A Lick Of Frost   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

Nelson paled under her tasteful makeup. "A jury of their peers?" she repeated softly.

"Could a human juror truly understand being in two places on the same date?" Farmer asked.

The lawyers looked at each other. Only Veducci didn't share in the confusion. I think he'd already thought of all of this. Technically, his job description made him less powerful than Shelby or Cortez, but he could help them hurt us. Of everyone on the opposing side, Veducci was the one I wanted to win over the most.

"We're here today to try to avoid this going to a jury," Biggs said.

"If they attacked this woman then, at the very least," Shelby said, "they must be confined to faerie."

"You would have to prove their guilt before you could get a judge to meet out a punishment," Farmer said.

"Which leads us back to the fact that none of us really want this to go to court." Veducci's quiet voice fell into the room like a stone thrown into a flock of birds. The other lawyers' thoughts seemed to scatter like those birds, flying up in confusion.

"Don't be giving our case away before we've even begun," Cortez said, not sounding happy with his colleague.

"This isn't a case, Cortez, this is a disaster we're trying to avert," Veducci said.

"A disaster for whom, them?" Cortez said, pointing at us.

"For all of faerie, potentially," Veducci said. "Have you read your history about the last great human-faerie war in Europe?"

"Not recently," Cortez said.

Veducci looked around at the other lawyers. "Am I the only one here who read up on this?"

Grover raised his hand. "I did."

Veducci smiled at him as if he were his favorite person in the world. "Tell these intelligent people how the last great war started."

"It began as a dispute between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts."

"Exactly," Veducci said. "And then spilled over all the British Isles and part of the continent of Europe."

"Are you saying that if we don't mediate these charges the courts will go to war?" Nelson said.

"There are only two things that Thomas Jefferson and his cabinet made unforgivable offenses for the fey on American soil," Veducci said. "They are never again to allow themselves to be worshipped as deities, and they are never to have a war between the two courts. If either of those things happen they will be kicked out of this, the last country on earth that would have them."

"We know all this," Shelby said.