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Chapter 27

RHYS PACED BY THE BATHTUB, THOUGH THERE WAS PRECIOUS little rooer than most standard modern bathrooms, but once you squeezed in Frost, Doyle, Galen, Nicca and his wings, Kitto, and me, no bathroom short of Queen Andais&039;s personal bathroo the bath, playing servant, which he&039;d started doing more and more Andais had offered rounds of my safety We couldn&039;t trust anyone as we trusted each other That was part of the reason The other part was that the servant would spy for Andais, and we had too many secrets for that We didn&039;t share that part with Andais

"When I escorted Major Walters and the good doctor to their cars, the FBI was still there"

"Persistent bastard," I said

Rhys shook his head, and stopped beside ht our Killing Frost was so pretty, had just gotten to the cars, too"

"What are you saying, Rhys?" Doyle was leaning to one side of the door

"That according to the FBI and the people who escorted Carmichael out, only a few minutes had passed since I put Carmichael outside of the mound"

"It&039;s been hours since then," I said I was sitting on the corner of the wideto maketo the humans outside," Rhys said

"What does thatwith time," Doyle said

"Time always runs funny inside faerie," I said

"But only in pockets," Rhys said, "and only by a few minutes, maybe an hour Faerie has been on the same time schedule as the ainst the double sinks, fitting himself beside Galen

Nicca had most of the far corner of the roos "What does it mean?"

Frost spoke from the wall on the other side of the door "It means that it isn&039;t only the sidhe and the de some of their old powers"

"You told me that the humans reacted to the entrance to faerie as if the hallway had its old glamour," Doyle said "Why should we be surprised that the sithen is gaining back other abilities as well"

I hugged nore the scratchy dried blood onthe nearly full tub I said, "Someti, soht, sometimes you speak of the sithen as if it is faerie I asked my father once if the sithen was alive, and he said yes I asked if it was a person, and he said no I asked if it was faerie, and he said yes I asked if it was the totality of faerie, and he said no Does anyone alive today actually knohat the sithen are?"

"You do ask the most difficult questions sometimes" Rhys crossed his ar his pale suit A wet line on his trousers shohere the snow had stained the cloth He&039;d ht than most of the rest of us

"Does that mean you can&039;t answer the question, or you won&039;t?"

"You&039;re Princess Meredith NicEssus, our future queen; if you order it, we have to answer," he said

I frowned at him "I did not order you to tell ainst his good eye, and when he lowered it, he looked tired He ht be boyishly handsome forever, but his face could still hold lines of weariness now and then "I&039; with tiuard outside of faerie, so that we can figure out the difference between the two places chronologically That will tell us how bad it is right now, but"

"But not how big the difference will grow," Nicca said

Rhys nodded "This could get really bad"

"I&039; here," I said "Why do you all look so worried?"

"Don&039;t look at loomy about it either I mean the sithen does a lot of weird stuff, it always has"

"And what if the sithen decides to make the difference between inside faerie and outside faerie not just hours to ed a look He said, "Can it do that?" I said, "Oh"

"It has in the past," Rhys said

"I thought that the queen or king of the court controlled the time difference," I said

"Once," Doyle said, "but that ability went away long ago"

"Wait," Galen said, "did you say the queen could control how big the time difference was?"

Several of us nodded

"Didn&039;t the old stories say that only hours would pass inside faerie, but centuries would pass outside in the hu at Galen as if he had said so smart

"We accomplished a lot in the last few hours, but the rest of the world has used up only a fewfaster than everybody else Isn&039;t that opposite of the way it used to work? Didn&039;t mortal time e glances, except for Kitto, who see the bath "By the looks on everyone&039;s faces, I&039;ve ht," Galen said "We still have a lot to do tonight, and while we get all of it done, the outside world moves at a crawl The question is, are we the only sithen experiencing the tied him one armed "You know, you&039;re smarter than you look"

"Don&039;t coo to ht, or is everyone else just faster than I am?" I asked

"Exactly," Doyle said

I frowned at hiht say out loud that you neededlike, we don&039;t have enough tiate the murder and play court with the queen Not those words, but" I looked at Doyle "Are you saying that I ?"

"You did make ato see what the cloak looked like"

I was suddenly so scared that cold tingled down toI say could be taken literally by the sithen"

He nodded

"Wein another sithen," Frost said "If the goblins or the sluagh are gaining hours on the e Sometimes it does that"

"And if it is only our sithen?" Nicca asked

"Then Meredithatto life in his ?" I asked him

"Not just him," Rhys said

"No, not just hi his arms as if he was cold, too "For once I knohat the bad news is before anyone says it"

"Then fill e inside the sithen, and Merry was able to do it" Galen said, and left it unfinished

"Once upon a tirowling echoes needed to fill all the sht your way to the throne, or were elected by all the other rulers as high king, or high queen, you still could not rule a faerie mound You could not sit on the throne of a specific sithen unless the sithen itself accepted your right to rule"

"I haven&039;t heard that story," I said

"It is a forbidden story," Frost said, looking at Doyle

"Why would it be forbidden?" Galen asked

I ic leap this time "Andais wasn&039;t chosen by the sithen," I said

"She was in Europe," Doyle said, "but e arrived in America, the new faerie mound did not"

"What do you mean &039;new&039;?" I asked

"Faerie is not just a physical location The moment Andais stepped into the new mound here, it should have been the same, but it wasn&039;t"

"We all assu, the one that the Aovernment forced on us before they would allow us to move here," Rhys said "So ed - "sort of looked the other way about the sithen not cuddling up to Andais"

"She did allow the nobles to enter the sithen and have us watch them one by one," Frost said "If the sithen had reacted to any of thereed to step aside"

