Lightning cracked down the hallway in both directions. It didn’t exactly come out of Mistral’s body, but it came from the glow of him. His body shuddered inside me, and the lightning crashed down the hallway, thunder beating against the stones as if the force of it all would bring the walls down around us. And I didn’t care.
I was trapped under the force and power of his body, blinded, deafened, by the explosion of his magic. My body became light, became magic, became pleasure. I forgot that there was skin to hold me, bones to move me. I simply was the pleasure.
When I was aware of my body again, the weight of Mistral was collapsed on top of me. He was still inside me, but not as hard or solid. He had thrown those wide shoulders to the side, so I wasn’t suffocated under the bulk of him. I could feel his heartbeat thudding through his body as he fought to regain his breath. His hair was its usual grey, and his skin back to its normal slightly off-white, not as pure a color as my own. The armor on the one arm I could see was torn, and blood showed through. I tried to raise my hand to touch the damage, but I couldn’t make that much of my body move yet.
A movement in the hallway beyond us made me turn my gaze to where Doyle and the others had been standing. Doyle was kneeling beside the far wall, dazed. Most of the others were flat on the floor, some immobile. Frost got to all fours, as I watched, shaking his head as if to clear his senses.
Rhys came around the corner with Kitto in tow. He drew his gun, obviously thinking it had been an attack. I couldn’t blame him.
“Sex,” Doyle said in a hoarse voice, “sex and magic.” He cleared his throat sharply and tried again. “The Goddess and Consort have blessed us all.”
“Shit,” Rhys said, “and we missed it.”
Galen’s voice came heavy with afterglow. He was flat on his back, and the front of his pants was stained dark. “It sort of hurt. I don’t like my sex that rough.”
I heard groans from the other side of the hallway, and I could turn my head now. Mistral’s men were all flat on their backs. Some were struggling to sit up. Adair tried to climb to his feet against the wall, and fell over with a metallic clatter. There was a black burn mark across the front of his armor. “Goddess save us,” someone said in a voice hoarse with pleasure.
“She just did.” Mistral moved slowly so he could raise up enough to gaze down at me. He smiled, and his eyes were the blue of spring skies with fluffy little clouds floating through. I’d never known there was a sky that peaceful inside his eyes.
Hawthorne sat up in his green plate mail, propping his back against the wall. He, too, had a black burn mark across his chest. “The next time you plan to call lightning, warn those of us wearing metal. Mother of Gods, that hurt.”
“And felt good,” another voice said.
Hawthorne dragged his helmet off, showing a pale face, and his dark green hair braided to fit under the helm. He nodded. “And felt good.” He looked at me, and for just a moment in the triple colors of his eyes—pink, green, and red—I saw a tree. A tree on a hill, and that tree was white with blossoms. He blinked and it was just the colors of his iris again.
I remembered the vision and how the lightning had cleared away the dead from the tree. Had we cleared away the old wood here? Had we done more than give them pleasure and pain? Time would tell. For now, we had a double homicide to solve. The police were on their way, and we hadn’t even started to question the witnesses.
I said a little prayer. “Goddess, can we slow down the magical revelations until after we solve the murders, or at least until we get presentable for the police?” I didn’t get an answer, not even that warm pulse that lets me know she’s listening, which I took for a no. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand that bringing the magic back to faerie was important, maybe more important than solving murders. But I did not want the human police to find us spread around the hallway like an orgy gone horribly wrong.
Someone moved at the far end of the hallway. The person who sat up was female, decidedly female even under the armor. She took off her helmet and gasped at the air. Her curly black hair was cut very short, which was different from last I’d seen her, but the face was still Biddy. She was one of Cel’s guards, half-human and half—Unseelie sidhe, even though she’d never been a fan of Cel. She’d once belonged to my father’s guard, and when Cel co-opted many of my father’s guards, she was trapped in the turnover. What was she doing here?
