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Chapter 17

Doyle was kneeling on the burgundy bedspread, speaking to the mirror, when Frost and I entered the rooht as soon as our princess is with us, Queen Niceven"

The mirror was a swirl ofatbehind both of us, against the headboard, propped up aundy, purple, mauve, pink, and black pillows I couldn’t tell for certain, but he seemed to be nude, except for a feell-placed pillows I had no idea how he’d stripped that quickly

Frost crawled onto the bed to half sit, half recline a little behind me and to one side, so that I was framed by Doyle and him

Doyle made a sideways movement with his hand and the mist cleared Niceven sat in a delicate wooden chair, carved so that her wings slipped through the slotted back without dale of white skin But her whiteness was not the same as reyish tinge Her white-grey curls had been done in elaborate ringlets like those of some old-time doll A tiny tiara held those curls back from her face, and the tiara sparkled with the cold warohite and flowing The looseness of the cloth would have hidden her body, except that it was absolutely sheer and you could see the small pointed breasts, the als She wore slippers that seee to her as a German shepherd to me, sat beside her chair She stroked the fur between its ears

A trio of ladies-in-waiting stood behind her, each in a different color dress that s, rose-red, daffodil-yellow, and iris-purple Their hair was black, yellow, and brown, respectively

Niceven had gone to a great deal e her little scene

I felt positively ordinary in reen skirt outfit But I didn’t mind too much It was a business call, after all

"Queen Niceven, it is good of you to return our call"

"In truth, Princess Meredith, I have been awaiting your call these three ht is well known a the court I a to contactvery formal I realized it wasn’t just the speech that was formal She wore her crown; I had no crown, not yet She sat upon her throne, while I was sitting in thelike a silent Greek chorus behind her And a et the mouse I had only Doyle and Frost on either side ofto put e We’d see about that

"In truth, we have sought the aid of healers out here in the world of mortals It is only recently that we had to admit that a call to you was necessary"

"Sheer stubbornness on your part then, Princess"

"Perhaps, but you knohy I have called, and what I wish"

"I a wishes, Meredith" She’d dropped my title, a deliberate insult

Fine, we could both be rude "As you like, Niceven Then you knohat I want"

"You want a cure for your green knight," she said, one hand tracing the pink edge of the mouse’s ear

"Yes"

"Prince Cel was most insistent that Galen remain injured"

"You told me once that Prince Cel does not yet rule the Unseelie Court"

"That is true, but it is not at all certain you will ever live to be queen, Meredith" She’d dropped the title again

Doyle moved from beside me to put his back to Rhys He e of the bed, at the limit of my peripheral vision and ithin the queen’s As if they’d arranged it, Rhys rose from the pillows to his knees and showed clearly that he was nude He rolled Doyle’s long braid in his aran to undo the ribbon that bound it

Niceven’s eyes flicked behind ?"

"Preparing for bed," I said Though I wasn’t 100 percent sure of that

Delicate grey brows furrowed "It is, what nine o’clock where you are The night is young to waste in sleeping"

"I did not say ould sleep" I kept h breath that I could see the rise and fall of her dainty chest She tried to keep her attention onDoyle’s thick hair free of the braid I’d seen Doyle with his hair free of that braid only once Only once had it been like so cloak to shroud his body

Niceven watched the me very little eye contact I wasn’t sure if it was Doyle’s hair or Rhys’s nudity I doubted the nudity, because being nude just wasn’t that unusual a at Rhys’s washboard abs, or what lay just below them

Frost sat up, took off his suit jacket, and began to slip out of his shoulder holster Her eyes flicked to him

"Niceven," I said softly I had to repeat her name twice more before she looked at me "How do I cure Galen?"

"It is not certain that you will be queen, and if Prince Cel beco, then he will hold it ill that I helped you"

"And if I am queen, I will hold it ill that you did not"

She ss I will help you here, because I have already helped Cel It will even things up"

I remembered Galen’s screams, and the pain in his eyes these last s up I didn’t think fixing what she’d ruined ca faerie politics here, not therapy, so I said nothing Silence is not a lie A sin of omission, but not a lie Our cultures allow you to oet aith

"How is Galen to be cured?" I asked

She shook her head, litter "No, we talk price first What would you give ht whole?"

