Swallowing Darkness

Chapter Four

Doyle didn't flinch or otherwise react. "It is a very small wound."

"But how did it happen?" Galen asked.

"I believe the glass is coated with some sort of man-made material," Doyle said.

"So because it's man-made and not natural," I said, "it was able to cut you?"

"Normal glass would have still cut me."

"But it would have healed by now," I said, "without the man-made coating?"

"It is a small cut, so yes."

"But you were covering Merry's body when you were cut," Gran said, and her voice was flat, almost without accent. She could do that when she wished, though it didn't happen often.

"Yes," he said, and looked at her.

She swallowed hard. "I do nae have the magic resistance to be near my Merry right now, do I?"

"It is sidhe magic we will be fighting," he said.

She nodded, and a look of deep sorrow came over her face. "I ca

I reached out to her. "Gran, please."

Rhys stepped between us as she moved forward. "Not a good idea yet. We need to look at the spell first."

"I would say I would n'er hurt my girl, but if the Darkness... if Captain Doyle had not protected her, I would have cut her 'stead of his back."

"What could they have offered to Merry's cousin?" Galen asked.

"Mayhap the thing they offered me centuries ago," Gran said.

"What was that?" Galen asked.

"A chance to bed, and if with child, marry one of their Seelie nobles. No one will touch Cair for fear that her... deformity will breed true. I was only half human, and I worked in the court as a brownie, but I saw the Seelie and I wished to be a part of it. I was a fool, but it earned my girls a chance to be a part of that glittering mess. But Cair is always outside of it, because she looks too much like her ol' Gran."

"Gran," I said, "it's not... "

"No, child, I know what face I bear, and I know that it takes a special sidhe to love it. I ne'r found that sidhe, but I was not part sidhe. I did na' have the blood of the court ru

"I know what it is like to be denied a place at court," Sholto said, "because you are not perfect enough to be bedded. The Unseelie sidhe run scared of my bed, for fear they will breed monsters."

Gran nodded, and finally looked at him. "I am sorry that I said some of the things I said, Shadow Lord. I should know better'n most what it is to be hated for bein' less than sidhe."

He nodded. "The Queen called me Her Creature. Until Merry came to me, I thought I would be doomed to live out my life until I became simply Creature, as Doyle is Darkness." He smiled at me then, with that intimate look that he hadn't quite earned yet. It was so odd to be pregnant after only one night with a man. But then, hadn't that been what had happened with my parents? One night of sex, and my mother had been trapped in a marriage she did not want. Seven years of marriage before she was allowed to divorce him.

"Aye, the courts are cruel, though I had hoped the dark court would be a little less so."

"They accept more," Doyle said, "but even the Unseelie have their limits."

"They saw me as proof that the sidhe were failing as a people, because once they could bed anything and breed true," Sholto said.

"They saw my mortality as proof that they were dying," I said.

"And now the two they feared the most may be the saving of us all," Doyle said.

"Nicely ironic," Rhys said.

"I must go, Merry-girl," Gran said.

"Let us test the spell and remove any lingering effects on you," Doyle said.

She gave him a look that wasn't entirely friendly. "Rhys and Galen can touch you," he said. "I do not need to."

She took a long breath, her thin shoulders going up and down. Then she looked at him with a softer, more thoughtful look. "Aye, ya should look at me, for the thought of you touching me was not a good one. I think the spell lingers in me mind, and it is not good to linger on such thoughts. They grow and fester in the mind and heart."

He nodded, still holding my hand in his. "They do."

"Test the spell, Rhys," she said. "Then cure me of it. I must away, unless you can find a way for me to be proof against such sorceries."

"I'm sorry, Hettie."

She smiled at him, then turned a less-happy face to me. "Sorry I am that I will nae be able to help ya through this pregnancy, or help tend the bairns for ya."

"Me, too," I said, and meant it. The thought of her leaving hurt my heart.

Rhys held the shining thread out. "I'd like your opinion on it, Doyle."

Doyle nodded, squeezed my hand, then walked around the bed to Rhys. Neither of them seemed to want to give Gran a clear way to touch me. Was it really that strong a spell, or were they just being cautious?

