A Lick of Frost Read online

  I looked at Doyle. “You read it?”

  “I did,” he said. He looked up at me, his eyes still lost behind the dark glasses.

  “Did the lady in question accuse them of being deformed?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  I had a thought. “The same way the ambassador saw you all.”

  Doyle gave the smallest movement of the corner of his mouth, hidden from the mirror. I knew what that almost-smile meant. I was right, and he thought I was on the right track. Okay, if I was on the right track, where was this little train going?

  “How deformed did the lady say they were in her statement?” I asked.

  “So much so that no human woman would survive an attack,” Biggs said.

  I frowned at him. “I don’t understand.”

  “It is the old wives’ tale,” Doyle said, “that the Unseelie have bone and spikes on their lower members.”

  “Oh,” I said, but strangely, that rumor had a basis. The sluagh, Sholto’s kingdom within our court, had had nightflyers. They looked like manta rays with tentacles that dangled, but they could fly like bats. They were the flying hounds of the sluagh’s wild hunt. A royal nightflyer carried a bony spine inside his member that stimulated ovulation in female nightflyers. It also proved that you were of royal nightflyer heritage, because only they could make the females give up their eggs so that they could be fertilized. Rape by a royal night-flyer might have given rise to the old faerie horror story. Sholto’s father had been one of the nonroyals, because his sidhe mother hadn’t needed the spine to make her ovulate. He’d been a surprise baby in many ways. He was gorgeously, wonderfully sidhe, except for some extra bits here and there. Mostly there.

  “King Taranis,” I said, and again his name pulled at me, like a hand tugging for attention. I took a deep breath and relaxed into the weight of Rhys and Frost at my back, my hands on Doyle and Abe. Galen seemed to sense what was needed because he slid his arm between my calves, so that he wrapped himself around one of my legs, and forced both my legs apart a little wider so he could cuddle more tightly. There were very few of my guards who would have been willing to look so submissive in front of Taranis. I valued the few who were more willing to be close to me than to keep up appearances.

  I tried again. “King of Light and Illusion, are you saying that my three guards are so monstrous that to lay with them is painful and horrible?”

  “Lady Caitrin says that it is so,” he said. He had settled back into his throne. It was huge and golden, and was the only thing that had not changed when his illusions were stripped away. He sat on what would cost, even today, a king’s ransom.

  “You said that my men could not maintain their illusion of beauty during intimacies, is that correct?”

  “The Unseelie have not the power of illusion that the Seelie possess.” He sat more comfortably on his throne, legs spread as some men do, as if to draw attention to their masculinity.

  “So when I make love to them, I see them as they truly are?”

  “You are part human, Meredith. You do not have the power of a true sidhe. I am sorry to say that, but it is well known that your magic is weak. They have fooled you, Meredith.”

  Each time he said my name, the air was a little thicker. Galen’s hand slid up my leg until he found the top of my thigh-high hose, and could finally touch bare skin. The touch made me close my eyes for a moment, but it cleared my head. Once, what Taranis had said might have been true, but my magic had grown. I was no longer what I had been. Had no one told Taranis? It was not always wise to tell a king something he would not like. Taranis had treated me as lesser, or worse, all my life. To discover that I might be the heir to his rival court would mean that his treatment of me had been worse than politically incorrect. He had made me his enemy, or so he might think. He was far from the only noble in both courts to find themselves scrambling to make amends for a lifetime of ill treatment.

  “I know what I hold in my hand, and in my body, Uncle.”

  “You do not know the pleasures of the Seelie Court, Meredith. Much awaits you, if only you could know it.” His voice was like the ringing of bells. It was almost music on the very air.

  Nelson started walking toward the mirror again. Her face was full of wonder. Whatever she saw was not real. I knew that now.

  “I have told the lawyers twice that you are bespelling them, Uncle, but whatever you are doing to them makes them forget that. You make them forget the truth, Uncle.”

  The men in the room seemed to take a deep collective breath. “I have missed something,” Biggs said.