Frost and Doyle oodwill of the Queen of the Unseelie, and that should be enough," Frost said, his voice as cold as his na Frost" Niceven’s voice was full of a cold, cold anger It had the taste of an old grudge Was it personal to Frost?

I saw Doyle begin to reach toward the other man, and I stopped hiht It wouldn’t st ourselves Doyle stayed atat Frost The look was not friendly

I touched Frost’s ar, looked first to Doyle, then realized it was my touch He’d expected it to be Doyle He relaxed, slowly He let out a deep, quiet breath and moved a fraction behind me

I turned back to the mirror and found Niceven’s face shreatchful I half expected her to say so, but she did not She merely sat and waited for me to commit myself

"What would Queen Niceven of the Diminutive Fey want fro her knight?" I’d purposefully put both our titles in the sa that I knew she was queen and I was not I was hoping to make up for Frost’s outburst

She looked at ave a very small nod "What would Princess Meredith of the Unseelie Court offer us?"

"You said once that you would give er drink of my blood"

She looked startled before she could school her face to courtly blankness When she could control herself, she said, "Blood is blood, Princess Why should I care for yours?"

Now she was just being difficult "You said that I tasted of high otten me so quickly, Queen Niceven?" I made my face fall, ed, and let th hair fall across my face I spoke behind a curtain of hair that sparkled like spun rubies "If the blood of the heir to the throneto offer" I turned reen and gold eyes could have through a frali women, and men, who used their beauty like a weapon I would never have drea it with another sidhe, because they were all ry eyes that followed my men, with her, I could use my own other-worldliness as she’d tried to use hers

She slapped her tiny hand on the arh to startle the white mouse "By Flora, you are your aunt’s blood Prince Cel has never mastered his beauty as Andais has, and as you have"

I gave a s position "A pretty compli, petting theback in her chair so that her sheer dress showed off one past slender into cadaverous, so that it was like looking at a little starved thing But she thought her body was beautiful, and I could show nothing less ina little behind me He’d removed his belt, his shoulder holster, his suit jacket, but nothing else Even his shoes were still on He was not going to strip for Niceven

Doyle on the other hand had removed his shoulder holster, his belt, and his shirt The silver ring in his left nipple glinted so that Niceven could see it, even in profile Rhys continued to work at all that thick black hair as if he were s out the train of a dress

Thethemselves for bed They left ht on my own Good to know

I flashed her a curve of lips as red as the red, red rose, no lipstick needed "A drink of ive your own life’s fluid away very freely, Princess" She was being cautious

"I only give that which I own"

"The Prince thinks he owns all the court"

"I know that I own only the body I inhabit Anything else is hubris"

The Queen laughed "Will you coree that another feeding is worth ree"

"Then ould a feeding once a week be worth?"

I felt the men behind me tense The atmosphere of the room was suddenly thicker I was careful not to look at them I was princess, and I didn’t need the per I either ruled, or I did not

Niceven’s eyes narrowed into pale little fla once a week?"

"It means exactly what I said"

"Why would you offer toto me?"

"For an alliance between us"

Frost pushed towardto say sos of an idea and it was a good one "No, Frost," I said, "you do not tell ave him a look that I hoped he understood, which was shut the fuck up, and don’t ruin this

He closed his ht, thin line, so obviously unhappy, but he sat there, sulking At least he was quiet about it

I heard Doyle take in a breath, and I just looked at hiave a s hair There was a wave to all that blackness, because of the braid, I think; I reht I was distracted for a ainst all that darkness It was Doyle clearing his throat who made hed, the sound of just slightly off-key bells, as if it were so lovely that had been just a bit ies for my inattention, Queen Niceven"

"If I had such a bounty awaiting me, I would make this a short conversation"

"And what if you had the bounty ofyou? What then?"

Her face sobered "You are persistent It is most unfeylike"

"I am part brownie, and we are a more persistent people than the sidhe"

"You are part human, as well"

I smiled "Humans are like the sidhe; some are more persistent than others"

She didn’t smile back at reen knight, but that is all One drink, one cure, and we are done"

"For one drink of oblins became my ally for six oblin and sidhe business, and none of ours We are the deht no battles We challenge no duels We mind our business and everyone else minds theirs"

"So you refuse an alliance?"

