“Yes. Word is already spreading.” Finn took her arm and steered her down a long corridor toward the main library, where she’d read so many of his books. “Mab has him in a cell in the palace.”
A twist of something cold and hard jolted through her system, but Maggie swallowed it back. In jail, but alive. With her mind full of thoughts of Culhane, she hardly noticed the beauty of the place that had so stunned her on her first visit. “At least she hasn’t killed him.” She grabbed Finn’s arm. “Can she kill him? Aren’t Fae immortal?”
“Yes, they are, and yes, she can kill him.” Finn frowned at her frown and admitted, “I know that sounds contradictory. But cutting off Culhane’s head would certainly kill him, and I wouldn’t for an instant put it past Mab to do it.”
“Oh, God.” Maggie rubbed the base of her own throat and let Culhane’s image rise up in her mind for a long moment. Only a half hour ago she’d been clinging to him tighter than Saran Wrap on a plate of Christmas cookies. Now he was in prison being held by a crazy queen, and Maggie was in Sanctuary preparing to put her possibly really bad plan into play.
They stepped into the cavernous library, and Maggie’s gaze naturally swept the floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with hundreds of thousands of books. The windows lining the walls were, as always in Sanctuary, open to the sky beyond and the warm breezes that swirled through the room. In that sky, white clouds swept majestically past Sanctuary and looked so damned peaceful, Maggie almost resented their very existence.
She’d give a lot at the moment for a little peace in her life. But she wouldn’t get that until she got past this.
“The queen will be in no hurry to kill him, at least,” Finn said, and Maggie was sure he meant that to be reassuring. “She’ll want to make him suffer for a century or two first.”
“God, she’s a piece of work, isn’t she?” Maggie thought of Culhane, the fierce warrior, locked inside a cell, and everything inside her closed up. It would kill him to be shut into a cage. Kill him slowly, eating away at who he was, who he’d been, inches at a time. Her heart hurt for him, and hardened even further toward the queen who would do that to a warrior who had been not only her lover, but her loyal defender for centuries.
Maggie listened to the silence for a minute or two, drawing what strength she could from it. Okay, it wasn’t much. But soon she was going to need all she could get. Plus, the moment she started talking, telling Finn why she was there, there would be no going back. So pardon the hell outta her for delaying a minute or two before setting out on the dead-end road ahead of her.
“Why have you come to me?” Finn asked quietly, and she turned to look at him. “Are you looking for a place to hide from Mab? Because even if you are, you can’t stay here forever, Maggie.”
His blue eyes were shining, and his features were taut yet blank, as if he were waiting to hear what she had to say before deciding how to feel about it. Good idea, actually.
“No, I’m not here to hide.” Although her inner chickenshit whimpered and said, Oooh. Good idea. Let’s do that.
“I have a plan,” she said, shutting down that internal voice and locking her knees to keep them from knocking.
“I’m eager to hear it.” Finn smiled at her, and on a purely feminine level she had to admire the man’s gorgeousness. But right now all she needed was for him to listen to her without bursting into howls of laughter.
As she outlined her half-baked plan, Maggie felt a little better when Finn not only didn’t laugh, but gave her a look filled with admiration.
“It could work,” he said when she was finished.
“Your mouth to God’s ear,” she told him, repeating something her Gran used to say all the time.
“You’ve a courageous soul, Maggie Donovan. Destiny chose well.”
“Let’s hope so.” Maggie took a breath and held it.
“It’s a daring plan,” Finn said. “One no Fae would have come up with.”
“Well, then, let’s hear it for the human.” Maggie sat down in one of the library chairs and pretended it was because she wanted to. The truth was, she wasn’t sure her legs were going to hold her up much longer.
It was fine and good to come up with a plan when you were at home and pissed off and desperate. It was something else again to be standing in Sanctuary about to make it happen. Still . . . the words no choice echoed through her mind, and she inhaled sharply, hoping to ease the swarms of butterflies currently going nuts in her stomach. It didn’t help much.
“When will you go to her?”
“Now,” Finn said. “No point in delaying this if you think you’re ready.”
Ready? Who was ready? Not Maggie. What she was really ready to do was run screaming from Sanctuary and pretend she never heard of Fae or pixies or wizards with kind eyes. Unfortunately, not an option.
“As I’ll ever be.” Her mouth was dry, and when she licked her lips nervously, Finn seemed to understand.
He waved one hand in the air and produced a tall crystal glass filled with water and lemon slices. “Drink this. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She hadn’t even nodded before he blinked out of existence. How strange was it, she wondered, that she was sort of getting used to all of the popping in and out?
Carrying her glass of water, she sipped at it as she made herself stand up and wander around the inside of the library. Most of the floor space was empty, the bookshelves being stacked along the walls. The marble floors veined with shining silver glittered brightly in the light streaming in through the open windows.
