A Stroke of Midnight

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  He gave me a calm flick of his eyes, as if he saw nothing wrong with what he’d said.

  Peasblossom was moaning in terror, hysterical. The illusionary wind was not warm now but cold with that icy threat of storm on its edge.

  The teacups rattled with her frantic attempt to shove herself tighter against the back of the cabinet.

  I had to raise my voice to be certain she could hear me. “I promise that neither Frost nor Doyle will harm you.”

  Doyle said, “Merry,” as if I’d surprised him.

  Silence from the teacups, then in a very neutral voice, “You promise?”

  “Yes,” I said. I didn’t think she was guilty of anything, but just in case, I’d promised only that Frost and Doyle would not harm her. If she took that to imply that I’d promised her none of my guards would harm her, that wasn’t my fault. I was sidhe enough and fey enough to split the difference with her and not feel guilty. Every fey from least to greatest knew the kind of games we all played. To lose meant you were careless. Your own damned fault. She eased around the china cup and came to the edge of the shelf. She was one of the rare demi-fey that had skin like a human’s. Her hair was dark brown, falling in waves around her face. Only the delicate black lines of antennae ruined the perfect doll look. That and the wings she flicked across her back.

  Her dress looked like it was formed of brown and purple leaves, though when she stepped off the shelf the “leaves” moved like cloth. She flew toward me, and a glance from Doyle made me move farther away from the table, farther away from the curtain.

  One of the other guards called, “Maggie May, could you come here for a moment?” I think if she hadn’t been suspicious, she’d have argued, but she let herself be called out of the line of danger.

  Peasblossom adjusted her angle to follow me and put delicate feet on the palm of my hand. Her feet were not as baby soft as Sage’s had been, but her weight was like his, heaver than it should have been, as if there was more to her than a doll-size body and butterfly wings.

  Ivi and Hawthorne moved in front of me, so my view was blocked, but they were offering their very bodies as shields to keep me safe. I could not protest.

  Ivi whispered, “I hope I get to fuck you before you get me killed.” Hawthorne smacked him in the chest with his mailed fist.

  He made an oof sound, then I heard cloth rip and the shouting begin.

  Peasblossom darted to my shoulder, hiding in my hair, screaming wordlessly and in terror.

  Such a small creature to make so much noise: I heard the men yelling, but what they yelled was lost to Peasblossom’s shrill screams. The broad bodies of the guard kept me safe, but also hid the action from me, so I was left unknowing, unseeing, and could only trust that nothing too bad was happening. I took it as a good sign that the guards were still merely standing in front of me and didn’t feel the need to hide me between the floor and their bodies. Things weren’t deadly, yet.

  Peasblossom clung to my hair and jacket, shrieking right next to my ear. I fought the urge to grab her and stop the screams. I was afraid I’d crush her wings, and with Beatrice’s death, I was no longer certain what would and would not heal on the lesser fey.

  I put my hand between her and my ear but jerked it away, because something pricked me, like a thorn or pin.

  She stopped screaming and started apologizing. Apparently I’d caught my fingers on her rose-thorn bracelet. My fingertip held a minute spot of blood.

  Doyle’s deep voice cut off Peasblossom’s babbling apology. “Why were you hiding from us?”

  A rough male voice said, “I wasn’t hiding from you; I was hiding from him.”

  I tried to peer around Adair and Hawthorne, but when I tried to move around them they moved with me, blocking my view and keeping me safe.

  I called, “Doyle, is it safe?”

  “Hawthorne, Adair, let the princess see our prisoner.”

  “Prisoner?” the rough voice said. “Princess, there’s no need for that.” There was something vaguely familiar about the voice.

  The two guards moved, and I was finally able to see the hairy, smallish figure Frost and Galen held between them. He was a hob, a relative to the brownie.

  Harry Hob, he’d worked in the kitchens off and on for years. Off when Maggie May caught him drunk on the job, on when he could control himself. He was only about three feet tall and covered in so much thick, dark hair that it took a minute to realize he was naked.

  “Why are you afraid of Onilwyn?” Doyle asked.

  “I thought he’d come to kill me, the way he killed my Bea.”