  “We all have,” Veducci said. He went to Nelson, who was standing in front of the mirror, staring up as if the wonders of the universe were in that glass. He touched her shoulder, but she didn’t react. She just kept gazing up at the king.

  Veducci called back, “Cortez, help me with her.”

  Cortez looked like he’d been asleep, and had woken up somewhere else. “What the hell is going on?” he asked.

  “King Taranis is using magic against us all.”

  “I thought the metal would protect us,” Shelby said.

  “He is the king of the Seelie Court,” Veducci said. “Even the things I’m carrying aren’t enough protection. I don’t think a few office supplies are going to cut it today.” He put a hand on each of the woman’s shoulders and started pulling her back from the mirror. He called back over his shoulder, “Cortez, concentrate, help me with your assisstant.” He yelled it, and the shouting seemed to startle Cortez. He started forward, still looking startled, but he moved. He did what Veducci asked.

  The two of them drew Nelson back from the mirror. She didn’t fight them, but her face stayed upturned to Taranis’s form as he sat above us all. That was interesting. I hadn’t realized before that something about the mirror’s perspective put him slightly higher than us. Of course, he was on his throne in the actual throne room. He was on a dais. He was, literally, looking down on us. The fact that I had only now realized that told me clearly that whatever spell he was throwing at me was having some effect. I was at the very least not noticing the obvious.

  “You are breaking human law,” Doyle said, “by using magic against them.”

  “I will not speak to the monsters of the queen’s guard.”

  “Then speak to me, Uncle,” I said. “You are breaking the law by the magic you are casting. You must stop it, or this interview is over.”

  “I swear by any oath you choose,” Taranis said, “that I am not deliberately using magic on any full-blooded human in this room.”

  It was a pretty bit of lying, so close to the truth that it wasn’t a lie at all. I laughed. Frost and Abe started, as if the sound hadn’t been what they had expected. “Oh, Uncle, will you also take any oath of my choosing that you are not trying to bespell me?”

  He gave me every ounce of that handsome, manly face, but the beard sort of ruined it for me. I wasn’t a fan of facial hair, but that could be because I grew up at Andais’s court. For whatever reason, the queen’s wish that her men not have beards and such had become a reality. Most of them couldn’t have grown a good beard if they’d wanted to. Sometimes the queen’s wish becomes reality in faerie. I’d seen the truth of that old saying in faerie for myself. I could police my words aloud, but when my very thoughts could become real, that had been terrifying. I was glad to be out of faerie and back to a more solid reality, where I could think what I liked and not have to worry about it becoming real.

  I thought my own thoughts while Taranis pushed at me with his face, his eyes, the fantastic color of his hair. He pushed the spell he’d conjured at me. It was like a weight on the air, a thickness on my tongue, as if the very air was trying to become what he willed it. He was in faerie, and perhaps there, at his court, it would have worked exactly like that. Whatever he wanted from me, I might have been forced to give him. But I was in Los Angeles, not in faerie, and I was very glad to be here. Glad to be surrounded by man-made steel, concrete, and glass.
There were fey who would have suffered illness simply by stepping into such a building. My human blood let me be unaffected. My men were sidhe, and that was also sterner stuff.

  “Meredith, Meredith, come to me.” He actually held his hand out to me, as if he would reach through the mirror and fetch me. Some of the sidhe could do just that. I didn’t think Taranis was one of them.

  Doyle stood, wrapping one hand around mine, but standing feet apart, free hand loose at his side. I knew that stance. He was giving himself room to draw a weapon. It would almost have to be a gun because I had the hand he would have needed for the sword at his side.

  Frost moved a little farther from the back of my chair, his hand still loosely on my shoulder. I didn’t have to look at him to know that he was doing his own version of Doyle’s preparations.

  Galen stood up, which broke his contact with me. Taranis was suddenly edged with golden light. His eyes glowed with all the heat of green growing things. I started to rise from my chair. Rhys’s hand pressed me down so that I couldn’t move.

  Doyle said, “Galen.”

