by Jocelyn Fox
“You sent the fendhionne as an assassin,” said Tess. For a moment, she thought Mab would deny it. For a moment, she thought that perhaps Mab would show some sort of remorse. But the Unseelie Queen merely tilted her head and clicked her talons again.
“I underestimated you,” she murmured, her eyes hooded.
Tess felt a smile tugging at her own lips and she let it expand. “You’ve been underestimating me since my first day in your Court.”
“You are right in that, and I shall have to remedy my error,” said the Unseelie Queen.
A low, rumbling growl vibrated through the floor of the pavilion. Tess didn’t look away from Mab, but she felt bolstered by the sound of Kianryk’s warning.
“If you wish to threaten the Lady Bearer, perhaps it would be wiser to do so in a less public setting,” said Vell in a hard voice.
“You are the one naming it a threat, Vyldretning,” said Mab, still staring at Tess.
Tess suddenly understood what she had to do. “In light of what I learned about your attempt on my life,” she said clearly to the Unseelie Queen, “I deem our agreement invalid. I do not find myself bound by any terms to give you the Lethe stone.”
“What proof have you, to question the word of a Queen?” demanded Mab, suddenly seeming taller and brighter and more terrible in her anger.
“I have my word,” said Tess. She looked at Vell and then at Titania. “I swear on my honor as the Bearer that I was told by the fendhionne that Queen Mab had ordered her to kill me in the mortal world.”
“Your word,” said Mab, almost sneering.
“And my word,” came a voice from the eastern side of the pavilion. Calliea strode halfway toward the table from the entrance she had been guarding, one hand resting on her coiled golden whip.
“And my word!” Haze announced from his place hovering over the council table, his aura sparking and crackling.
“How much are those words worth?” said Mab. “A deserter from her Court and a Glasidhe. Their words would hold any weight against mine?” She spread her hands, her black talons glinting.
Gray’s eyes flashed at the insult to her cousin and she took half a step forward, but Vell shook her head slightly and Gray held her place.
“Why would we spin a tale such as this?” asked Tess calmly.
“To keep the Lethe stone from me,” replied Mab. The snow thickened around her. Her blood red lips looked like a wound in the white of the miniature blizzard.
“Enough,” said Queen Titania. Like the sun appearing over the horizon, golden light swept through the pavilion, filling it with warmth and brilliance. A small pocket of snow remained around Queen Mab, but the rest of her wintry fury melted into rivulets of water snaking across the marble floor.
“I believe that the Bearer has the right to consider her agreement with Queen Mab null and void, considering the circumstances,” said Titania with velvet smoothness and perfect sweetness.
“You would believe anything if it would inflict trouble upon me,” said Mab, her words almost a snarl but her icy mask of beauty still in place.
“The Lady Bearer did not say that she would not be agreeable to allowing someone to use the Lethe stone to help the Crown Princess,” the High Queen said. Tess didn’t miss the wince that traveled quickly over Finnead’s face. She wondered how much of his time and energy he’d spent trying to heal the Princess during her time in the mortal world.
Mab’s gaze snapped to Vell. “And now it becomes clearer, this alliance against me.”
“It is not an alliance against you,” said Vell. “We are, after all, attempting to heal your sister.”
For an instant, Mab’s face twisted into a visage of cruelty and fury. Then, just as quickly, she regained control, her beautiful façade sliding back into place. “Too long have I ignored the words of those plotting against me.” Mab looked at Titania, Vell and Tess, each in turn. “No more. You will answer for this.”
And with that, Queen Mab turned in a whirl of frost and snow, stalking away from the council table, the only sound in the pavilion Kianryk’s low growl rumbling after the heels of her Knights.
Tess took a deep breath and turned to Vell. “What now?”
