A Stroke Of Midnight   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

“I’ve seen your true face, Queen Niceven,”he said. “Your glamour won’t work on me now, not even with it pushing at me like some sort of wall.”

“Yes,” Nicca said, “I’ve never felt any of the demi-fey this strongly before.”

“The demi-fey are the essence of faerie,” Doyle said. “As faerie grows in power, so will they, apparently.” He didn’t sound entirely happy about it.

Niceven turned to him. “Why, Darkness, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were afraid of us, too.”

“My memory is as long as yours, Niceven.” The cryptic statement seemed to please her.

“You’re afraid to bring us back into our full power, and here the princess has bargained to help us do just that. Irony is sweet when it is on the right foot.”

“Be careful how much irony you enjoy, Niceven, too much irony can be bad for you.”

“Darkness, is that a threat?” Her voice didn’t sound gentle at all now.

“A warning,” he said.

“Am I important enough for the Queen’s Darkness to threaten? My, we have moved up at court.”

“You’ll know when Doyle threatens you, little queen,” Frost said.

She bobbed in the air, and again because of Sage, I knew it was their version of a stumble. “I am not afraid of Darkness.”

Frost leaned into her, the way you’d intimidate someone by invading their personal space. Some of the effect was ruined by her wings and her size, but not all of it.

“I am not afraid of the Killing Frost either,” she said.

“You will be,” he said.

And that was how the negotiations began. They ended with a crowd of wingless demi-fey inside my room, and none of the sidhe happy about it. Niceven’s idea was that perhaps it had been Sage’s continuing to feed from sidhe blood that had done the damage. I couldn’t argue her logic. If I didn’t like Royal after tonight, I could choose one of the others, but all of them got to be in the room. We compromised, but she wouldn’t tell us what she knew of the Seelie Court until after we had fed Royal. Tomorrow, she promised, if she had fed off him and scoured out our magic from his flesh. Tomorrow, we might learn some of the secrets of the Seelie Court. Tonight, we had to pay for those secrets in blood, and flesh, and magic. And, as usual, someone would be tasting my blood, taking a bit of my flesh. Where was a stunt double when you needed one?



CHAPTER 27

RHYS PACED BY THE BATHTUB, THOUGH THERE WAS PRECIOUS little room for pacing.