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"Can I get you anything first? A cup of tea?"

"I’m past any need or desire for nourishain "Come, sit close I can barely see you Give me your hand, child"

I sat and took her hand Mab had said that, without the bloodstone, her body would rapidly catch up with her true age But she looked older than any living person I’d ever seen "Mab, how old are you?"

"In this lifetime? A shade over three hundred years" Most of the Cerddorion lived huth lifespans, but Mab had told er And with the bloodstone, perhaps she’d pushed the limit even further "You probably think I’ to live forever It’s not that, child I’ve had to hold on; I’ve waited so long for ave my hand a squeeze "There have been hters But always I waited for Victory"

This speech sounded way too ood-bye, to pass her de mantle to me Gently, I released her hand "I’m not ready to be your successor"

"Not yet, it’s true There is much you need to learn, and I still hope to be the one to teach you I haven’t given up, child Not when there’s a chance we can retrieve the bloodstone" That was good to hear It sounded more like the Mab I knew "Still, when one looks back over the past, there are things one feels the need to explain"

I thought about the twenty-year-oldbetween her and Gho’d never accept any explanation other than what she’d seen with her own horrified eyes But nothing like that stood between Mab andto me"

"Yes, I do I want you to understand what’s behind my feud with Myrddin"

I hadn’t wanted to tire Mab out with my questions about that But now she wanted to talk "Were you Nimuë?"

She shook her head "Nimuë was my sister" Her face looked sadder than I’d ever seen it "Myrddin killed her"

For a longMab’s h reaching across time I folded my hand around hers, and she turned to me

"What happened, Mab?"

"In that lifetime, I was Viviane"

"The Lady of the Lake" I recalled the white-sleeved arm that rose from my dream-lake to hand me the bloodstone Mab had taken that foro Several lifetihter and priestess of Ceridwen Not h I wasI was eighteen, Nimuë was all of sixteen We’d heard rumors of a handsoirls, ent to find hie to it Myrddin"And handsome he was indeed His teeth were better then"

I could believe that A millennium or tithout dental care would take its toll

"Myrddin charmed us He flattered and entertained us And he tried to seduce me You see, what he really wanted was a son" Demi-demons have a very low rate of reproduction--e to conceive and carry to terh Myrddin must have felt he’d have a better chance of success with a Cerddorion female

"I resisted I was a shapeshifter and a de a child He tried to ensnare ic, but I could feel the tendrils of his spell I refused to see hi anywhere near hiht she was in love"

"He got Ninant"

"She trusted hiht hurt her" She scowled "The pregnancy tore her apart from the inside How she cried from the sheer pain of it The baby clawed at her, she said; it burned her I tried to give her herbs that would end the pregnancy, but she wouldn’t take theive him his son She said she wanted theht in a tearless sob "For weeks, I searched for her"

"Did you find her?" I was afraid I already knew the answer

"I found her corpse Myrddin had ripped the child froround" Mab rocked back and forth,softly, as if she’d just this minute discovered her sister’s htened "I vowed to make him pay for what he’d done"

Mab lifted her chin, and a defiant pride showed in her face "I shifted e of Nimuë Not as she died, but as she looked when Myrddin first saw her In that shape, I entered Myrddin’s dreairl enters a ets whatever she wants"