A shadow formed over her face and flowed down the bright silver of her armor. The shadow held a figure, a tiny figure. A baby like some dark ghost coiled in front of her.
The ring on my finger was suddenly warm against my hand, as if someone had breathed across the metal.
I gazed down the hallway, still trapped under Mistral’s body. Biddy sat at the turn of the hall that was farther than the hallway to the kitchen. I shouldn’t have been able to see her this clearly from this angle. But she stood out to my gaze as if she was outlined in something more real than the rest of the figures in the hallway.
Mistral whispered above me, “Do you see it?”
I whispered back, “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“A child,” he said.
“A baby,” I said.
“Go to her quickly, for the vision will not last. Somewhere in this hallway is her match. The father of that shadow child.”
“What is that in front of Biddy?” Galen asked. He’d raised up on his elbows.
Mistral raised himself off of me. “Go to her, Meredith, go to her before the magic of the ring fades.” He pulled me to my feet with his pants still undone. “Hurry.” The tone in his voice made me start down the hall, unsteady on my feet in the high heels. The sex had been too good for my legs to be steady. I stumbled and had to catch myself against the wall. Hands steadied me, and I looked down to find Hawthorne’s hands on my hips. “Are you all right, Princess?”
I nodded. “Yes.” I gazed down the hallway at that solid shadow in front of Biddy. I felt as if that phantom child was whispering to me. Whispering, “I’m here.” Other hands touched me as I stumbled and hurried. A handful of the others could see the shadow child. Their hands seemed to push and hurry me as much as catch me. The ring was like a warm weight on my hand, heavy with pressure. The pressure of a spell building, building to a great conclusion. I had to be touching Biddy before the spell burst. I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I was absolutely certain that the ring needed to be against her skin before the spell finished. Something would be lost if I failed.
Biddy had struggled to her feet, though her tri-grey eyes were a little unfocused, and she leaned heavily against the wall. I found my legs could move as the pressure built in the ring, like some warm living thing against my skin. I was running full out, and Biddy’s eyes were wide and frightened. She couldn’t see the spell, but she knew something was wrong.
I reached for her hand, and she reached automatically out to me. Her hand wrapped around mine just as the spell burst over us. It was as if the world held its breath, as if time and magic stopped, and there was a moment where Biddy and I stood outside of all of it. There was no sound, not even the hush of my own pulse. She stared at me, eyes huge with fear, or something I couldn’t feel. The spell wasn’t for me. I was merely the vessel for it. I had no idea what was happening to Biddy. I knew it didn’t hurt, and that it was good, but what she heard in that moment must have been for her ears alone. The Goddess spoke to her, and I held her hand, let the magic take her while I was in silence, because I simply didn’t need to know.
Sound came back with an audible pop. The change in pressure was real enough that we staggered when the magic released us. Our hands convulsed around each other as if the touch of flesh was all that kept us from falling. Her eyes were wide, her skin pale with shock. Biddy was tall, broad-shouldered, and wearing the remnants of her armor. Her gauntlets and her helmet, and other pieces lay scattered around her, as if she’d begun to shed the outer covering long before I reached her. She was dressed in bits of armor and the pad
ding that even the sidhe must wear under such things. Her short hair was in disarray from the helmet and the magic that had put her against the wall. She was still lovely—nothing could take that away from her—but I’d seen her look better. Still, the way the men in the hallway looked at her, you’d have thought no woman had ever been more desirable than Biddy was in that moment.
Their faces held a soft wonderment, as if they saw something I did not. Some vision of female loveliness that left them speechless and immobile, literally stunned by what they saw or felt. The magic was not for me because if I’d been as besotted with Biddy as they all seemed to be, I couldn’t have looked down the long corridor until I came to the right man.