  I think we all took a breath and forgot to let it out.

  “Did you see him do it?” Doyle asked. His deep voice fell into the silence like a stone thrown down a well. We waited for the stone to hit bottom.

  But it was Onilwyn’s voice that came first. “I did not.” His voice was thick, not with emotion, but with blood and the broken mess of his nose. “I did not know her well enough to kill her.” He struggled to his feet, and with no prompting from anyone, Adair and Amatheon took his arms, as if he were already a prisoner. In that moment I knew I wasn’t the only one who disliked Onilwyn.

  He kept protesting his innocence in that same thick voice that sounded like he had a very bad head cold, but I knew it was his own blood he was choking on.

  “Silence!” Doyle said, not a yell, but his voice carried all the same.

  Onilwyn was silent for a moment, until Harry Hob said, “I saw . . .”

  Onilwyn cut him off. “He lies.”

  Harry made himself heard then, bellowing loud enough to shake the cups on their shelves. “I lie! I lie! It takes a sidhe to be a liar inside fairie.”

  Doyle stepped between them, motioning them both to silence. “Hob, did you see Onilwyn kill Beatrice?” He turned at a sound from Onilwyn. “If you interrupt again, I will have you dragged from this room.”

  Onilwyn made a sound, then spat blood on the kitchen floor.

  Maggie May stalked toward him with a small iron pot in her hand.

  “No, Maggie,” Doyle said, “we’ll have no more of your bogarting.”

  “Bogarting? Why, Darkness, if you think that was bogarting, you must never have seen a true bogart.” There was something threatening in her golden eyes.

  “Don’t force me to have to ban you from your own kitchen, Maggie May.”

  “Yo’ wouldna’ dare!”

  He just looked at her, and the look was enough. She backed off, muttering under her breath, but she put the pot down and went to the far corner. Her dogs boiled about her feet like a furry tide.

  Doyle looked back to Harry Hob. “Now, once more, did you see Onilwyn kill Beatrice or the reporter?”

  “If not to finish the job, then why did he come ahead of you all into the kitchen? Why not ask him that?”

  Doyle’s voice was low and almost evil sounding, with an edge of a growl. “I ask you one last time, Harry. If you do not answer me straight and simply, I will let Frost shake you until some answer falls out.”

  “Ah, now, Darkness, no need to threaten old Harry.”

  “Old Harry, is it?” Doyle smiled. “You can’t claim age here, not among us. I remember you as a babe, Harry. I remember when you had a human family and farm to tend.”

  Harry scowled at him, a look as unfriendly as he’d given Onilwyn. “No need to bring up hard memories, Darkness.” He sounded sullen.

  “Then answer me straight, and no one here need know how you lost your place.”

  “You wouldna’ tell,” Harry said.

  “Give me truth, Harry Hob, or I will give you truth you don’t wish shared.”

  Harry scowled at the floor. He looked somehow diminished and more delicate than he should have, held between the two tall guards. Maybe he was playing for sympathy, but if so, he was playing to the wrong audience.

  Doyle knelt in front of him, staying on the balls of his feet. “One last time Harry; did you see Onilwyn kill Beatrice and/or the human reporter?�
��

  The “and/or” had been a nice touch, because without it Harry would have room to wiggle: if he’d seen only one murder, but not both.

  He answered, still staring at the floor, “No.”

  “No, what?” Doyle asked.

  Harry looked up at that, his dark eyes glittering with anger. “No, I didna’ see the tree lord slay my Beatrice or the human.”

  “Then why did you hide from him?”

  “I did not know he was hid there,” Maggie May said. “Mayhaps, Darkness, it was na’ the tree lord he first hid from.”

  “Very good,” Doyle said, acknowledging it with a nod of his head. He stood and asked Maggie’s question: “Why did you hide yourself, Harry?”

  “I saw him,” and he used a nod, since his arms were still held, to point at Onilwyn, who was also still being held.

  We waited for him to say more, but he seemed to think he’d said enough. Doyle prompted him, “And why should the mere sight of Onilwyn make you hide?”

