Not all shape-shifters were part of Maelgwn's house, but no one who called him master had not at some time been able to call animal form. Few could still do it. Another magic lost like so many others.
The thought made me look for Doyle. He was still at the far doors. Had he sniffed out the would-be killer? Did he know whose magic had nearly destroyed Andais and her guard? I wanted him to come to me, to tell me, but we were all playing our parts. We were letting the court believe he'd begged to return to Andais, and he was being punished by being put on door duty, far from the throne. Farther from the throne meant farther from royal favor, and that was never good. It was the only way to get him near the doors, close to everyone who had entered, without arousing suspicion. But how long did we have to pretend before the queen gestured for him to come forward?
I fought not to tense under the fanning wings, the tiny hands and feet. I wanted to brush them all away and call Doyle to me. I wanted to end this. But Andais had always liked to draw out her vengeance. I was more the kill-them-and-get-it-over-with type. Andais liked to play.
The tiny white fey, now scarlet from head to foot, leaned in toward my face and said in her bell-like voice, "Why so tense, Princess? Still afraid we'll take a bite?" She laughed, and most of the others laughed with her; some like the ringing of bells, some hissing like snakes, and others strangely human in tone. They rose in a laughing cloud, all stained-glass wings and blood-covered bodies, as if carrion birds had mated with butterflies.
Andais's voice resounded through the room, not in a ringing tone like an actor's but just conversationally, as if it was no effort at all for her voice to fill every corner. "And what would you give, Maelgwn, for your house to regain its abilities?"
"What do you mean, O Queen?" he said, and his voice still chided, but his eyes held something more cautious.
She looked down the center of the room until her gaze found Doyle. She called out, "Darkness, show him what I mean."
The queen's nerves were better than mine. I'd have made Doyle come and give me his news, his accusation, but instead she'd make a show of his traveling the length of the hall. Or perhaps it was that she was more fey than I was. Most fey are not a practical people. They will make a joke or play a game on the way to the gallows. It is their way, and one thing I lack. I wanted to scream at her to just get down to business. But I kept my seat, and my mouth, and let her unfold the events as she wished. In that moment, I wished I had not told her that some of the men's powers had returned. If she had not known about Doyle's return to power, this particular display would have waited.
Doyle pushed away from the doors, gliding down the center of the room, but he did not change. He simply walked to us while the court watched, at first in silence, then in a growing murmur of half-heard comments and laughter. By the time Doyle reached the dais, the queen was scowling at him.
He knelt in front of the dais, more in front of her throne than mine. Which was fine: It was her court.
Maelgwn said, "I think my house already has the power to walk the length of the throne room, my queen." He did not laugh outright, but it was there in the edge of his voice.
Doyle spoke, "I ask permission to give my weapons for safekeeping."
"Why should I give you permission for anything, Darkness? You have failed me once already tonight."
"Many of the enchanted objects that were lost years ago, went during a shifting of form." He undid his belt that held both his twin daggers, as well as his black-hilted sword. The daggers were nicknamed Snick and Snack. Once they'd had other names, but I'd never heard them. They hit whatever target they were thrown at. The sword was Black Madness, Bainidhe Dub. If any hand but Doyle's tried to wield it, they would be struck permanently mad. Or at least that was the legend. I'd seen the weapons used only once before, against the Nameless. I had not gotten to see all their powers in one battle. He slid the belt out from the loops of his shoulder holster with its very modern nonmagic gun. He left the gun in place, the shoulder holster flapping a little loose without the belt to hold it down.
He knelt with the weapons belt in his lap. "In the Western Lands I was wearing no weapons when the change came upon me. All that I was wearing vanished, and did not return with my human form. I would not risk the loss of these blades." He spoke low, and only those closest to the dais would have heard him.
The queen's anger faded under Doyle's caution. "Wise, as always, my Darkness. Do as you see fit."
He rose to his feet and walked up the steps with the belt and its precious weight held in his hands. Then he did what he had never done in my memory. He laid a kiss upon her cheek, and I was close enough and at an angle to see him whisper in her ear. The only reaction Andais gave was a knowing smile. It left the impression that Doyle had whispered something nefarious in her ear.
He moved to me then, and laid the same gentle kiss against my cheek. I had only moments to decide what my face would show, for I was not the actress that my aunt was. I'd already decided that if I could not control my face, I would hide it.
He whispered against my ear, "Nerys reeks of the spell."
I turned my head in against his so that my face was nestled in the bend of his neck. I drew in the rich scent of his skin, the warmth of him, and hid my shock. Of all the ones it could have been, Nerys was not on my list.
She was simply Nerys —it meant "lord" or "lady" —and though head of her own house, she had lost enough magic that she had given up her true name and adopted something that was more title than name. But she was not a creature of politics. She and her house were as close to neutral as any of the sixteen houses of the Unseelie Court. Nerys and her people were not fond of Cel, or of anyone. They gave the queen her due, but no more. They were cautious and kept to themselves, and were powerful enough to get away with it. The attack on the queen had been rash, so unlike Nerys. If it had been anyone but Doyle telling me this, I might have doubted him, but I could not doubt Doyle. I was glad that my face was buried against his neck, though, because I could not have fought off the surprise.