For a moment I thought it was Doyle, and the thought squeezed my heart tight, but it was simply that his face did not hold the stunned look of the rest. In fact, his face looked suspicious, as if he was trying to decipher what he was seeing, or smelling, for he scented the wind as I watched. Frost was immobile against the wall, but his face, too, did not hold the wonderment. He seemed angry, sullen; his usual self. Galen’s face was as lost as any of the other men’s. I realized that Mistral, too, was seeing whatever I was seeing, because he had started down the hall ahead of my gaze, as if he saw things, too. I wore the ring, but he had been part of the magic that had brought this to life.
He paused by Doyle and Frost, and looked back at me, as if to make certain I saw them. I wasn’t certain why it was important to him, but he nodded as if satisfied when he saw me see them.
Rhys stood at the end of the hallway. His face was sad but not enthralled. I looked at each of the men in turn with that same hyper-focus that I had seen in Biddy earlier. The magic was looking for something.
Kitto crouched at Rhys’s feet as if he had been struck down by the magic, but his face held the same wonderment that the other men’s did. I thought I was looking for someone who wasn’t affected, but it was Mistral who showed me that I was looking for the man who was most affected, not least.
Mistral stopped before the colored glow of Nicca’s wings. He held his hand out to the still-kneeling man. Nicca took his hand, but his face, now that I could see it, looked blind to Mistral, to anything but what he saw in Biddy.
His face had never looked more beautiful than it did in that moment, a delicate, almost feminine beauty that was usually disguised behind broad shoulders and a six-foot warrior’s frame. In his sleep he could be soft and as gentle as he truly was, but awake he always had to be more.
Mistral drew him to his feet, and Nicca was suddenly himself, awake and moving with the smooth strength of his bare chest, and the huge wings like a shining colored frame for all that gentle beauty.
I admit that, for a moment or two, I felt regret. Regret that I would lose him, that he would never again grace my bed. But that selfish impulse was drowned in a feeling of such warmth, such peace, that I couldn’t regret it, not truly. What I saw on his face as Mistral led him toward us was what I’d felt in the bed with him. He was too gentle for my tastes, and far too gentle for the queen’s. The only thing he would ever have done as king was die.
I looked at Biddy’s face, and saw in her eyes what I saw in Nicca’s. Each of them saw the whole world in the eyes of the other, and it was a nice, safe, beautiful world.
The four of us stood at the end of the hallway, women on one side, men on the other. I expected Biddy or Nicca to reach out to the other, but they were immobile. Mistral and I clasped their hands together. That shadow child that I had seen at first was back, but it wasn’t a phantom now. I saw a smiling face with Nicca’s warm brown eyes and Biddy’s black curls. I saw their child laughing and real, as if I could have touched the round baby curve of his face. I pressed my hand, and the warmth of the ring, into their flesh, and Mistral’s big hand covered mine. We bound their hands together with magic, and the tears that I shed. I saw their child, and knew that he was real, and all we had to do to make that vision flesh was let them be together.
It was as if Mistral read my mind. “If the queen will allow it.”
I blinked up at him as we drew our hands away and let Nicca and Biddy embrace for the first time. They kissed, a melding of body and hands, and they drew back from that first kiss with laughter.
I frowned up at Mistral, the tears still not dry on my cheeks. “The ring is alive again. It’s what she wished. Life is returning to the courts.”
He shook his head, and he looked so sad. “She wants her bloodline to rule the courts more than she wants the courts to thrive. If that were not true she would have made different choices centuries ago.”
Doyle’s deep voice came to me as he walked to us. “Mistral is right.”
I frowned at both of them. “She’ll demand that Nicca stay in my bed, until what, I get pregnant?”
They exchanged glances, then both nodded. Their solemn expressions were too well matched for my comfort. “At the very least,” Mistral said.
I looked at Nicca and Biddy, oblivious to our worries. They touched each other as if they’d never seen a man or woman before, with light wonderment, as if they couldn’t believe that they were allowed to touch this person in just this way.
