Mistrals Kiss   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

My voice was soft, as if I didn’t want to say it too loudly: “I just thought that there is more than one kind of thyme.”

“And the plants changed,” he said.

I nodded, staring at them. “I didn’t say it out loud, Doyle. I only thought it.”

He hugged me. “I know.”

Mistral and Frost were with Rhys now. They did not approach us, and again I wasn’t sure why. They waited, as if they needed permission to come closer — the way they would have waited to approach Queen Andais.

I thought it was me they waited on, but I should have known better. Sholto said behind me, “The sidhe do not usually stand on ceremony, but if you need permission, then I give it. Come closer.”

Mistral said, “If you could see yourself, King Sholto, you would not ask why we stand on ceremony.”

The comment made me look back at Sholto. He was sitting up, but where he had been lying was an outline of herbs. Peppermint, basil — as I recognized them, I smelled their perfumes. But the herbs spreading out from where he had lain, where we had lain, wasn’t what made the men stop. Sholto was wearing a crown; a crown of herbs. Even as we watched, the delicate plants wove like living fingers through his hair, creating a wreath of thyme and mint. Only the most delicate of the plants, entwining themselves as we watched.

He raised a hand, and the moving plants touched his fingers as they had touched my ankle. I was wearing an anklet of living thyme, gold-flecked leaves, smelling of green life and lemons. The tendril wrapped around his fingers like a happy pet. He lowered his hand and stared at it. The plant wove itself into a ring as we watched — a ring that bloomed on his hand, the delicate spray of white blossoms more precious than any jewel. Then his crown burst into bloom, shades of white, blue, lavender. Finally, the blooms spread across the island, so that the ground was nearly solid with tiny, airy flowers, moving not in a breeze — for there was none — but nodding as if the flowers were speaking to one another.

“A crown of flowers is not a crown for the king of the sluagh!” Agnes shouted, harsh, from the shore. She was on hands and knees, hidden completely under her black cloak. I saw the flash of her eyes, as if there was a glow to them; then she lowered her head, hiding from the light. She was a night-hag. They didn’t travel at noon.

Ivar spoke, but I couldn’t see him. “Sholto, King, we cannot approach you in this burning light.”

His uncles were half-goblin — which, depending on the type of goblin, might make sunlight a problem. But they were also half-night-flyer, and that definitely made sunlight a problem.