A Lick Of Frost   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

I watched him play with the watch, and a tiny bit of concentration showed that there was magic on it, or in it. I answered for him, "It means he thinks the Unseelie Court is full of perversion and monsters."

They were all looking at him now. If it had been purposeful glamour on our part, they wouldn't have. "Is that true, Ambassador?" Shelby asked.

"I would never say such a thing."

"But he believes it," I said, softly.

"We'll all make a note of this, and make sure the proper authorities know of your gross dereliction of your duties," Shelby said.

"I am loyal to King Taranis and his court. It is not my fault that Queen Andais is a sexual sadist, and quite mad. She and her people are dangerous. I have said so, for years, and no one has listened to me. Now we have these charges, proving what I have been saying."

"So you told your superiors that you feared the queen's guard would rape someone?" Veducci asked.

"Well, I, no, not exactly."

"What did you tell them?" Shelby asked.

"I told them the truth, that I feared for my safety at the Unseelie Court, and that I would not be comfortable there without an armed escort." Stevens stood up, very tall, very certain of himself. He pointed at Frost and Doyle. "Look at them, they are frightening. The potential in them to do carnage, why, it just radiates off of them."

"You keep touching your watch," I said.

"What?" He blinked at me.

"Your watch. King Taranis gave it to you, didn't he?" I asked.

"You accepted a Rolex watch from the king?" Cortez made it a question. He sounded outraged, but not at us.

Stevens swallowed, and shook his head. "Of course not. That would be totally inappropriate."

"I saw him give it to you, Ambassador," I said.

He ran his fingers over the metal. "That's simply not true. She's lying."

"The sidhe don't lie, Ambassador, you know that. That's a human habit."

Stevens's fingers were practically rubbing a hole through the watchband. "The Unseelie are capable of every evil. Their very faces show them for what they are."

It was Nelson who said, "Their faces are beautiful."

"You are fooled by their magic," Stevens said. "The king gave me the power to see through their deceptions." His voice was rising with each word.

"The watch," I said.

"So this," Shelby gestured at me, "beauty is illusion?"

"Yes," Stevens said.

"No," I said.

"Liar," he screamed, shoving his chair back so that it rolled on its wheels. He started walking past Biggs and Farmer, toward me.

Doyle and Frost moved like two halves of a whole.