Chapter 3
Ross couldn’t deny the sober mood in the house on the morning after the bone sorcerer’s escape. She slipped out from beneath the warm covers, leaving Duke still sleeping soundly – although he immediately shifted to sprawl across the entire expanse of the bed. The gray light of early morning filtered through the curtains of the bedroom window as Ross pulled on a sweatshirt and padded toward the kitchen, closing the door quietly behind her. Niall still slept in the exact same position that she’d left him. May raised her head from where she’d taken her guard position across the threshold of the front door, her dark eyes following Ross into the kitchen. The Malinois yawned hugely, stood and stretched.
Ross let the last threads of sleep drift away from her mind as she opened the cabinet and found the ground coffee. She and Vivian had a rule: no coffee grinders if the other was still sleeping or before eight a.m. on weekends. So, while they both preferred freshly ground coffee, they kept a sealed stainless steel container of grounds for early mornings and the sake of courtesy. While the little house had received a light renovation after Vivian had inherited it, nothing had changed in the layout, which Vivian optimistically described as “cozy.” To Ross, that just meant that she was going to wake up as soon as Vivian stepped into the kitchen on the rare occasions that her roommate awoke before her…or arrived home in the early hours of the morning. She finished pouring the water into the machine’s reservoir and set the carafe on the warmer. The comforting purr and hiss of the brewing coffee reassured her that although her world had been upended over the past few days, she could still depend on small, normal things like a cup of coffee in the morning.
As she waited for the coffee to finish brewing, Ross filled Mayhem’s water bowl and said good morning to her dog.
“I hope you didn’t pick up too many bad habits from that wolf,” she murmured fondly as she rubbed behind the dog’s black ears and May closed her eyes in an expression of canine bliss. Mayhem just grinned at her as if to say: And so what if I did? Ross chuckled and then froze guiltily as Niall shifted on the couch. She stepped over to the other side of the kitchen, looking over the low counter into the living room. Niall had just thrown an arm over his eyes as though to fend off the light beginning to slip around the curtains of the living room windows.
Ross had almost finished her first coffee by the time Duke joined her. She poured him a mug of coffee and he blearily drank it black, downing it in less than two minutes despite her bemused glance. After she poured him his second cup, he seemed to actually open his eyes and grinned at her amused expression.
“First cup is really only to knock the dust off,” he said in a low voice, one hand slipping around her waist. “Second cup is what really gets the gears going.”
She chuckled and gave him a quick kiss. “I thought I got your gears going.”
“Well,” he said with a half grin, “I mean, certain parts of you…” His hand drifted from her waist. Ross raised an eyebrow and smiled.
“If you two are gonna keep feelin’ each other up, could you at least move so you’re not blocking the coffee?” Jess said drolly.
“You’re supposed to be on watch,” pointed out Duke
“Everyone’s sleeping like a baby in there and I smelled coffee,” said the older man. “Now, either move out of the way or I’m going to have to join in, I guess.”
“You are such a killjoy,” muttered Duke, snatching his coffee mug from the counter and stalking over to the kitchen table.
“Your watch,” Jess said with a smile as he poured his coffee.
Ross suppressed her smile as Duke gave a long-suffering sigh, heaved himself up from the table and transited through the kitchen like a condemned man going to the gallows.
“Being a little dramatic, aren’t you?” said Ross.
“Just keep checking his clotting,” said Jess. “Started bleeding twice but I think he might finally be over that particular hill now.”
“We don’t even know what we can use on him,” said Ross. Even though it had only been a few days since she’d been introduced to the Sidhe, she felt her thoughts traveling down a well-worn path. In some ways, it wasn’t much different than figuring out what to use on a patient with an allergy or a heart condition, but the combination of the familiar with the fantastic magical elves from another world made her shake her head.
“I picked up a few things when we were in their world,” said Duke. “Both of us did, I think. I mean, if you were payin’ attention,” he added, directing his words towards Jess.
Jess took a slow sip of coffee and said, “When have you known me not to pay attention?”
Duke raised his coffee mug in a sort of salute. “True, you’ve got eyes in the back of your head.” He sighed and topped off his coffee. “Bring me some breakfast?” he asked Ross in a piteous voice.