If it was caution, I couldn't blame them, but I wanted to say good-bye to Gran. I wanted to touch her, especially if it was the last time I'd see her until after the babies were born. Just thinking that all the way through — when the babies were born — shocked me a little. We'd been trying to get me pregnant for so many months that the pursuit of the pregnancy had been all I'd thought about. That, and staying alive. I hadn't thought about what it would mean. I hadn't thought about babies, and children, and having them. It seemed a strange oversight.

"Your face, Merry-girl, so serious," Gran said.

I looked at her, and remembered being very small, so small that I could curl up in her lap and she had seemed large. I remembered feeling utterly safe, as if nothing in the world could harm me. I had believed that. It must have been before I was six, before the Queen of Air and Darkness, Aunt Andais, had tried to drown me. That had been a moment that had brought the realities of being mortal among the immortal home to me as a child. It was nicely ironic that the future of the Unseelie Court was in my body, my mortal body, which Andais had thought wasn't worth keeping alive. If I could be killed by drowning, then I wasn't sidhe enough to live.

"I just realized that I'm going to be a mother."

"Aye, you are."

"I hadn't thought about anything beyond getting pregnant."

She smiled at me. "It will be a few months before ya have to worry about mothering."

"Is it ever too soon to worry?" I asked.

Sholto had come to stand on the far side of the bed from Gran. Doyle and Rhys were looking at the thread. Doyle was actually sniffing it rather than using his hands. I'd seen him do that to magic before, as if he would trace it back to its owner like a hound on a scent.

Sholto took my hand in his, and I didn't pull away, but I saw Gran's face harden. Not good. I looked at him, and what I saw in his face reassured me. I'd expected him to look arrogant or angry, and to have that directed at her. I'd expected that he took my hand to prove to Gran that she couldn't stop him from touching me. But his face was gentle, and he was gazing at me.

He gave me a smile as gentle as any I'd seen on his face. His triple yellow eyes with their individual lines of gold were soft, and he looked like a man in love. I was not in love with Sholto. I had only been alone with him twice, both times ending in violent interruptions, neither of them our doing. We didn't really know each other yet, but he looked at me as if I were the world, and it was a good, safe place.

It made me uncomfortable enough that I dropped my eyes so he would not see that my look did not match his. I could not give him love in my face, not yet. Love, for me, was made up of time and shared experience. Sholto and I had not had that yet. How strange to be with his child, and not to be in love with him.

Was this how my mother had felt? Married, bedded, but not in love, then to suddenly find herself pregnant with the child of a stranger? For the first time ever, I had some sympathy with my mother's emotional ambiguity toward me.

I had loved my father, Prince Essus, but perhaps he had been a better father than husband. I realized in that moment that I truly knew nothing of how my father and mother had interacted. Had their tastes in bed been so different that they had no middle ground? I knew their politics were opposite poles.

I held Sholto's hand, and had one of those adult moments when you realize that maybe, just maybe, your hatred of your parent is not completely justified. It was not a comfortable feeling to think of my mother as the wronged party instead of my father.

It made me look up at Sholto. His white-blond hair had begun to escape from the ponytail he'd worn to rescue me. He'd used glamour to make his hair look short, but the illusion might have been harmed if someone had become tangled in his nearly ankle-length hair. Strands of his hair trailed around a face as handsome as any in the courts. Only Frost had had a more masculine beauty. I pushed that thought away and tried to give Sholto his due. The tentacles had ripped his t-shirt apart. It clung like a lace of rags around his chest and stomach. Shreds of the cloth were still tucked into his jeans, with their belt, and the heavy collar was still intact, so it, along with the sleeves, kept it all in place, but the chest and stomach revealed were lovely, the skin pale and perfect. The tattoo that decorated him from just under the breastbone to his belt looked like someone had drawn one of those sea anemones, done in shades of gold, ivory, and crystal, with edges of blue and pink, soft colors, like the sun caressing the edge of a seashell. One thicker tentacle had been drawn so that it curled up over the right side of his chest, looking as if the tentacle had been frozen in mid-movement, so that the tip was close to the darker paleness of one nipple. I wasn't certain, but I was pretty sure that the tattoo had changed. It was almost as if the tat was literally formed by what the tentacles were doing when he froze them into art.