks?” Doyle asked, not angry now, but looking at him.

Rhys nodded. “Cromm Cruach is only the last of my names, not the first, Doyle.”

Then Doyle asked something that was very unsidhe, very rude. “Who were you before Cromm Cruach?” The older sidhe never asked that of anyone. It was too painful a reminder of lost glories.

“Darkness, you know better than to ask that,” Rhys said.

Doyle actually bowed. “I am sorry, forgive me. It’s just…” He made a frustrated noise. “I see power given to everyone, but I remain as I have been.”

“Are you jealous?” Rhys asked.

Doyle hunched inside his cloak, then gave a nod. “I believe I am. Not just of Merry, but of the magic, too.” Saying it out loud seemed to make him feel better, or clear his head. For he shook himself like a dog coming out of water, and he turned a more peaceful face to me.

“Most of the tattoos were like my wings. They appeared at birth,” Nicca said.

The comment made me turn to him, because I realized what I’d missed. “Where are your wings?”

He rolled over and let me see them. I expected them to be the tattoo I’d always known on his back, but they weren’t. They were raised above his body like the flower, touchable and real, but lying flat now, as if they were but a step away from the tattoo they had once been.

“Are they going back to being a tattoo?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Rhys said.

“They don’t know,” Nicca said.

“Have you both been awake longer than I have?” I asked.

“No,” Galen said, “but we didn’t pass out as soon.”

I leaned up, very carefully, against the headboard. The moth flicked its wings, giving me a sudden flash of color, then settled back to its black and grey upper wings. Underwing moths, when at rest, try to blend in with tree bark. It wasn’t the moth’s fault that, trapped against the whiteness of my skin, it was very visible. It felt u

Doyle seemed to understand my difficulty, because he helped me prop pillows under my back and head, so I could sit up and see the room, but not bend too much at the stomach. “How are Royal and the rest?” I asked.

“Your demi-fey is fine, though he is the only one who would not leave even to clean off the blood. He insisted that he stay and see you were well.”

I looked out into the darkened room. “Is he here?”

“Outside by the door with Adair and Hawthorne.”

Ivi wrapped his arm around the bedpost, showing a pale line of flesh. I realized that he must have been nude after he gave me his cloak, but I hadn’t truly noticed when the room was full of blood and bodies. “He called you his white and red goddess.” Ivi managed both to make a joke of it, and make it not fu

“I am no one’s goddess,” I said.

“I don’t know,” Ivi said, wrapping more of himself around the bedpost, so that only the wood kept me from seeing all of him. “We sidhe have been worshipped for less.”

“Long ago,” Doyle said, “and far from here.”

Ivi shrugged. “We were in the land of faerie then, and we are in the land of faerie now. That is not so far, Darkness.”