“Don’t make it sound like you’re going to starve,” she said.
“Please?” Duke added hopefully.
“All right, since you asked nicely,” she relented. Duke grinned happily as he disappeared in the direction of Vivian’s bedroom.
Ross checked on Niall again. The Seelie man hadn’t moved. She frowned and looked at Jess. “I would’ve thought that maybe all of our voices would have woken him up.”
“He said he gave part of his life force to Forin,” said Jess with a slight shrug. “If I had to guess, I’d say that takes something out of a person.”
Ross took a sip of coffee and decided to change the subject. “Did Vivian sleep well?”
“Yes,” Jess replied simply.
Putting her mug down on the counter, Ross carefully began to extract a cast iron skillet from one of the kitchen cabinets. She put it on the burner, but then she hesitated as something nudged at her mind, something she should remember. Jess stepped around her and gently took the cast iron skillet from her grasp.
“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” he said. “Iron, remember?”
“That’s what it was,” said Ross, nodding. She took out a copper pan instead. The physical motions of preparing breakfast soothed her just as the sound of the coffee brewer had reassured her. “So,” she asked Jess as the kitchen filled with the smell of the bacon sizzling in the pan, “you have a family, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Jess replied quietly.
She glanced at him and then turned back to the food. “You going to go let them know you’re not really dead?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said after a moment filled with the sounds of cooking.
“Why not?” She picked up the spatula and flipped the pieces of bacon in the pan.
Jess shifted, leaning against the counter. She waited. That was how it was with Duke and the men who worked with him. She didn’t demand answers from them, but she asked questions and waited silently until they either answered or changed the subject. Sometimes all they really needed was someone to ask the question.
“Well,” Jess said slowly as Ross pulled the carton of eggs out of the refrigerator. “I figure it’s been a year. They’ve done the funeral or the memorial service or whatever they decided to do.” He paused and took another sip of coffee. “And maybe it’s better in a way.”
Ross paused as she was about to crack an egg into a ceramic bowl. “Why would you think that?”
Jess smiled slightly. “It’s not easy to have someone like me as a husband or a father.”
“Well, first of all,” said Ross quietly, “your wife made that choice when she married you.”
“My girls didn’t choose me for their father,” said Jess. “I love them and would do anything for them, but it’s still tough. And as for their mother…she did make that choice to marry me, and then she divorced me three years ago.”
“Oh. Um, well, I’m sorry that happened to you.”
Jess nodded. “It was pretty nasty. She got full custody of the girls since, well, how was I going to be around for them? I considered getting out, but I thought maybe it was better for the girls to be with their mom anyway.” He shrugged. “Besides, what would that leave me with? If they chose to go with their mom, and I didn’t have work anymore…that’s my life.”
Ross opened a drawer and searched for a whisk to beat the eggs, listening and thinking that this was the most that she’d ever heard Jess talk at once. She didn’t want to break the spell.
“Ava was pretty mad at me about the divorce,” he continued in a softer voice, staring at some point over the edge of his mug. “My oldest. She’d be eighteen now. Probably headed to college. She was looking at the Ivy Leagues.”
“So she inherited your good looks and her brains from somewhere else,” said Ross, smiling.
“You could say that,” replied Jess with a chuckle. “So I don’t know, she’s probably moved on. But Lily, she’d be sixteen now, and we…we were close.” He cleared his throat.
“You think she’d want to know that you’re still around?” Ross transferred the bacon onto a plate lined with paper towels, turning her head to let Jess know that she was still listening but she wasn’t going to pry or try to call him out on being emotional. “It’s a pretty big deal, and that’s an understatement. As far as she knows, you’re dead.”
“She’d want to know,” conceded Jess. “But…how can I ask her to keep that secret from her mother and sister? I feel like it’s all or nothing.”
“Maybe,” said Ross slowly, “you can frame it as her choice.” She poured the eggs into the pan.