He seemed to understand that, because he leaned into me until I touched his shoulder, gently, let him know that I had my face politically correct. I would not look at Nerys and her people. I would not give it away before it was time.
He leaned back from me, and his dark eyes asked, without words, if I was up to this. I gave a small nod and a smile. I was his lover, but I could not make my smile as lascivious as the queen had made hers. He laid his blades in my lap, giving up the pretense that he had come back to Andais. Of course, I don't believe that any of them, except perhaps Eamon, would have put their most precious weapon in the hands of the queen. For some of them, it had been years since she'd let them even hold the last of their own magic. They would not have given the weapons back to her, for fear she would keep them. In that moment, Doyle showed not just his trust but also that I could be trusted to share, and not merely to take.
He took his gun out of its holster and handed it to Frost. "It's a good gun," he said.
Frost actually smiled.
Rhys said, "And hard to come by in faerie."
Doyle nodded.
I had a moment to wonder if Doyle was up to this demonstration, but then he strode to the farthest edge of the dais, took a running start, and launched himself out into the air. He was obscured for a moment by a black mist that folded in upon itself, and he was flying out over the court with huge feathered wings, as black as his skin.
There were gasps and sounds of pleasure, as if some of the court were enjoying the show. The black eagle circled once, then came to the center of the room and began to flap its way to the floor, but before those great talons landed, the wings seemed to dissolve into mist, and it was great black hooves that struck the stones and pranced a few steps among the tables. The great black stallion walked to Maelgwn's table and looked at the wolf lord with Doyle's dark eyes. Either the mist rose up again, or the horse became the black mist, and it dissolved into the black mastiff that I had seen be
fore. The huge dog panted at Maelgwn. Even sitting, the dog was tall enough to see over the table and meet Maelgwn's gaze.
The wolf lord gave a motion somewhere between a nod and a bow. It seemed to satisfy the dog, because it charged toward the dais. The great paws hit the steps and bounded up to sit next to me. The dog sat beside the arm of my throne, and I reached out to stroke that soft fur without thinking about it.
The mist rose up, and it felt as cool as it smelled, like breathing in rain deep in the forest. My hand tingled with magic as Doyle's body grew and shifted. There was no sliding of bones and flesh as there had been in California. Even with my hand lost in the black mist, it felt light and effervescent, like bubbles or electricity against my skin. Doyle was just kneeling beside my throne in human form, nude, with his long black hair lying in a dark pool at his feet.
My hand was still on his face, stroking his human cheek as I'd been stroking the dog's seconds before.
I wanted to compliment him, but I didn't dare let the court know that I'd never seen such an effortless performance.
"Most impressive," Maelgwn said, and there was nothing but seriousness left in his voice. "I don't remember you being a bird."
"I was not," Doyle said.
"So you have gained what was lost, and added to your powers besides."
Doyle nodded, my hand still playing in the thick fall of his hair.
"How has this miracle come to pass?" Maelgwn asked.
"A kiss," Doyle said.
"A kiss," Maelgwn repeated. "What does that mean?"
"You know a kiss," Rhys said from behind me, "you just pucker up your lips..."
"I know what a kiss is," Maelgwn interrupted. "What I don't know is how a kiss has brought about this change in the Darkness."
"Tell him whose kiss brought you back into your powers," Andais said.
"Princess Meredith's kiss," Doyle said, still kneeling by my chair, still with my hand playing in the thick warmth of his hair, tickling along the back of his neck.
"Lies." This from Miniver; she was head of her own house. She was tall and blond and could have passed for Seelie Court, because once she had been. She had come to the Unseelie and fought her way to a position of power, until the tall commanding beauty was the head of her own house in the dark court. That she had preferred to rule in the Unseelie Court, rather than accept exile to the human world, meant that the Seelie Court would never accept her back. Her exile from the shining throng would be eternal. They sometimes took back those who had wandered among the humans, but once you went to the dark court, you were considered unclean.
She stood in front of her throne, a shining thing with her yellow braids sliding over a dress of shimmering gold cloth. A golden circlet graced her brow, over the perfect arch of dark eyebrows and the tri-blue of her eyes. She had never adopted the darker colors favored by Andais and her court. Miniver dressed as if she expected to walk into a different court.
"Did you say something, Miniver?" Andais said, and by merely leaving off any title she had insulted the golden figure. It was a warning. A warning to sit down and shut up.
"I said, and I say again, that it is a lie. No mortal could bring anyone into his power."
"She is a princess of the sidhe, and that makes her a little more than a mere mortal," Andais said.
Miniver shook her head, sending those heavy yellow braids sliding along the gold of her dress. "She is mortal, and you should have drowned her when she was six, as you tried to. It was weakness for your brother that stopped your hand."
She spoke as if I could not hear her, as if I were not sitting there alive in the same room with her now.
"My brother, Essus, once told me that Meredith would make a better queen than my own son, Cel, would make a king. I did not believe it then."