The scent of fresh flowers flavored the air, and if she tried, Maggie could almost convince herself that she was in some great European museum, and any minute now a docent would come strolling in, leading a pack of camera-clicking tourists.
But the illusion didn’t last. It kept slamming up against reality. She really hated reality.
“It’s done.”
“CRAP!” She spun around, sloshing her water across the floor as her heart jumped into her throat. “Just when I think I’m getting used to the way you guys travel, one of you scares the hell out of me.”
“Sorry.” The wizard walked up to her, took the glass of water and tossed it into the air. It disappeared as if it had never been.
Easy to do the dishes around here, anyway.
“You saw Mab?” Maggie asked. “What did you say? What did she say?” Why was he just standing there smiling at her?
“I saw the queen. I gave her your message, told her that you were waiting for her here in Sanctuary.”
“And?” She waved her hand, urging him to hurry up already and tell her what was what.
“She was amused.”
“Fabulous,” Maggie muttered.
“But she agreed.”
A rush of something that might have been fear-tinged relief swept through her. “Okay. That’s good. I think. No, I know. It’s good.” She fisted her hands at her sides and nodded again.
Nerves scattered through her at the thought of finally coming face-to-face with the woman destiny had chosen her to defeat. She couldn’t win against Mab on her turf: The woman was far too powerful, and Maggie was a novice. There was no way she’d be able to stay alive, let alone win a fight while trying to match her puny powers against those of a centuries-old queen.
But here, she thought, it was different. In Sanctuary they were on even ground. Here Mab wouldn’t have her powers any more than Maggie would. Here it would be the two of them on more equal terms than Maggie would be able to find anywhere else.
“This is where I have the best shot,” she murmured.
“True.” Finn waited until she looked up at him to continue. “But even without her power Mab has millennia of experience to call on. She’s still a formidable enemy, Maggie. Don’t forget that.”
“Man, you and Bezel with your pep talks. You really know how to get a girl all charged up.”
He smiled faintly and laid one hand on her shoulder. It felt warm, strong and solid, and she
appreciated the effort to reassure her.
“You were meant for this, Maggie. I believe that. As does Culhane.”
Culhane.
Maggie’s mind filled with his image, and a thread of steel snaked along her spine. He thought she could do this. He’d seen to it that she’d been trained. Had learned enough to think that she at least had a shot at this. And because he’d believed in her, he’d been snatched away by his queen and tossed into a dungeon somewhere.
So now it was up to her to convince everyone that he hadn’t been wrong.
And the sooner the better, as far as she was concerned. Much more waiting and she’d be wound so tight she wouldn’t remember a thing she’d learned. “So she’s coming. When?”
“Now.”
A soft voice that rang with authority filled the room, and Maggie turned to watch as Mab, queen of the Fae, walked into the library.
Maggie’d gotten only a glimpse of the queen in the moments before Culhane was pulled away. And that quick look hadn’t been a flattering one.
Now, though, Mab looked every inch a regal Faery. Her features were delicate, her skin as pale as fine porcelain. Her long blond hair swung behind her as she walked with a confident sway. She was tall and thin and looked as fragile as a butterfly. But her eyes told a different story. There Maggie saw strength and a cool deliberation that convinced her she might be in even bigger trouble than she’d thought.
“You are the one who stole the Fae power?” Mab asked, sparing barely a glance at Finn as she honed in on Maggie. “If I’d known how unprepossessing you were, I’d have gone after the power myself and saved my warrior the effort.”
Frowning, Maggie said, “Aw, you’re just saying that to be nice.”
Mab ignored her. “Now you’ve come here. To my world. Why, I wonder? Do you seriously think to conquer me? You, who are nothing more than a mote of dust beneath my feet? You, who are merely human, with a gift you don’t understand? I have ruled for generations. I am Mab, queen of—”
She kept talking, but Maggie sort of zoned out. She’d somehow expected Mab to step into Sanctuary geared up and ready to fight. Instead she was wasting time tossing insults and trying to impress Maggie with how important she was, which wasn’t really working. Maggie was far too nervous, too tangled up inside to be awed.
“. . . I am eternal.” Mab was still talking. “I am feared and respected across the mortal globe. I am—”
“Culhane keeps telling me that I talk too much,” Maggie interrupted, because she’d really rather get this fight over with. “But you haven’t shut up since you walked in.”
Mab’s face flushed with a sudden spurt of temper, and Maggie was glad to see it. If the queen could get pissed, she could be distracted. Hey, any rope you could grab when you were falling was a good one.
“You would dare to speak to me like this?” Mab sniffed, narrowed her eyes and lifted a delicately pointed chin. “You’re nothing. Less than nothing. Why Culhane bothered to linger with you at all is beyond me.”
“I’ll bet a lot of things are beyond you, Mab.”
She hissed.
So she was nothing, huh? Maggie felt her own temper spike and was grateful for it. She liked mad way better than terrified.