  “Thought he was her sidhe lover, didno’ I.”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Harry gave me a dirty look.

  “I’m sorry, Hob, but Onilwyn doesn’t think even I am pure-blooded enough. I can’t imagine him having a completely non-sidhe lover.”

  “Thank you, Princess,” Onilwyn said in that still thick voice.

  I gave him the look he deserved and said, “It wasn’t a compliment.”

  “Just the same,” he said, “I am grateful for the truth.”

  “Who but her sidhe lover would come here alone?” Harry asked.

  “Good question,” I said and looked at Doyle.

  He gave a small nod and said, “Why did you abandon us, Onilwyn?”

  “I had no interest in watching the princess perform with someone else. The queen cured me of voyeurism a very long time ago.”

  None argued with that, but Doyle asked, “So you came ahead to begin questioning the witnesses on your own, without either of your captains’ or even your officers’ permission?”

  “You all seemed . . . busy.” And even with the broken nose the sarcasm came through loud and clear.

  “You didn’t hit him hard enough, Merry,” Galen said, and my gentle knight had a decidedly ungentle look on his face.

  “Did you come ahead to seek answers, or to hide them?” Doyle asked.

  “I was not the lover of anyone. And I would most certainly not risk the queen’s mercy for anything less than a sidhe.” The disdain in his voice was thick enough to walk on.

  “Did any of the rest of you know that Beatrice had a sidhe lover?” Doyle asked.

  Maggie May said, “No, I’ve told all mah’ people that you leave the big ones alone. Only grief comes of it.”

  “So, if Beatrice had taken a sidhe,” I said, “she’d have hidden it from you?”

  “Ah, most like.”

  I looked to the dainty blue figure that was almost hidden behind Galen’s neck. “Mug?”

  Galen had to say, “The princess is asking you a question, Mug.”

  She’d been too busy playing in the curls at the back of his neck to pay attention to anything else. She wasn’t stupid, but I’d seen her like this before, as if the touch of a sidhe was intoxicating to her.

  She peered around his neck, her wings flicking nervously. “What?” she asked.

  “Did Beatrice have a lover that you know of?”

  She pointed to Harry. “Him.”

  “Did she have a sidhe lover?” I asked.

  Mug’s eyes went wide. “A sidhe for a lover? Beatrice . . .” She shook her head. “If I had known, I would have asked her to let me touch him.”

  “Beatrice would never have told Mug,” Peasblossom said.

  I looked for her and found her perched on the pots that hung from hooks on the near wall. “Did she tell you?”

  “She did.”

  “Who was her sidhe lover?” Harry asked, voice eager.

  None us said anything, because it was one of the things we all wanted to know.

  “She wouldn’t tell me, said he made her promise not to tell anyone or he would break off the relationship.”

  “Why would that end the relationship?” Doyle asked. “Unless . . .”

  Frost said it. “Unless he was a royal guard.”

  “Who would risk death by torture for less than sidhe flesh?” Amatheon said.

  I gave him an unfriendly look.

  “I do not deserve that look, Princess; it is only truth.”

  I started to argue but hesitated. I had had lesser fey lovers in Los Angeles, and it had been wonderful, but . . . but I had craved other flesh. Once you have had the full attention of another sidhe, all else was truly lesser. I wanted to argue with Amatheon, but I could not, not and be truthful.

  “I will not argue with you, Amatheon,” I said.

  “Because you cannot,” he replied. He kept his grip on Onilwyn, but his attention seemed all for me.

  I acknowledged the truth of it with a nod.

  “But if not a guard,” Galen asked, “then why would he care if others knew of his relationship with Beatrice?”

  I looked at him, searching his face for any hint that he knew how naïve that question was, but there was nothing in his face that said he understood anything.

  Mug cuddled in against his neck and spoke for most of us. “That is so sweet.”

  “What?” Galen asked.

  “A fair few dabble among us lesser folk,” Maggie May said, “but few wish to acknowledge us publicly.”

  Galen frowned. “Why not?”

  Amatheon said, “Have you been living in the same court as the rest of us?”

  Galen shrugged, almost unseating Mug. He helped her catch her balance by holding up his fingers so she could catch herself. “Love is too precious to be ashamed of.”

