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That answered one question Once upon a tiood hands
"You ht to sew this coat, and the outfit for Doyle"
"Don&039;t you rehness? I made the red for you, but the queen did not care for it at court, so you never wore it again"
Sholto frowned, then sht it was too otten"
Doyle was dressed in red, a beautiful clear criainst the darkness of his skin The contrast was almost painfully beautiful The coat looked like a modern business suit jacket, except for the color and the fit The fit flattered his broad shoulders and narroaist - an athletic cut, they called it in the stores There were pants to match, which she&039;d had to make small darts in so that they fit love through the hips and thighs and spilled a little wide, so that the hem fell nicely over a pair of shiny black loafers
She&039;d chosen a silk shirt in an icy gray, which complemented both the red of the suit and Doyle&039;s skin She&039;d even had the nightflyer who had accohtflyer had used her tentacles to weave red ribbons through all that black hair so that it trailed to his ankles with the line of red tracing back and forth
"And Una helped me sew the coat She has become quite skilled, and I envy her all those lihtflyer who had braided Doyle&039;s hair
The nightflyer who had been standing so quietly against the wall, gave a bow "You are too kind, ive credit where credit is due, Una"
Una actually blushed a little across the paleness of her underbelly "I&039;m impressed that you made boots for Mistral in such quick order," I said
Mirabella looked at me, a little startled "The sizes are almost the sa?"
"I&039;ve had to take the guards in Los Angeles shoe shopping I&039;ve gotten pretty good at judging sizes"
She sood eye"
I started to say thank you, but wasn&039;t sure how long Mirabella had been inside faerie "Thank you" can be an insult to some of the older denizens
Instead I said, "I do my best, and the coat you made for me is perfect"
She smiled, truly pleased
"You didn&039;t make the boots," Sholto said
She shook her head "I ain"
"The leprechaun," he said, and he said it as if there was only one of them, which wasn&039;t true There weren&039;t many in the New World, but we had a few
She nodded
"Are you really going to date him?" Sholto asked
She actually blushed "He enjoys his work as I enjoy ave ain "I think I do"
"You know that there are no rules ah for who you sleep with," Sholto said, "but the leprechaun has been pressing you for a hundred years, Mirabella I thought you found him unpleasant"
"I did, but " she spread her hand and tentacle wide "I just don&039;t seem to find him unpleasant anymore We talk of clothes, and he has a television in his hoazines and we discuss them"
"He&039;s found the way to your heart," Doyle said
She gave a little giggle and a sotten soain already "I suppose he has"
"Then you have
Then her face went serious and grientle, and he&039;s never gotten above himself with me, unlike some I could na anything Parts of ood thing
She glared at me, then her face softened "If I am not too presumptuous, Queen Meredith, I heard what he did to you, and I ao"
"I take it he tried his version of courting with you"
"Courting" She al he tried to take me by force I had been invited into faerie with promises of safety and honor He had to drop all the illusions on his person for fittings, so his ic that made all the women see hi a little soft around the middle I knew all the flaws in his illusions I had truth on ic"
"You were probably also holding pins and needles made of cold steel," Doyle said
She looked at him, then nodded "You are correct The very tools of e, he cut off racefully in the air, like some underwater creature found on land "Then he had me driven out of his sithen, because a one-ar had you been in faerie by then?" Doyle asked
"Fifty years, I think"
"To drive you outside the sithen means that all those years would have come upon you all at once," Mistral said
She nodded "Once I had touched ground, yes But not all in his court agreed hat he had done to me Some of the court women carried me to the Unseelie Court They petitioned the queen forTaranis had said: &039;What use is a one-arlistened in her eyes, unshed
Sholto went to her in the beautiful black and silver tunic, and pants, and shiny boots that she had made, or had had made for him He raised her from her knees, with one hand on her hand and one on the end of her tentacle
"I reht," he said
She looked up at hi I reh We will tend her&039; You never asked what I was good for, or if you had a use for me The court ladies made you promise that you would not abuse h"
Sholto smiled "I want the Seelie afraid of us; it is our shield"
She nodded "You tookthat Henry could find a way toWhat would you have done with ive you?"
"We would have found you some task that you could do with the one hand you had, Mirabella We are the sluagh There are those a us with only one limb, and those with hundreds We are an adaptable lot"
She nodded, and turned away so he couldn&039;t see that the tears had finally decided to fall down her face "You are the kindest of rulers, King Sholto"
"Don&039;t tell anyone outside this court that," he said with a laugh
"It will be our secret, My King"
I said, "Did you say that Dr Henry gave you your new lihtflyers was kind enough to let hirow back their tentacles?"
"Yes," I said
"Well, Henry had been working on the concept that he htflyer, who could replace it, onto one of the sluagh, who could not He had not done it successfully, but he offered to try on esture with both her lienetically coan donation They&039;re only just beginning to try with hands and things, but most of the tiet past the rejection proble you just said, My Queen, but Henry would be better able to answer your questions If you want to kno I sew his jackets to flatter his body, I can tell you, but how he made the wonder of this new limb, I do not completely understand even now I have had it for ather up her basket and sewing Una helped her When they were done, they turned back to survey us "You all look suitable, as I&039;d hoped, if I do say so myself"
"Shall we find a reason to ave hiain "He knows I aht not have valued me, but there were those at his court who ers and my needlework There are still a feomen of the court who come to me with commissions from time to time Those who carriedto saveSholto graciously allows it"
I looked at Sholto, and he looked a little ener of your skills busy The sluagh are not a court where clothes hed "The fact that oes nude is a disappointh I think that " She dropped a curtsey, Una bowed, and out they went
"Taranis needs killing," Mistral said
"Agreed," Doyle said
"We will not start a war over what happened to me, or what he did to Mirabella"
"It&039;s a history of such things, Meredith," Doyle said
"Ah," Mistral said "He was once a ladies&039; man, but when that failed him he was never above force"
"Was he always so cruel - taking her ar stories that Taranis had once been a hard-drinking, hard-loving, h reality left to my uncle for that now Once he would have trusted his powers of seduction to get ic to rape me, I would have said that he would never have believed that I would refuse hiendary What had I done to make him think that his illusions could not win me?
"Why did Taranis use a spell to rape o is huge Why would he not believe that I would say yes eventually?"
"Maybe he didn&039;t feel that there was time," Sholto said
"He meant to keep h"
"What are you asking, Meredith?" Doyle asked
"I just find it curious that he used a spell so much different than his usual ones on me He&039;s nearly rolled over eles in a ht It doesn&039;t seeh his illusion when he first found you in faerie," Doyle said
"Yes, he looked like Amatheon but I touched him and he didn&039;t feel like him Amatheon is clean-shaven, and I felt beard"
"But you shouldn&039;t have felt it," Mistral said "Taranis is the King of Light and Illusion ItHe should have been able to bed you without you ever knowing that he was not who he pretended to be"
"I had not thought," Doyle said
"Thought what?" I asked
"That his illusion was not as good as it should have been"
We all thought about that "His ," Sholto said at last
"And he knows it," I said
"That would o-hound coerous," Sholto said
We could only agree with him, unfortunately We did the last-minute preparations for the ates