I sighed, and it was as if wind trailed down the hallway. The magic was still there, still heavy with promise just behind my heartbeat, just underneath my skin. I could feel it. But as strong as it was, it was also fragile. I realized that the ring, like the chalice, had chosen to leave, or chosen to fade. It had decided that we didn’t deserve its magic anymore. If Queen Andais did not allow Biddy and Nicca to be together, the magic was quite capable of leaving again, for good. Of leaving us to die as a people, for the gods only give so many second chances before they search for some other people to bless. We had a second chance and I didn’t want Andais to throw that chance away.
I spoke out loud without meaning to. “If I’d known we’d be this deep in metaphysical wonders, I might not have called in the police.” I shook my head, and tried to think of a way around the queen’s obsession with her bloodline and mine. Nothing came to mind.
“I have an idea,” Rhys said. “I’m not sure you’re going to like it though.”
“Gee, Rhys, with an opening like that, how can I resist? Tell me your idea.”
“If you told the queen you wanted both Nicca and Biddy in your bed at the same time, she might let that go.”
“Yes,” Doyle said, “she might. She has done it often enough herself.” He turned solemn black eyes on me. “It would make her think better of you.”
I frowned. “Better of me, in what way?”
“More like her,” he said. “She searches in you for signs of herself. Signs that you are truly blood of her blood.”
Frost was nodding. “I do not like it, but it would amuse her. It may work.”
“If Biddy agrees,” I said, looking at the happy couple.
“To be together after the ring has bound you,” Mistral said, “you would do anything. Anything to be with your true love.”
The sorrow in his eyes was something visible, tangible. I did not have to ask to know that once the ring had found his true love, and somehow he had lost her.
“Fine then,” I said, “that’s settled.”
Frost touched my shoulder, then dropped his hand as if he wasn’t allowed to. I took his hand in mine, held that gesture against me. It earned me a sad smile. “I know you are not a lover of women. It is good of you to take Biddy into your bed night after night until they are with child.”
I squeezed his hand. “One time together and they will be with child. I am certain of that. Even the queen won’t divide them if they’re pregnant.”
“Andais knows you are not a lover of women,” Doyle said. “She may insist on watching.”
I sighed, then shrugged. “So be it.”
Doyle and Frost both gave me a look. “Meredith,” Frost said, “will you truly be part of her entertainment?”
“I want them together, Frost, and if I have to include myself in it the first time
, and let the queen watch, so be it.”
“When will you make your offer to the queen?” Doyle asked.
“After we’ve questioned the witnesses, and gotten the police safely inside the sithen. And only if she objects to them being a couple on their own.” I smoothed my short skirt down. I was going to need underwear. The police tend to discount your authority if you flash them.
“I think most of us need to freshen our clothing,” Doyle said.
I couldn’t help it, I glanced down at his groin. It was hard to tell in the dim light of the sithen.
He gave that masculine chuckle. “Black is a wonderfully concealing color.”
Frost flashed his grey jacket open just enough to show a stain. “Grey is not.”
I looked at them. “Are you saying the magic brought everyone in the hallway?”
“Everyone who was standing here,” Rhys said. “We missed the fun by moments.”
There were other voices up and down the hallway, agreeing or bemoaning the paler colors they had chosen to wear. “We cannot all go freshen our clothes at the same time,” Doyle said. “Some of us must stay here and work. The human police are on their way, and this has taken much of our time.”
I wasn’t wearing a watch; no one was, because watches and clocks ran oddly inside faerie. So oddly that telling time by them was useless. How did anyone know where to be and when? They approximated, and we spent a lot of time being fashionably late.
“Fine, divide everybody into shifts for a change of clothes, and could someone get me fresh underwear?”
Mistral held up my ripped panties. “I don’t suppose these would be very useful. I am sorry that I damaged them.” He held them out to me.
“I’m not sorry,” I said, and pressed his hand back around the satin.
A pleased look filled his eyes, replacing the sorrow. His hands convulsed around the bit of satin. I noticed that he’d found time in all the fuss to tuck himself back inside his pants. “May I keep it as a sign of my lady’s favor?”
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