  If I hadn’t already loved him, I would have in that moment.

  “You are right, my friend,” Doyle said, “but that is not always how our free brethren feel about such things.”

  “Arrogance, such arrogance, to be ashamed of that which the rest of us would give so much to have,” Adair said.

  “Who would admit to bedding something with wings?” Onilwyn said.

  “Good enough to fuck, but not to love?” Maggie May asked.

  Some of the men would not meet her gaze. Doyle had no trouble meeting those hard golden eyes. “Was Harry Hob her lover?”

  She nodded. “Aye.”

  Mug and Peasblossom answered together, “Yes.”

  Doyle turned back to Harry. “It’s not every hob who gets to share a mistress with a sidhe.”

  “Mistress, nay, I loved the girl.”

  “How did you feel about sharing the girl you loved with another?”

  “Beatrice had broken up with Harry,” Peasblossom said.

  “But we was back together,” Harry said.

  Peasblossom acknowledged that was true.

  “She had broken up with the sidhe,” he said.

  “Dumped a sidhe for you?” Mug said, and laughed, a high twittering sound.

  “Don’t you laugh at him, Mug,” Maggie May said. “Sometimes love is more than a magic or grand power.”

  “Did you know that Beatrice had let Harry go?” I asked.

  “Aye, and that she’d taken ’im back, too.”

  “If she’d broken with him,” Doyle said, “why did Harry expect him down in the kitchens?”

  “Beatrice said he wanted her to do awful things for him. She’d agreed at first, then changed her mind.”

  “What kind of awful things?” Doyle asked.

  “She wouldna’ tell me. Said it was so awful, no one would believe it of him.”

  We were Unseelie not Seelie, which meant we were willing to admit most of what we wanted. What could be so terrible that it wouldn’t be believed? What perversion that Beatrice had turned from it in fear?

  “Her sidhe lord had demanded one last meeting, to try and persuade Beatrice to reconsider. I begged her no
t to meet with him.”

  “Why? Did you fear for her safety?” Doyle asked.

  “No, not that. If I had ever dreamed such a thing, I would never have let her meet him alone,” Harry replied.

  “Then why didn’t you want them to meet?”

  “I was jealous, weren’t I? I feared he’d win her back. Goddess help me, but all I could see was my jealousy.”

  Doyle must have given some signal, for Frost and Galen let go of Harry’s arms. He stood there rubbing the arm that Frost had held.

  “And you hid when you saw Onilwyn, because you thought he was her lover.”

  “We thought he’d come back to kill Harry,” Peasblossom said. “If she’d have told anyone the secret it would have been Harry. I told him to hide.”

  “If you feared only Onilwyn, why didn’t you come out when you knew we were all here?” Doyle asked.

  “Would you want anyone to know that you hid, ’stead of fight the man you thought had killed the woman you loved? Did I want the Darkness or the Killing Frost to know I was such a coward?” Tears gleamed in his eyes. “I didna’ know meself I was such a coward.”

  “Onilwyn,” Doyle said, “the real reason you came ahead?”

  He opened his mouth, had to clear his throat sharply before he said, “Truth then, I know the princess loathes me. With this many men at her beck and call, she could keep me from her bed for some time. I wanted to touch a woman again. I thought if I found some clue, helped solve this mess, it might help my cause.”

  I stared at his bloody face, those angry eyes. He met my gaze.

  “Why don’t I believe you?” I asked.

  His eyes were angry and sullen in the bloody mask of his face. “Would I admit such weakness to you, if it were not true?”

  I thought about that for a second or two. “You hate me, too,” I said.

  “I would do near anything to end this need, Princess. Whatever I felt once, the chance to slake this thirst outweighs whatever loyalty I thought I held.”

  We stared at each other, and I didn’t know what I would have replied because suddenly Doyle said, “Do you smell that?”

  CHAPTER 11

  DOYLE SNIFFED THE AIR, AND A MOMENT LATER I SMELLED IT, TOO. Fresh blood. I moved toward him. “What do you smell, Darkness?” Maggie May asked.