  Galen went back to one knee, so he could touch my leg. The touch was enough. The glow faded, and the compulsion to stand faded. “This is a problem,” I said.

  Abe leaned against my other arm, causing his long striped hair to pool around the chair. He laughed, that warm masculine sound. “Merry, Merry, you need more men. It seems to be a theme with you.”

  I smiled, because he was too right.

  “They would never arrive in time,” Frost said.

  I called out, “Biggs, Veducci, Shelby, Cortez, all of you.”

  Cortez had to stay with Nelson to keep her in her chair so she didn’t go to the mirror, but the rest came to me.

  “Meredith,” Taranis said, “what are you doing?”

  “Getting help,” I said.

  Doyle motioned the men to stand between us and the mirror. They formed a wall of suits and bodies. It helped. What in Danu’s name was the spell? I knew better than to invoke the name of the Goddess, I really did. But I had had a lifetime of saying it, like a human who says, “What in the name of God.” You don’t really expect God to answer, do you?

  The room smelled of wild roses. A wind eased through the room as if someone had opened a window, though I knew no one had.

  “Merry, cool it,” Rhys said softly.

  I knew what he meant. We had managed to keep some secrets from Taranis about just how active the Goddess was being for me. In faerie this was the beginning of full manifestation. If the Goddess—even a shadow of her—appeared in this room, Taranis would know. He would know that he needed to fear me. We weren’t ready for that, not yet.

  I prayed silently, “Goddess, please, save your power for later. Do not give our secret away to this man.”

  The smell of flowers grew stronger for a moment, but the wind began to die down. Then the smell began to fade like expensive perfume when the wearer leaves the room. I felt a tension go out of the men around me. The humans simply looked puzzled. “Your perfume is amazing, Princess,” Biggs said. “What is it?”

  “We’ll talk about cosmetics later, Mr. Biggs,” I said.

  He looked embarrassed. “Of course. I am sorry. There is something about you people that just makes a poor lawyer forget himself.” His words could be terribly true. I was hoping that no one in this room discovered just how true they could be.

  “King of the Seelie Court, you insult me, and my court, and through me, my queen,” I said.

  “Meredith,” his voice breathed through the room and caressed my skin, as if it had fingers.

  Nelson whimpered.

  “Stop it!” I yelled, and there was an echo of power to my voice. “If you do not cease trying to bespell me, I will have this mirror blanked, and there will be no more talks.”

  “They attacked a woman of my court. They must be given over to us for punishment.”

  “Give us proof of the crimes, Uncle.”

  “The word of a Seelie noble is proof enough,” he said, and now his voice didn’t sound seductive. It sounded angry.

  “But the word of an Unseelie noble is worth nothing, is that it?” I asked.

  “Our histories speak for themselves,” he said.

  I wished I could have afforded to have the lawyers move so that I could see Taranis, but I did not dare. With him blocked from my sight I could think. I could be angry.

  “Then you call me a liar. Is that it, Uncle?”

  “Not you, Meredith, never you.”

  “One of the men you accuse was with me when the Lady Caitrin claims he was raping her. He could not have been with her, and with me, at the same time. She lies, or she believes someone else’s lie.”

  Doyle’s hand tensed in mine. He was right. I’d said too much. Damnit, but these word games were hard. So many secrets to keep track of, and so hard to decide who knew what, and when to tell anyone anything.

  “Meredith,” he said, his voice pushing against me again, almost like a touch, “Meredith, come to me, to us.”

  Nelson made a sound like a soft scream. Cortez said, “I can’t hold her!”

  Shelby went to help him and I could suddenly see the mirror. I could see the tall, imposing figure. The sight was enough to add weight to his words, so it was like a push. “Meredith, come to me.”

  He held his hand out to me, and I knew I should take his hand, knew it.

  The hands and bodies of my men pressed on my shoulders, arms, and legs, keeping me in my chair. I hadn’t meant to, but I must have tried to rise. I don’t think I would have gone to Taranis, but…but…It was good that I had hands to hold me down.