"At least Cel is not mortal," Miniver said.
"But Cel has not brought back a single drop of the power we have lost. Nor have I," Andais said, and there was no teasing to her now. There was no showmanship.
"And you would have us believe that this half-breed mortal has done what pure sidhe blood has not?" Miniver pointed at me in what I thought was an overly dramatic gesture, but it did show the sleeve of her dress to perfection, flashing the slits of cloth open so that the blue cloth of the underdress showed through. Sometimes if you've lived nearly forever, you think overly long about how things appear. "This abomination cannot be allowed on the throne, Queen Andais."
I thought abomination was a little harsh, but I said nothing, for in a way it wasn't me she'd challenged, it was the queen.
"I say who will and who will not sit on the throne of this court, Miniver."
"Your obsession with a hereditary monarchy of your own bloodline will be the death of us all. We have all seen what happens on the dueling ground when one of us shares blood with that thing. They become mortal through the disease that her blood carries."
"Mortality is not a disease," Andais said, quietly.
"But it kills like one." Miniver looked out over the court, and there were a lot of faces turned to her. Many showed by either silence or nodding that they agreed with at least this much. They, too, had worried about my blood. "If this mortal becomes queen, then we are honor-bound to take blood oath from her, to bind us to her. To take blood oath, very much as we take on the dueling ground." Miniver looked up at Andais, and there was something close to pleading on her face. "Don't you see, my queen, if we take her blood into us and bind ourselves to her mortal peril, then we could lose our own immortality? We would cease to be sidhe."
It was Nerys who stood up and said, "We would cease to be anything."
Three, then four others of the noble houses of the Unseelie stood. They stood and showed their support for what Miniver had said. Six houses out of sixteen stood against me. That was something we had not foreseen. Or I had not.
Doyle had gone very still under my hand. All my men had gone very still, except the goblins at my feet and the Red Cap at my back. Either immortality didn't mean the same thing to them as it did to the sidhe, or other things were happening with the goblins. Things I had not quite grasped.
"I say who will be my heir," Andais said, "unless you wish to challenge me to personal combat, Miniver, Nerys, all of you. I will gladly fight you each in turn, and this arguing will cease."
Miniver shook her head. "Your answer to everything is death and violence, Andais. It has led us to be childless and near powerless, but our immortality, you cannot have that."
"Then challenge me, Miniver. Make yourself queen, if you can."
If Miniver's anger could have flown across the room and struck Andais, the queen would have died where she sat, but Miniver's anger did not have that kind of power. The day when the fey, any fey, could have killed with simply an angry thought was centuries past.
Andais looked at Nerys. "You, Nerys, do you wish to be queen? Do you wish it enough to challenge me to a duel? Defeat me and you can be queen."
Nerys just stood there, staring at her with tri-grey eyes that nearly mirrored the queen's own. Nerys's long black hair was done in a series of complicated braids that hung like a heavy cloak at her back. Her dress was white with touches of black in the trim, the belt, the lace at her wrists. She looked cool and collected. There was no sense of outrage that Miniver vibrated with.
"I would never presume to challenge the Queen of Air and Darkness to a duel. It would be suicide." Her voice was quiet, and somehow dark. But there was no anger in it, nothing that could give true offense.
"But attacking me from secret, an assassination attempt, that would not be suicide, would it?" Andais's smile was not pleasant. "Not if you didn't get caught."
Nerys just stood there, looking up at the throne, with no hint of fear, no panic, no anything. If Andais thought she could frighten Nerys into a confession, she was wrong. Nerys was going to force Andais to produce proof. Did she not understand that we had proof? Did she think that with Nuline's death, she was safe?
"Assassination is a pretty
business, so long as you are not discovered." Andais looked down the line of standing nobles, I think so that she did not single Nerys out, but it was like many things tonight, in trying to do one thing, another thing was accomplished.
Miniver began to move through her people to the space between her table and the next. Some of her people touched her arm; she shook her head, and they let her go. She walked out from between the tables, her back ramrod-straight, like something carved of gold and amber.
"Do you have something to say, Miniver?" Andais asked.
"I challenge the princess Meredith to a duel." For someone who had seemed so angry, she was strangely calm as she said it.
People at her table cried, No, do not do this. She ignored them, and kept her Seelie face pointed toward the dais. She never looked at me, only at Andais. She asked for my life, but it was not me she asked it of.
"No, Miniver, it will not be so easy as all that. The princess has had one assassination attempt tonight. We do not need two."
"I would have preferred my spells to work earlier tonight, but if she will not die from a distance, then I will do it here, now."
My face gave nothing away, because it took a few seconds for me to realize what she'd said. Andais looked amused, her eyes glittering.
Doyle had stood, putting himself more in front of me. My other guards moved to shield me from her sight, and whatever she might do. I had to peer between them to see that more of the armored guards spilled around her to form a half circle. She was as tall as any of them, and there was nothing fragile or fearful about that shining figure. She seemed very sure of herself.
"Are you admitting, before the entire court, that you tried to assassinate Princess Meredith earlier tonight?" Andais asked.
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