Chapter Twenty-One

Sholto's office was full of rich, polished wood, stained as dark a brown as it was possible to do and not ruin the wood. The walls were even paneled wood. There was a wall hanging behind the main desk. It was faded, but the threads still showed a scene of the sky boiling with clouds that held tentacles and sights best left to horror movies. There were tiny figures on the ground of people running in terror. One figure, a woman with long yellow hair, gazed up at the clouds while everyone else ran or hid their eyes. As a child I had gazed at the hanging while my father and Sholto did business. I knew from asking that the hanging was almost as old as the Bayeux tapestry, and that the blond woman was Glenna the Mad. She had made a series of tapestries of what she'd seen when the wild hunt had come through her countryside. The tapestries gradually became more bizarre as her senses left her.

I'd stared into what had driven Glenna insane, and I hadn't flinched. Had it been shock? Had it been the blessing of the God and Goddesses? Or had all the losses finally caught up with me?

Doyle was standing behind me, his arms around my waist, holding me against the front of his body. The weight and reality of him were like a lifeline. I was fleeing faerie for good reasons, the right reasons, but I could admit in my head that one of the main reasons was this man. Maybe it was Gran's death, but I think I'd decided that for Doyle and the children inside me I'd trade a throne.

A man's voice on the other end of the phone made me jump. I'd been waiting on hold for a long time. I think they hadn't believed that I was who I said I was.

Doyle hugged me a little more tightly, while my pulse calmed a little.

"This is Major Walters. Is that really you, Princess?"

"It's me."

"They're telling me you need a police escort out of faerie." A tendril of the roses in my crown curled downward to touch the phone receiver.

"I do."

"You do know that the walls of your hospital room melted. Witnesses say you and King Sholto flew out of the room on flying horses, but somehow the Mobile Reserve Team that was watching the outside of your room didn't see any of this until you were far enough away, then the holes in the walls just appeared to them." He didn't sound happy.

"Major Walters, I am sorry that I upset your Mobile Reserve and anyone else, but I've had a hell of a night myself, okay?" There was the tiniest catch in my voice. I took a few deep, even breaths. I would not break down. Queens didn't do that.

Doyle kissed the top of my head, laying his cheek between the roses and the mistletoe of the crown.

The rose tendril wrapped tightly around the phone, and tugged.

"Are you hurt?"

"Not physically."

"What happened, Princess?" His voice was gentler now.

"It's time for me to get out of faerie, Major Walters. It's time for me to get out of your jurisdiction. I'm too close to my relatives in St. Louis." The tendril pulled harder, as if it were trying to pull the phone out of my hand. Faerie had crowned me the queen of this mound. It didn't want to lose me to the human world.

I whispered, "Stop it."

"What was that, Princess?"

"Nothing, sorry."

"What do you need from us?"

Doyle touched the tendril and began to uncurl it from the phone. He tried to take both of his hands away to do it, but I put one arm back around my waist, so he was forced to do it one-handed.

I explained that my uncle's people were outside my refuge and were threatening war on the sluagh unless they handed me over. "My uncle is absolute ruler of the Seelie Court. He's convinced them that the twins I carry are somehow his, and he's their king. He claims that the sluagh stole me away, and the Seelies want me back." I didn't try to fight the catch in my voice now. "They want to give me back to my uncle. Do you understand?"

Doyle finally had the tendril unwrapped. I felt it move back up with the rest of the living crown.

"I heard what he's accused of, and I am sorrier than I know how to say, Princess Meredith."

"Accused of, Walters? Nice that you don't admit that you believe me."

Doyle held me more tightly.

Major Walters started to protest.

I cut him off. "It's okay, Walters. Just escort me back to reality. Get us all on a plane and back to L.A."

The tendril slid back toward the phone.

"You should have a doctor look at you before you get on a plane."

I put a hand over the receiver and hissed, "Stop!" The vine stopped in mid-motion like a child caught with its hand going for cookies.

"Princess, we'll come and get you, but on the condition that you let a doctor look you over before we put you on the plane."

"We melted the walls of the room I was in. Do you really think the hospital wants me back?"

"They're a hospital, and they want you safe. We all want you safe."

"You don't want me dying on your watch is what you mean."

Doyle sighed, and kissed my cheek. I wasn't sure if he was warning me not to be too harsh with the humans, or if he was simply comforting me.

"Princess, that is not what I mean," he said and he sounded like he meant it.

"Fine, I'm sorry. Please, come get us."

"It will take a little while to get things round, but we'll get there."

"Why a while?" I asked.

"After what happened last time, Princess, we've been given permission, or orders, depending on how you want to look at it, to have the National Guard with us. Just in case the sky boils and monsters come out again. I know your man Abeloec healed the ones who went mad, but enough of them remember some of what happened that this is more than a straight police matter."

"Mobile Reserve can't handle it?" I asked.

"The National Guard has witches and wizards assigned to their units now. The police don't."

"Oh," I said. "I'd forgotten that. That horrible thing that happened in Persia." It had been on the news for days, in horrible living color.

"It's not called Persia anymore, Princess Meredith, and hasn't been for a very long time."

"But the creatures that attacked our soldiers were Persian bogey beasts. They had nothing to do with Islam, and everything to do with the original religion of the region."

