A Lick Of Frost   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

The spell was forcing Stevens to see nightmares when he looked at us. His mind wasn't coping well with what he was seeing and feeling.

I turned to Veducci. "The ambassador seems ill. Perhaps he should be taken to see a doctor?"

"No," Stevens yelled. "No. Without me here they will take over your minds!" He grabbed Biggs, who was closer. "Without the king's gift you will all believe their lies."

"I think the princess is right, Ambassador Stevens," Biggs said. "I think you are ill."

Stevens's hands dug into the inside-out designer jacket that Biggs was now wearing. "Surely you see them for what they are now?"

"They look like all the sidhe to me. Except for the color of Captain Doyle's skin, and the princess being petite, they look like nobles of the sidhe court."

Stevens shook the bigger man. "The Darkness has fangs. The Killing Frost has skulls hanging from his neck. And she, she is withered, dying. Her mortal blood contaminates her."

"Ambassador…" Biggs began.

"No, you must see it, as I do!"

"They didn't change at all when we turned our jackets inside out," Nelson said. She sounded a little disappointed.

"I told you, we are not doing active glamour on any of you," I said.

"Lies! I see the horror of you." Stevens hid his face against Biggs's broad shoulders, as if he could not bear the sight of us, and perhaps he could not.

"It is easier not to look at them, though," Shelby said.

Cortez nodded. "I can focus better now, but they look the same."

"Beautiful," Cortez's assistant said.

Cortez gave him a sharp look, and the assistant apologized, as if that one word was totally out of line.

Stevens had begun to sob into Biggs's designer suit. "You must get him away from us," Doyle said.

"Why?" one of the others asked.

"The spell on the watch makes him see monsters when he looks at us. I fear his mind will break under the strain of it without King Taranis nearby to ease the effects."

"Can't you just undo the spell?" Veducci asked.

"It is not our spell," Doyle said simply.

"Can't you help him?" Nelson asked.

"I think the less contact with us, the better for the ambassador."

Stevens had seemed to be trying to bury his face into Biggs's shoulder. The ambassador's hands twisted in the seams and lining of the coat.

"Being near us is hurting him," Frost said, speaking for the first time since the introductions. His voice did not have the depth of Doyle's, but the width of his chest gave it weight.

"Get some security up here," Biggs said to Farmer.