  Nelson was screaming, “He’s so beautiful, so beautiful! I have to go to him! I have to go to him!”

  The woman’s struggles sent Cortez and Shelby crashing to the floor with her.

  “Security.” Doyle’s deep voice seemed to cut through the hysteria. “What?” Biggs said, blinking too rapidly.

  “Call security,” Doyle said. “Send for help.”

  Biggs nodded, again too rapidly, but he walked to the telephone on his desk.

  Taranis’s voice came like something shining and hard, as if words could be stones thrown against your skin. “Mr. Biggs, look upon me.”

  Biggs hesitated, his hand hovering over the phone.

  “Keep her in her seat,” Doyle said, then he let me go to walk toward Biggs.

  “He is a monster, Biggs,” Taranis said. “Do not let him touch you.”

  Biggs turned wide-eyed and stared at Doyle. He backed away, hands up as if to ward off a blow. “Oh, my God,” he whispered. Whatever he saw when he looked at my handsome captain was not what was there.

  Veducci turned around from where he still stood in front of me. He took something from his pants pocket and threw it at the mirror. Dust and bits of herbs hit the surface, but they stuck to the glass as if it were water. The dry bits floated there, making small ripples on the supposedly solid surface. In that moment I knew two things. One, that Taranis could make the mirror a mode of travel between one place and another, an ability most had lost. Two, that he had truly meant “come to me.” If I had gone to the mirror he could have pulled me through. Goddess help us.

  Biggs seemed to wake from the spell, and grabbed the phone like he had a purpose.

  “They are monsters, Meredith,” Taranis said. “They cannot bear the touch of sunlight. How can anything that hides in the dark be ought but evil?”

  I shook my head. “Your voice is only words now, Uncle. My men stand in sunlight, straight and proud.”

  The men in question looked at the king, except for Galen, who looked at me. It was a questioning look; was I better now? I nodded for him, shared with him a smile I’d been giving him since I was fourteen.

  Taranis bellowed, “No, you will not bed the greenman, and bring life to the darkness. The Goddess has touched you, and we are the people of the Goddess.”

  I fought to keep my face blank, because that last comment coul
d mean so many things. Did he already know that the chalice of the Goddess had come to me? Or had rumor planted something else in his head?

  The scent of roses was back. Galen whispered, “I smell apple blossoms.” Each of the men smelled the scent they had smelled when the Goddess had manifested for them. She was not just one goddess, but many. She was the face of all that was female. Not merely a rose, but all that grew upon the earth was in her scent.

  Doyle came back toward us. “Is this wise, Meredith?”

  “I don’t know.” But I stood, and they let their hands fall away from me. I stood in front of my uncle alone, with the men lined around me. The lawyers had moved back, frowning, puzzled, except for Veducci, who seemed to understand a great deal more than he should have.

  “We are all people of the Goddess, Uncle,” I said.

  “The Unseelie are the dark god’s children.”

  “There is no dark god among us,” I said. “We are not Christians to people our underworld with terrors. We are children of the earth and sky. We are nature itself. There is no evil in us, only differences.”

  “They have filled your head with lies,” he said.

  “Truth is truth, whether in sunlight or darkest night. You cannot hide from the truth forever, Uncle.”

  “Where is the ambassador? He will search their bodies and find the horrors that the lady said were there.”

  There was a wind in the room now, a gentle breeze that held that first warmth of spring. The scent of plants was mingling so that I could smell Galen’s apple blossoms, Doyle’s scent of autumn oak leaves and deep forest, and Rhys’s sweet, cloying lily of the valley. Frost’s was a taste like flavored ice, and Abe’s was honeyed mead. The scents and tastes combined with the scent of wild roses.

  “I smell flowers,” Nelson said, her voice uncertain.

  “What do you smell, Uncle?” I asked.

  “I smell nothing but the corruption that stands behind you. Where is Ambassador Stevens?”

  “He is being tended by a human wizard by now. They will cleanse him of the spell you placed upon him.”

  “More lies,” he said, but there was something in his face that belied the strength of his protests.