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"Well," Sholto said, "it is certainly not because of your honeyed words."
That was true. Doyle didn't go in for long speeches, and he was not an accomplished flatterer.
"If you say it's not sexual, then I believe you," I said.
Doyle made a small bow to me. "Thank you."
"The queen doesn't give out pet names except for sex," Sholto said.
"Yes, she does," I said.
"When, and for what?"
"When she thinks the nickname will bother the person bearing it, and because she enjoys being irritating."
"Well, the last is certainly true," Sholto said. He had his hand on the door handle.
"I'm surprised no one barged in on us," I said.
"I put a small spell of aversion on the door. No mortal would want to pass it, and few fey." He started to open the door.
"Don't you want your... limb? They might be able to reattach it."
"It will grow back," he said.
I must have looked as disbelieving as I felt, because he smiled in a half-superior, half-apologetic way. "There are some benefits to being half nightflyer-not many, but a few. I can regenerate any lost body part." He seemed to think about that for a second, then added, "So far, anyway."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I didn't try.
"I think the princess needs to get some rest, so if we could see your friend..." Doyle said.
"Of course." Sholto held the door for us.
"What about the mess?" I asked. "We're just going to leave bits of tentacle and blood all over the floor?"
"The baron made the mess, let him clean it up," Sholto said.
"Neither the body parts nor the blood belong to me," Doyle said. "If you want it cleaned up, I suggest you do it yourself. Who knows what damage a talented witch could do with a body part left lying around?"
Sholto protested, but in the end he slipped the severed tentacle in his coat pocket. They left the body-sized one where it lay. If I were Sholto I would definitely be overtipping the cleaning staff, just to make up for whoever had to do the bathroom.
We rode back up in the elevator, and Doyle knelt on the floor studying what was left of Nerys the Grey. She was a ball of flesh about the size of a bushel basket. Nerves, tendons, muscles, internal organs all glistened wetly on the outside of that ball. They all seemed to be functioning normally. That lump of flesh even rose and fell with breath. The sound was the worst: a high, thin screaming, muffled because her mouth was now on the inside of her body, but still she screamed. She shrieked. The shivering that had been growing less, grew more. I was suddenly cold standing there in my bra and pants.
I got my shirt from the floor where I'd left it, and slipped it on, but knew that mere cloth wasn't going to take care of this particular kind of cold. It was more a shivering of the soul than the body. I could pile myself with blankets and it wouldn't help.
Doyle looked up at me, kneeling beside that pulsing, screaming ball. "Most impressive. Prince Essus himself could not have done better." The words were a compliment, but his face was so empty I couldn't tell if he was pleased or not.
I actually thought it was one of the most horrible things I'd ever seen, but I knew better than to share the observation. It was a powerful weapon, the hand of flesh. If people believed I'd use it easily, often, it was more of a deterrent. If they thought I feared it, then the threat would be less. "I don't know, Doyle, I saw my father turn a giant inside out once. Do you think I could do something that large?" My voice was dry, interested, but in an academic sort of way.
It was the voice I'd cultivated at court. The voice I used when I was trying not to have hysterics or run screaming from a room. I had learned to watch the most awful things and make dry, urbane comments.
Doyle took the question at face value. "I don't know, Princess, but it will be interesting to discover the limits of your power."
I disagreed, but I let the comment stand, because I couldn't think of anything dry and urbane enough to cover the situation. The muffled shrieks continued as fast as the ball of flesh could draw breath. Nerys was immortal. My father had once done this to an enemy of the queen's. Andais kept that ball of flesh in a trunk in her room. Periodically, you'd find it sitting around her bedchamber. To my knowledge no one ever questioned what it was doing out of its trunk. You just picked it up, put it back, locked it away, and fought down any visuals that came to mind when you found it sitting in the queen's bed.
"Sholto asked that you grant Nerys death. Do it, so we can get out of here." I sounded disinterested, even bored. I thought if I had to stand there and hear that thing screaming for much longer, I'd join it.
Still on his knees, Doyle held the sword up to me, hilt first, the blade lying on his hands.
"It is your magic-let it be your kill."
I stared at the bone hilt, the three ravens and their jeweled eyes. I didn't want to do it. I stared at the blade for a minute more, trying to think how to get out of this without appearing weak. Nothing came to mind. If I got squeamish now, then Nerys's torment was for nothing. I would have gained a new title but not the reputation that went with it.
I took the sword, and hated Doyle for offering it to me. It should have been easily done. Her heart was trapped and pulsing on the side of the ball. I thrust the blade into it. Blood poured black, and the heart stopped beating, but that thin screaming didn't stop.
I glanced at the two men. "Why isn't she dead?"
"The sluagh are harder to kill than the sidhe," Sholto said.
"How much harder?"
He shrugged. "It's your kill."
In that instant I hated them both, because I realized finally that it was a test. It might be that if I refused the kill they'd leave her alive. That was not acceptable. I couldn't leave her like this, knowing that she'd never age, or heal, or die. She'd just continue. Death was mercy; anything else was madness, hers and mine.
I stabbed the sword into every vital organ I could find. They bled, shriveled, ceased to function, and still the screaming went on. I finally raised the sword in a two-handed motion above my head and just started stabbing. At first I paused between stabs, or slices, but every time the screams just went on and on, trapped inside that ball of meat. Somewhere around the tenth blow, or the fifteenth blow, I stopped pausing, stopped listening, and just kept stabbing.
I had to make the screaming stop. I had to make her die. The world narrowed down to the pounding of the blade into the thick meat. My arms raised and lowered, raised and lowered. The blade bit into the flesh. Blood sprayed across my face, my shirt. I ended on my knees beside something that was no longer round, no longer whole. I'd hacked the thing into pieces, unrecognizable pieces. The screaming had stopped.
My hands were soaked with blood, crimson to the elbows. The sword blade was scarlet, the bone hilt was solid blood, and still the hilt fit my hand well, not slippery at all. The green silk shirt I'd put back on was black with soaked blood. My slacks had gone from purple to a violet black. Someone was breathing too fast, too ragged, and I realized it was me. Sometime during the butchering there had been a fierce satisfaction, almost a joyfulness in the sheer destruction. Now I stared down at what I had done and felt nothing. There wasn't enough of me left to feel anything about this, so I felt nothing. I was numb, and it wasn't a bad way to be.
I got to my feet using the edge of the bed. The bed was already spattered with blood-what was one more handprint? My arms were sore, the muscles shaking from too much exercise. I offered the sword to Doyle as he'd offered it to me. "Good sword, the hilt never got slippery." My voice sounded as empty of emotion as I felt. I wondered if this was what it was like to be crazy. If it was, it wasn't so very bad.