A Stroke Of Midnight   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

“I have done nothing,” he said, but the smile wassatisfied now, as if he was happy with the effect he was having on her.

“Step away from her,” Frost said.

“I obey the princess, not you.”

“Step away from her,” I said.

He put on his mocking smile, but his green eyes held some fierce knowledge that I did not understand. But he obeyed. The moment Polaski wasn’t touching his hair, she seemed to blink awake. “Sorry, what were we saying?”

“What’s happening?” I asked Frost.

“He has regained some of his old powers.”

“And that would be?”

“To say someone was like Ivi’s hair was to say that they were compelling, whether you willed it or no. To be caught in ivy meant to be entrapped. To be ivy climbed meant that your lover was destroying you in some way,” Frost said.

“I don’t remember any of these sayings,” I said.

“You would have no reason to know them,” Hawthorne said. “It has been centuries since we spoke of Ivi in this manner.”

“No wonder you look so terribly satisfied,” I said.

“I have gained much simply by being in the hallway with you while you…”

“Enough,” Frost said, “we are not alone.”

Ivi dropped to his knees in front of me. “I would do anything to be in your bed for a night, for an hour.” His eyes weren’t mocking now. His face was as serious as he ever got.

“Get up,” I said.

“The queen likes us on our knees.”

“Well, I don’t.”

I looked at Frost. “Who can she touch without a problem, just in case?”

“Hawthorne will do as he is told, and his enchantment is more active magic,” Frost said.

I nodded. “Hawthorne, go help the doctor demonstrate.”

He went to her, having to walk around the pool of hair that had spread around Ivi’s kneeling body.

“You must choose two of the green men, let me be one of them,” Ivi said.

“Don’t make the princess ask you twice. Get up,” Mistral said.

Hawthorne gave his armored back to the doctor. “I guess the armor doesn’t make a difference for this.” She touched the smooth crimson armor tentatively, then with more assurance, as if she’d expected something to happen. “Beatrice was stabbed here.” She pointed to a place on his back where you’d be almost certain to get the heart. “The knife went in deep.” She left two fingers at the spot where the knife went in, then placed her other hand flat alongside it.