"I think caution is the better part of valor here, Princess, no otiations, always try to be nice first, but if nice doesn’t work, there are other options "Everyone leaves you alone, Queen Niceven Because they consider you too s enough to spoil your plans with the green knight" Her voice held the first hint of anger

"Yes, and what did he offer you for that bit of work?"

"The taste of sidhe flesh, knight’s flesh, and blood We feasted that night, Princess"

"He paid you in someone else’s blood, when his body was full of blood only one step down from the queen herself Have you ever tasted the queen?"

Niceven looked nervous, alhtened "The queen shares only with her lovers, or her prisoners"

"How that ift wasted"

Niceven pouted tiny ghost silver lips "If only she would take some of my people to her bed, but we are"

"Too small," I finished for her

"Yes," she hissed, "yesss, always too small Too small a power for an alliance Too small a power to be used except as her sneak spies" Tiny, pale hands balled into fists The whiteEven the trio of ladies behind her throne shuddered as if from the brush of an icy wind

"And now you do dirty work for her son," I said My voice was carefully neutral, alht us to do his work" The anger in that se made her take up more space than e

"I offer you what the queen will not I offer what the prince will not"

"And what is that?"

"Royal blood, blood of the very throne of the Unseelie Court Ally with me, Queen Niceven, and you will have such blood Not only once, but many tiain, glittering with a fire colder than the diaain froain the ear and the aid of oblins have little to do with us"

"And what of the sidhe?"

"What of theain status They would no longer be able to dise and whisper it back toeyes on ain from this alliance?"

"You would spy for me, as well as for the queen"

"And Cel?"

"You would cease to spy for him"

"He won’t like that"

"He doesn’t have to like it If you are my ally, then to injure you is to insult me The queen has decreed that I am under her protection To harm me now is a death sentence"

"So he insults me, then you step in Then what?"

"Threaten to bring your entire court out here to Los Angeles, out here to me"

She shivered "I would not wish to take my people out into the city of men" She spoke as if there were only one city of ardens, acres of open land There’s room for you here, Niceven, I swear it"

"But I do not want to leave the court"

"Wherever the demi-fey travel, faerie follows"

"Most sidhe do not remember that"

"My father made sure I knew the history of all the fey The demi-fey are the most closely allied with the rawness that is faerie, the very stuff that makes us different from the humans You are not leprechaun, or pixie, to pine and die away from faerie You are faerie Is it not said that when the last demi-fey fades, there will be no more faerie upon the earth?"

"A superstition," she said

"Maybe, but if you leave the Unseelie Court and the Seelie Court retains its own demi-fey, the Unseelie will be weakened Cel may not remember that bit of our lore, but the queen will If Cel insults you enough for you to pack your belongings, the Queen will intercede"

"She will order us to stay"

"She cannot order anotherThat is our law"

Niceven looked nervous She feared Andais Everyone did "I do not wish to anger the queen"

"Neither do I"

"Do you really believe that the queen would punish her own son if he drove us away, rather than take out her anger on us?" She had crossed her legs again, ar to be regal in her fear

"Where is Cel now?" I asked

Niceven giggled, apunished for sixround that his sanity will not survive six ed "He should have thought of that before he was such a bad, bad boy"

"You are flippant, but if Cel comes out insane, it will be your name that he screams Your face that he wants to se when I come to it"

"What?"

"It’s a hu It means that I’ll deal with the problem when and if it co very hard, then said, "Hoould you offer this blood to me? I do not think either of us would relish a weekly trip between faerie and the Western Sea"

"I could put it upon a piece of bread, and the essence could be sent to you via hostly curls bouncing around narrow shoulders "The essence is never the saest?"

"If I send one of ate"

I thought about it for athe heavy, alh Doyle’s hair "Agreed Tell ate"

She laughed, off-key bells ringing "No, Princess, you will gain the cure froive it to you now before I have been paid, you iven you o back upon it now"