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Chapter 13

I DIDN&039;T SEE THE POLICE BUT I HEARD THEM, A RUMBLE OF DEEP male voices Sound carried so hts My cheeks were stinging, and ed and frozen in the fur of the hood Barinthus had kept me warm on the walk to the faerie mounds after the assassination atteh forinto the knees of my jeans I tried to call the feel of the summer sun to put inside my shield and help keep back the cold, but it was as if I couldn&039;t reht was clear with a thousand stars flung across the darkness like bits of glittering ice, diaht to lift one foot, then the next, and struggle through drifts that the taller sidhe walked through effortlessly It was undignified for a princess to fall on her face, but it took effort to keep froh the snoasn&039;t exactly dignified either, but that I could do nothing about

But it was Biddy who stuht her before she hit the snow I heard her apologize, "I don&039;t knohat&039;s wrong I&039;m so cold"

"Stop, all of you, stop," I said Everyone obeyed, soers near weapons

It was Galen who asked, "What&039;s wrong, Merry?"

"Are Biddy and I the only ones here with human blood?"

"I think so"

"I tried to conjure the feel of summer sun, and I couldn&039;t remember what it was like"

Doyle had worked his way back to ?"

"Check Biddy and me for a spell, a spell that attacks only huloves and put his hand just aboverowled low and soft, but the sound raised the hair on the back of "

He nodded Then he turned to Biddy, as half fainting in Nicca&039;s arms "I am sorry, Doyle I am truly better than this"

"It is a spell," he told her, and lifted off her helmet to lay his hand above her face He handed the helry color in his eyes He was fighting down his power, raised by anger Anger at hi yet another spell slip under his nose We had so worked on us One of us would have noticed soainst

"It is tied to y, and fills you with cold"

"Why is Biddy more affected than Merry?" Nicca asked He was covered cos They were held tight together as if they would stay warmer that way, and e that

I answered him "She&039;s half-hu huot more than I have"

"Are the human police affected?" Hawthorne asked

Doyle put his hand back over ic shiver over ion It was put on either Biddy or the princess, then jumped from one to the other If we do not remove it, it will spread to the police"

I looked up at hiainst my skin, like breath "What would it do to full-blooded humans?"

"It made a warrior of the sidhe stumble in the snow She is disoriented, and would be useless in a fight"

Frost was staring off into the darkness He and another fringe of guards were all staring out into the cold night His voice carried toof a more overt attack?"

"Who would be so bold as to attack the huer to co to be farther away froain that he had been Cel&039;s creature for centuries Did a few acts of honor and kindness erase centuries of allegiance? And as close to Cel as he had been, he had to have witnessed souards spoke of, didn&039;t he? I made a mental note to ask him later, with Doyle and Frost at my back Onilas inside the faerie ie May and I had given him Cold iron forces even the sidhe to heal hu to trust; was I wrong to trust him? Of course, the question itself meant I didn&039;t trust hiht not to look at hie that I wondered if it was him

Either I betrayed myself, or he felt insecure, because he said, "I will make any oath that I did not know of this"

"You said you were a man without honor," Adair said "A h," Doyle said, "ill not squabble ast ourselves, not this close to the huht We will discuss this later" I raised my face up to him, and said, "Can you remove it so that Biddy and I do not infect the police?"

"I can"

"Then do it, and let us get this done"

"You sound angry," Galen said

"I aan, in a way," Doyle said

I looked at him "What do you mean?"

"It means our murderer fears the huic has failed" He stuffed his gloves in the pocket of his coat and slid my hood off, so that the cold air spilled around my face I shivered

"I am afraid I will have to make you colder before I am done"

I nodded "Get this off of me, and I arm myself"

He pushedthe shell of warht not to shiver as he spread his hands overjust above my body His power shivered overoff ofan insect off my skin

He raised his hands upward, cupped as if he truly held soreen fire to his hands It was the painful fla a body It could cause death if you werepain and madness in the i to me

Rhys&039;s voice caun naked in his hand, but held along his body so the police probably wouldn&039;t see it froht, and said, "What is it?" with a new urgency in his voice "What a?"

