A Caress Of Twilight   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

Galen came to the still-open door from the living room. "I wish to be cured, but not at any price." His usual smile was gone, his face somber.

"Enough of this," I said, voice soft, not angry.

They all turned to me. I glimpsed the rest of the men, including Nicca, crowding just outside the doorway. "I bargained with Niceven, not Doyle. And I alone bargained for Galen's cure. The price for that cure was my blood."

Sage fluttered over the bed, not quite over Kitto and me. "One drink of your blue blood, one cure for your green knight, as my queen has bid me." His voice wasn't the ring of bells anymore. It was almost normal, small, thin, but a man's voice.

His dark eyes had become flat and black like the eyes of a doll. There was nothing particularly friendly on that pretty toy-size face.

I held up a hand, and he alit upon it. He was heavier than he looked, more solid. I remembered Niceven being lighter, more bone than muscle. She felt as cadaverous as she looked. Sage was. . meatier, or rather his slender body held more substance than Niceven's seemed to.

His wings went still, showing them as huge perfect butterfly wings. They fanned softly as he stared at me. I wondered if the wings beat in time to his heart.

His butter yellow hair was shaggy, thick, straight, falling in careless strands around his triangular face. The hair brushed his shoulders in places. There was a time when Andais would have punished him for letting his hair grow so long. Only the sidhe men were allowed to have hair long as a woman's. It was a mark of status, royalty, privilege.

His hands were no bigger than the fingernail on my smallest finger. He put one of those hands on his slender waist, the other hanging by his side, one foot in front of the other, a defiant pose.

"If we are given privacy, then I will take payment and give you the cure for your knight." He sounded petulant.

It made me smile, and the smile made his face fill with hatred. "I am not a child to be looked upon with indulgence, Princess. I am a man." He made a sweeping gesture with both hands. "A small one by your reckoning, but I am still male. I do not appreciate being looked upon as you would smile upon a naughty child."

It was almost exactly what I'd been thinking, that he looked cute standing there so defiant, so tiny. I had been treating him like a doll, or a toy, or a child.

"I apologize, Sage, you are correct. You are fey and you are male, size notwithstanding."

He frowned at me.