“That’s an interesting thought,” said Jess.
“Who’s choosing what thought?” yawned Vivian. “Mmmmm, bacon.” She took a piece of bacon directly from the plate despite Ross’s disapproving look.
“Just talking about life,” said Ross vaguely.
“Making more coffee,” said Jess at the same time.
Vivian munched on her piece of bacon and narrowed her eyes suspiciously at them, the effect ruined somewhat by her comically unruly thicket of wildly curly red hair. Then she shrugged and popped the rest of the bacon into her mouth. “As long as there’s coffee involved.”
Ross offered a clean plate to Jess and handed him a spoon for the scrambled eggs. “You know there’s always coffee involved if I can help it,” she said to Vivian, and then she turned back to the serious conversation. “What I mean by her choice, Jess, is that…I mean, I could be the go-between.” She cringed mentally at how it sounded but there was no help for it now. “Or if not me, since you don’t really know me all that well, then someone else,” she continued doggedly.
Jess stopped scooping scrambled eggs onto his plate and looked searchingly at Ross, an unreadable expression on his world-wise face. “You’d do that?” he asked finally.
“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it,” Ross replied, holding his eyes with her own. Damn, he had one of those piercing gazes that felt like he could see straight clear down to her soul. In her experience, only people who had really seen ugliness and pain and come out the other side of the maelstrom were capable of producing such a searing look. Jess nodded once, almost imperceptibly, and then turned back to choosing a few pieces of bacon for his breakfast.
“How did you sleep?” Ross asked Vivian.
“Suspiciously well,” replied Vivian. She looked at the bacon and eggs then down at the coffee mug now held in her good hand, her lips thinning unhappily as she realized she couldn’t hold her coffee and serve herself bacon at the same time.
“I got it,” said Ross, grabbing a clean plate. “Just tell me when.”
“You’re a true friend,” said Vivian, taking a sip from her mug and watching as Ross piled eggs and bacon onto her plate.
“Well, you did throw one of the spell orbs at the bone sorcerer,” sai
d Ross. “Even if I still think it was a serious error in judgment, you get points for badassery.”
“Badassery,” repeated Vivian musingly, grinning into her coffee cup. Then she sobered. “Speaking of the spell orb…how’s Ramel? And Forin?” She took another sip of coffee. “And Niall.”
“I’m going to check on Ramel after I finish eating,” said Jess from the table, “but last I checked he was stable. Slow going, but steady.”
Ross carried Vivian’s plate over to the table. “Do you want me to put your hair in a ponytail?”
“Please,” said Vivian with grateful enthusiasm. “I never realized how many things required two hands until now.”
“That’s usually how it goes,” said Ross as she gathered Vivian’s wild mane with both hands and wrangled it into a ponytail.
“Oh that’s right,” Vivian said, “I forgot, you know, too, from your arm.”
Jess glanced at Ross and raised an eyebrow. Ross finished tying back Vivian’s hair and then pulled up her sleeve, showing Jess the ropy scar around her bicep. Once upon his time, his intent gaze on the raised white flesh that wrapped around her arm like a misshapen tentacle would have made the blood rush to her face and a pit open in her stomach. But now she let him look.
“Shrapnel from a blast?” he asked quietly.
She let her sleeve fall back over the scar and nodded. “Almost two years ago now.”
“Any nerve damage?” Jess asked.
Ross took a breath and reminded herself that a few moments ago, Jess had been telling her about his personal life. The least she could do was answer a few innocuous questions about her scar. “A little bit, but nothing major. Didn’t affect my fine motor functions after rehab, so that’s good.”
Jess grunted an agreement and turned his attention back to demolishing his food. Ross dished out her own breakfast, forcing herself to eat even though she felt significantly less hungry than when she’d started cooking. Despite her lack of appetite, she finished her food before Vivian and Jess, setting her plate in the sink. She walked back to Vivian’s room, opening the door slowly.