“Like, for example,” Maggie taunted, “I bet you missed the fact that you came here all set to squash me like a bug, but didn’t seem to notice that your power got zapped out of you the minute you walked in.”
Startled, Mab flinched visibly for an instant, then recovered as if that slip had never been. Her mouth worked tightly as she started to move in a circle around Maggie. It was as if Finn had disappeared. Neither of the women so much as acknowledged his presence.
This was about the two of them. And Maggie began to move counterclockwise opposite the queen.
“Forgot about that, didn’t you?”
“Do you really believe I would need power to crush you? I don’t.”
Probably not, Maggie thought, but it was good to know she didn’t have the extra bells and whistles.
“Well, I don’t know,” Maggie said, continuing to move, stalking the queen as she herself was being stalked. “I figure if you really could crush me all that easily, you would have already started.”
To one side of them Finn moved into the light streaming through one of the dozen or more open windows. Neither woman so much as glanced at him.
“Why would I rush this?” Mab walked with small, deliberate steps, still every inch a queen—until she stepped into the water Maggie had spilled, and Mab slipped just enough to ruin the effect. Recovering quickly, she frowned. “You’ve gone to so much trouble to get me here, it seems only right that we should make this encounter last.”
“Uh-huh.” Maggie grinned, and that annoyed Mab, too. She could see it. That one small slip in the water on the floor had made the queen seem less omnipotent. Less . . . royal, somehow. So Maggie played Mab’s game, walking in an ever-decreasing circle as her mind raced, trying to remember all the moves Quinn had taught her.
“Culhane’s brought you to this, hasn’t he?” Mab asked, clucking her tongue in feigned sympathy, surprising Maggie enough that her concentrations wavered a bit. Mab saw it and shook her pretty head. “To a fight you don’t want and can’t possibly win. I should have stopped him—for your sake, if nothing else. He’s gone rogue, you see. Can’t be trusted.”
“But you can?” Sarcasm dripped off every word.
“I’m a queen.”
“And they’re always benevolent,” Maggie countered with a laugh.
“Silly child. A queen rules not with benevolence but with authority. Strength. Fear. But between us there doesn’t have to be a battle. Don’t you understand? Culhane brought you to this for reasons of his own. Fostering revolution in my kingdom. Turning the Fae against one another. But he’s been stopped. Jailed.” Her eyes hardened and looked like two flat emeralds, devoid of light. “His cause is finished. So you waste your life by coming to me.”
“You came to me, remember?” Maggie smiled. “Besides, jailed or not, he’s still Culhane.”
“Yes, I suppose he is.” Mab stopped moving, waved one hand and, when nothing happened, hissed out a complaint.
“Oops,” Maggie said with a laugh.
“No matter.” Mab turned to Finn and snapped out an order. “You still have your power. Open a door to the cellar of the palace. Let her see the ‘throne’ her warrior’s earned with his treachery.”
“Jeez . . . are you always this melodramatic?”
Finn glanced at Maggie as if he’d rather not comply with the queen’s command. Then he lifted one hand, and a window into another place opened. This was no portal. This was different. There was no swirl of energy. No blast of heat or cold. This just was. A hole in the room without substance, but still there. Still real.
Maggie looked into it and saw Culhane pacing in a cage with silver bars. A huge man trapped in a too-small cell, and Maggie could feel his raging frustration.
“For crimes of sedition and working with a human against his queen,” Mab said, loudly enough that Culhane apparently heard and stopped pacing to look through the window at them, “the Fenian Culhane will rot in that cell. Eternity spent in a cage.”
When she stopped speaking, Culhane grabbed the bars of his cell and shook them hard enough that the silver clattered—but held. “Maggie!” His voice—loud, frantic—came through clearly, and Mab frowned.
“No call to me? Your queen?” She pouted prettily. “Two hundred years you lie with me, and now you call for your human whore? This is the great Culhane? This is the Fenian warrior of legend?”
She laughed, and though the sound of it was as musical as bells ringing, there was no humor in it. No warmth.
Maggie’d had enough. She moved in behind Mab while the queen was distracted calling insults at her trapped warrior. “You really do talk too much,” she said.
Mab whirled around, and Maggie threw a punch with everything she had. Her fist connected with Mab’s n
ose, and Maggie felt it give. Her hand hurt, but blood was flowing from the queen’s pretty little face, and her look of horrified shock was priceless.
“You strike me? You would dare?”
“Oh yeah.” She threw another punch and caught Mab’s chin. That had the queen spinning around, a less than dainty move, as she stumbled in an ungainly move.
“I am a queen,” Mab shouted as her arms wheeled to regain her balance. Then she lifted one hand to her nose, clearly dumbstruck to see blood. Her own blood. “You don’t lay hands on me.”
“Gonna be a short fight that way,” Maggie countered, and moved in again. Her only hope was to get in as many strikes as she could before Mab recovered enough to fight back.
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