"My aunt agreed to let the throne go to any noble the sithen chose?" I said

"Hard to believe, I know," Rhys said, "but she did We all assu had taken too much of her power for her to rule us Then the worst happened"

"The sithen knew none of them," Doyle said

"Okay, I understand how that would be bad, but why is it forbidden to talk about it?" I asked

"Did Prince Essus ever explain to you how the various faerie courts ca?" Doyle asked

I started to say yes, of course he had, but he hadn&039;t "I know that once the sidhe were not simply two courts, Seelie and Unseelie, but dozens, with different kings and queens, like the goblin court and the sluagh, butourselves, until we all agreed that we needed a high king," Rhys said "Once there was only one sidhe high ruler, not two"

"I know this one," I said "The first Unseelie sidhe ruler was cast out of the Seelie Court, but he refused to leave faerie He went from court to court and asked for entrance, but they feared the sidhe, and so finally the only fey court left was the sluagh Theand least human of all the fey They took him in, and from that time on any sidhe as cast out of other courts could petition to join the sluagh"

"Very good," Rhys said, "but do you knohen the Unseelie becah?"

"When there were enough sidhe who didn&039;t want to be called sluagh," I said

"Almost," Doyle said

"Why almost?" I asked

"At one tih, e thedoh was our first king Faerie created a place for hih&039;s court and made one of our own"

"Okay," I said

"We&039;re all afraid to say it," Rhys said, "because we&039;ve all et us in trouble"

"What part?" I asked

"A court without a ruler begins to fade," Nicca said

They all looked at hie to say it It took me a moment to understand the implications

It was Galen who had said it out loud "Goddess save us, that&039;s what&039;s been happening to our court We had no true ruler, so the sithen was dying Our slice of faerie has been dying"

"Not just ours," Doyle said

"Who else?" I asked

"Our bright cousins follow a king whose sithen did not know him"

"Their sithen didn&039;t know any of their nobles either?" I asked

"Rumor has it, and it&039;s only runized, he exiled them," Rhys said

"It&039;s not rumor," Doyle said

We all looked at hi on Frost&039;s face told me that he had known The rest looked as shocked as I felt "They had a true king and Taranis exiled him?"

Doyle and Frost nodded

"But that is ive up her throne if a true queen could have been found"

"Does his court know?" I asked Doyle

"Most, no"

"But some?" I asked

"Some," he said

"How can they support him? The Unseelie had no choice but to fade, but he had a new king to sit on the Seelie throne They didn&039;t have to fade"

"Did our sithen recognize Aisling when he came here?" Galen asked

"No," Doyle said

"Why not?" he asked

Doyle shrugged, and I guess that was answer enough, or the only answer he had

"The bath is ready," Kitto said, his voice as neutral and eave oblinwhen you cah to know such things I do not know"

"The goblins are less faded than the sidhe They are still e left them"

"But wait," Galen said, "the Seelie sidhe are less faded in power than we are Why is that? Shouldn&039;t both courts be fading at about the same rate?"

"They should be," Doyle said

"But they aren&039;t," I said

"They don&039;t see," Doyle said

"What h to help release the Naicks, into the human world to kill Maeve Reed? She&039;d been exiled from faerie for more than a century It couldn&039;t have just been Merry&039;s visit to her That could have gotten him to send someone to assassinate Maeve, but not to release the Na about it, and I can&039;tMerry to his ball," Galen said "That makes no sense either He&039;s hated her all her life"

"Not hated, Galen, you have to think more of a person to hate the of me I was more a nonentity at the Seelie Court than here at the Unseelie Court"

"So why is he so hot to see you? Why now?"

"None of us have liked this sudden invitation," Doyle said, "but we have had our discussions, and we are going to accept"

"I still think it&039;s too dangerous for Merry," Galen said

"We will be there to protect her," Doyle said

"You know, it would be really interesting to take Aisling as one of uard"

"I do not believe that Taranis would allow him to pass into his court," Doyle said

"If he refuses any of hts to take insult and refuse the invitation," I said

They all looked at one another "It has possibilities," Rhys said

Galen nodded "I like anything that keeps Merry fro to attend this ball"

"How can you say that?" Frost asked "You sahat just the touch of Aisling&039;s power did to Melangell Taranis has negotiated that only the guards who have visited Meredith&039;s bed may accoell&039;s sightless eyes that I was re held me and I&039;d noticed that his eyes were eain a kiss through his veil The Goddess had co in h to bed Aisling, veiled or unveiled? Or was it ainst Aisling&039;s h to resist? And was the risk of Aisling&039;s body worth the chance to avoid whatever scheet into the bath soon it will begin to grow cool," Kitto said

I hugged hiht Galen and I need to get clean"

"Then have sex," Galen said

I smiled back at him "Yes, then have sex"

"And Nicca, as well," Doyle said, "so he will be free to go to Biddy"

I nodded "I&039;ll give them the bed The first time you have sex with someone shouldn&039;t be in a bathtub, it&039;s too aard"

"You&039;re going to have sex in a bathtub with a six-foot-tall rinned and shook his head "I think I want to watch this"

"You otten hi all our news back to his queen"

"He will spy for Niceven," Frost said

"I&039;m aware that Royal&039;s first duty will be to his own queen and court"

"Your bedrooless demi-fey," Rhys said "It&039;s like an infestation"

"Queen Niceven doesn&039;t want Meredith to feed any one demi-fey too many times in a row," Doyle said

"I do not want to share her bed with the demi-fey," Frost said

"Oh, Frost," I said

He held up a hand "I&039; I won&039;t, but I don&039;t think any of us want a de to get cold," Kitto said again