Galen answered him "Someone put a spell on Merry"

"On both the huious to the hu the night a little darker He turned to Biddy, where she half sagged in Nicca&039;s aro, Nicca"

"She will fall"

"Only to her knees in the snow It won&039;t hurt her" Doyle&039;s voice was surprisingly gentle

Nicca still held her against hiain

"It&039;s all right, Nicca," Biddy said in a soft voice, a little breathy "Doyle will help ently draw him away from her "Let the captain help your lady"

Nicca allowed himself to be draay, but when Biddy collapsed into the snow, he moved to catch her, and only Hawthorne and Adair on each side kept hiave a soft whistle "That would have done bad things to our nice policereatcoat spreading out like a pool of darkness against the white He passed his hands above Biddy, much as he&039;d done me, but he hesitated close to her belly "That so on her while she wore this reat power"

"Or mixed blood," I said "Those of us with a little huic better than a pure-blooded sidhe"

Hisht"

"Can you trail it back to its owner?" I asked

Doyle cocked his head to the side, the way a dog does when it is puzzled by so "Yes" His hands tensed above Biddy&039;s body "I can reic of my own, and force it to fly back to its owner"

"You mean not just track it, but make it run back home?" Rhys asked

"Yes"

"You have not been able to do that in a very long time," Frost said

"But I can do it now," Doyle said "I can feel it in my hands, my stomach All I have to do is remove it, and add my power at the moment of its release It will be a chase to keep up with it, but it ork"

"Who will go with you?" Frost asked "I o," Usna said "No dog can outrun a cat"

Doyle gave hio" It was Cathbodua, once a goddess of battle, now a refugee frouard Her cloak was formed of black feathers, so that it sometimes seemed as if her fine black hair was part of the cloak, and if you looked at her froes of your eyes, her hair looked as if it were made of feathers She was Cathbodua, battle scald crow, and though diminished in power, she was still one of the few in the courts who had kept her original name Rumor had it that she had not been as abused by Cel, for he feared her Dogmaela, who stood in ar because she was given every awful task he could find She had publicly denied hiiven her Cathbodua had done the sa, and not suffered overlythere in the snow, all black and feathered, with soive a braver man than Cel pause

"You think you can keep up, birdie?" Usna said

She gave hih to freeze the smile from his face "Don&039;t worry for me, kitty-cat, I won&039;t be the tail end of this race"

Usna rowl "Remember who the predator is here, birdie"

Her smiled widened, and filled her eyes with a fierce joy "Me," she said

"Us," Doyle said "Keep her safe, Frost"

"I will"

"Oh, don&039;t h to keep up, and apparently I can&039;t be trusted with the safety of the princess"

"Help her with the hulanced at Cathbodua and Usna "Are you prepared?"

Cathbodua said, "I am ready"

Usna said, "Always"

Doyle turned back to Biddy "This may hurt"

"Do it" She braced herself, hands in the snow

Doyle flexed his hands, so that they looked like black claws against the silver of her aric flared even through the shields that I held in place to keep ic of faerie Her aura, her ht that covered her body Doyle plunged his hands into that flare of light and caht wasn&039;t the clean yellohite light of Biddy&039;s aura, it was a dark sickly yelloith an edge of orange flame to it Doyle cupped his hands e flaers

He stood carefully, as if he held a very full bowl of very hot soup He stepped around Biddy, and the other guards spilled away so that there was nothing between him and the mounds but empty snow

Usna and Cathboduacloak and stood dressedin the cold, his face eager, eyes shining with anticipation Cathboda&039;s face was like paleher cloak off, she gathered it htly around her I realized that her breath did not fog in the cold I had ahis hands skyward, and the flae flaain altitude Doyle undid his long black cloak and let it fall to the snow He undid his weapons and flung thes twice more and stared down at us all with eyes ant look, as if to say, "You will never catchlike soht

Doyle was si to watch darkness fall You never really saw it happen He was a tall dark shape, loping over the snow Cathbodua ith hi It was al feathered cloak floated above the snow, and she with it Usna trailed them both, but not bylike colored snow, as he ran graceful and full out behind them

"He has his work cut out for him," Rhys said