A Kiss of Shadows

"That is my business," Andais said, but there was the faintest hint of panic in her voice.

"Who was it told me that Your Majesty wished the sluagh to travel to the western lands and kill Princess Meredith?" Sholto asked.

"Don't," the queen said, but her voice was soft, like a dreamer trying to convince herself that a nightmare is not real.

"Don't what, Your Majesty?" Sholto asked.

Doyle spoke next. "Who had access to Branwyn's Tears and allowed mortals to use it against other fey?"

The thick silence was filled with dancing ghosts, whirling fast and faster. Faces were turned to the dais, some pale, some eager, some frightened, but all waiting. Waiting to see what the queen would do at last.

But it was Cel who spoke next. He leaned across and hissed at me, "Isn't it your turn next, Cousin?" His voice held such hatred.

I realized he thought I'd seen him in Los Angeles, but like Sholto I'd only been waiting for the perfect moment to reveal him. I drew a breath, but Andais gripped my arm. She leaned in to me, whispering, "Do not tell about his worshipers."

She knew. She knew that Cel had let humans worship him. It left me speechless. Unsaid between us was the knowledge that to protect her son she had risked all of us. Because if it could be proven in human courts that any sidhe had allowed themselves to be worshiped on American soil, we would be expelled. Not just the sidhe, but all fey.

I stared into those triple-grey eyes and saw not the terrifying Queen of Air and Darkness but a mother afraid for her only child. She had always loved Cel too much.

I whispered back to her. "The worshiping must cease."

"It has, you have my word."

"He must be punished," I said.

"But not for that," she whispered.

I thought about that for a second or two, while her hand gripped the blood-soaked cloth of my sleeve. "Then he must be punished for giving the Tears to a mortal."

Her hand tightened on my arm until it hurt. If her eyes hadn't held such fear I'd have thought she was threatening me. "I will punish him for trying to kill you."

I shook my head. "No, I want him to be punished for giving Branwyn's Tears to a mortal."

"That is a death sentence," she said.

"There are two punishments possible, my queen. I'll agree he keeps his life, but I want the full sentence allowed for the torture."

She pulled back from me, pale, her eyes suddenly tired. The torture was very specific for the crime. You were stripped naked and chained in a dark room, then covered with the Tears. Your body would be full of burning need, magical lust, but left untouched, unfinished, unrelieved. It is said that it can drive a sidhe mad. But it was the best, or the worst, I could do.

"Six months is too long," she said. "His mind would not survive it." It was the first time I'd ever heard her admit that Cel was weak, or at least not strong.

We bargained much as Kurag and I had, and ended with three months. "Three months, my queen, but if I or my people are harmed in any way during that time, then Cel forfeits his life."

She turned and stared at her son, who was watching us closely, wondering what we were saying. She finally turned back to me. "Agreed."

Andais pushed herself to her feet, slowly, almost as if her age were showing. She would never have an old body, but inside the years still passed. She a

He stood. "I will not submit to this."

She turned on him, lashing out with her magic, pushing him into his chair, pressing on his chest with invisible hands of power until he could not draw breath to speak.

Siobhan made some small movement: Doyle and Frost moved between her and the queen.

"You are a fool, Cel," Andais said. "I have saved your life this night. Do not make me regret what I have done." She released him suddenly, and he slid to the floor, near where Keelin still crouched.

Andais turned back to the court. "Meredith will take whom she pleases with her tonight to her hotel. She is my heir. The land welcomed her at her return tonight. The ring on her finger is alive and full of magic once more. You have seen the roses, watched them come to life for the first time in decades. All these wonders and still you question my choice. Have a care that you do not question yourselves to death." With that she sat down and motioned for everyone else to sit down. We all sat down.

The white ladies began to bring in the small individual tables that sat in front of the thrones. The meal began to float in on ghostly hands.

Galen joined us again at the side of the dais. Conri was already being punished and missing the banquet, but not Cel. He and his would be allowed to enjoy the banquet before his sentence was carried out. Unseelie etiquette, if you were prince.

The queen began to eat. The rest of us ate. The queen took her first sip of wine. We drank.

She paused in sipping her soup and looked at me. It was not an angry look, more puzzled, but it certainly wasn't a happy look. She leaned in very close to me, close enough that her lips brushed my ear. "Fuck one of them tonight, Meredith, or you will be joining Cel."

I drew back enough to see her face. She'd known all along that Galen and I hadn't made love. But she'd helped me save him from Conri's challenge, and for that I was grateful. Still, Andais did nothing without a motive, and I had to wonder why this act of mercy? I would have loved to ask her, but the queen's mercy is a fragile thing like a bubble floating on the air. If you poked at it too much it would simply burst and cease to be. I would not prod this piece of kindness. I would simply accept it.

Chapter 33

WE WERE BACK IN THE BLACK COACH WHEN THE DARKNESS STILL pressed against the sky, but there was a feel of dawn on the air, almost like the taste of salt in the air near the sea. You couldn't see it, but all the same you knew it was there. Dawn was coming, and I for one was% glad. There were things in the Unseelie Court that could not come out in the light of day, things that Cel could send after me, though Doyle thought it doubtful that the prince would try anything else tonight. But technically Cel's punishment wouldn't begin until tomorrow night, so the three months had not yet begun. Which meant that when the men went to pack, they'd gotten all their weapons. Frost practically clanked when he walked. The others were a little more subtle, but not by much.

Frost's great sword Geamhradh Po'g-Winter Kiss-was propped between him and the car door. Even strapped to his back, the sword was too long to wear sitting in a car. It wasn't a killing weapon like Mortal Dread, but it could steal a fey's passion, leaving them cold and barren as a winter snow. There had been a time when to be passionless, without his or her spark, would have frightened a fey more than death.

Doyle drove and Rhys rode in front with him. Doyle had ordered Rhys to ride in back with the rest of us, but Frost had insisted that he be allowed in the back. That had been... odd.

Now he sat in the far corner of the. seat, pressed against the door, spine stiff, all that silver hair shimmering in the dimness. Galen sat on the other side. Most of his wounds were almost healed, and the ones that weren't were hidden under fresh jeans. He'd put on a white tank top underneath a pale green dress shirt. The shirt was tucked into his jeans but unbuttoned so the heavy ribbed material of the tank top showed. The only thing that remained of the court was the knee-high boots of soft, soft hide, dyed a deep forest green. The braid that decorated the tops of the boots dangled down in two beaded strings, making them look very Native American. The brown leather jacket that he'd had for years was folded across his knees.