"That may be, but the National Guard will bring magic workers, and after what's been happening, I think I agree that we need them."

What was I supposed to say to that? The tendril curled around the phone and tugged again, and this time I hit it gently with my finger. It curled away as if I'd hurt its feelings. I appreciated being crowned by faerie itself. I appreciated the honor, but a crown wasn't going to protect me from my relatives. Once I'd thought it would, but I realized that that had been naive.

"I'll make the calls. How long can you hold out in the sluagh mound?"

"If we just stay inside, awhile. But I don't know how long the Seelie will wait to press the matter."

"Do they actually believe that your uncle is the father of your children?"

"My mother is out there with them, agreeing with it. I can't even blame them for believing her. She's my mother. Why would she lie?"

Sholto pushed away from the wall where he and Mistral had been waiting. I think they were giving me alone time with Doyle. But now, Sholto came and took my free hand in his, and laid a gentle kiss on it. I wasn't sure what I'd done to deserve such comfort.

"Why would she lie?" Major Walters asked.

"Because her greatest goal in life was always to be part of the inner circle of the Seelie Court, and if she can make me Taranis's queen, then she's suddenly the mother of the queen of the Seelie Court. She'd love it."

"She'd trade your freedom for a little social climbing?"

"She'd trade my life for a little social climbing."

Doyle stood at my back, and held me. Sholto knelt at my feet and wrapped his arms around my legs, gazing up at me. The flowers on his crown were like a mist of lavender, pink, and white. He looked terribly Seelie kneeling there and staring up with those tri-gold eyes.

"No, Princess, she's your mom."

"She let my uncle beat me nearly to death when I was young. She watched him do it. My grandmother was the one who intervened and saved my life."

I touched Sholto's face, and knew in that instant that here was another man who would risk everything for me. He'd already proven that when he came to fetch me from the Seelie Court, but the look in his eyes now said more.

"There's a rumor that your grandmother was injured. My staff saw some of your men carrying her on horseback out of the hospital."

"She's not injured. She's dead." My voice was oddly flat when I said it.

Sholto's eyes showed pain, because he was the one who had struck the fatal blow. It was his hand that had killed Gran, even though he had had no choice.

"What?" Major Walters asked.

"I don't have time to explain, Major Walters. I need help. I need a human escort out of here."

"Why can't your Unseelie guard get you out?"

"I'm not certain what the Seelie would do if they saw Unseelie warriors right now. But they won't attack humans, especially human soldiers. It would break the peace, and they would risk being kicked out of America for waging war on your soil."

"They're trying to give you back to the man you've accused of raping you. That's not very rational. Do you really think that they'll let soldiers come in and take you without a fight?"

"If not, then kick their asses out of America."

"Are you setting us up to help you get rid of your enemies, Princess?"

"No, I'm doing the only thing I can think of that might, just might, avoid any more bloodshed or violence. I've seen enough for one night. I'm part human, and I'm going to embrace that part, Major Walters. They keep saying I'm too mortal to be sidhe, well, I'll go be mortal. Because it is too dangerous to be sidhe right now. Get me out of here, Major Walters. I am pregnant with twins, and I have some of the fathers of my children with me. Get us out of here before something fatal happens. Please, Major Walters, please help me."

The tendril curled back away from the phone. Doyle held me against his body. Sholto still had his ams wrapped around my legs, putting his arms between Doyle's body and mine, but it was all right in that instant, it wasn't competitive. Sholto laid his cheek against my legs, hiding his eyes.

"I am so sorry, Meredith, about your grandmother. Please forgive me."

"We punished the person who killed Gran. You know, we all know, that it wasn't your hand that did it."

He gazed up at me, his handsome face anguished. "But it was my hand that struck the blow."

"If you had not done it, and I could have," Doyle said, "it would have been my hand."

Mistral spoke from near the door. "What all has been happening while I was being tortured?"

"There is much to tell," Doyle said, "but let it wait for a later time."

Mistral came to stand near us, but there wasn't much of me left to touch. I offered him a hand, and after a moment's hesitation, he took it. "I will follow you into exile, Princess."

"I cannot leave my people," Sholto said, still on his knees.

"You will be in danger if you stay in faerie," I said. "They've already proven that the three of you are marked for assassination."

"You must come with us, Sholto, or never leave the safety of the sluagh mound again," Doyle said.

Sholto hugged my legs, rubbing his cheek along my thighs. "I cannot leave my people without both king and queen."

"A dead king is not worth anything to them," Mistral said.

"How long will this exile last?" Sholto asked.

"Until the babies are born, at least," I said.

"I can travel from Los Angeles to parts of the sluagh mound, for thanks to our magic there is a beach edge inside the mound. So I can visit my people without making myself a target to the sidhe."

"You say sidhe, not Seelie," I said. "Why?"

"Onilwyn is not Seelie, but he helped your cousin and her Seelie allies try to kill Mistral. We have enemies on all sides, Meredith. Isn't that why you are leaving faerie?"

I thought about what he'd said, then could only nod. "Yes, Sholto, that is exactly why we must leave faerie. There are more enemies than even the Goddess herself could have foreseen."

"Then we go into exile," Doyle said at my back, his voice rumbling through my body like a purr to ease my nerves.

"We go into exile," Mistral said.

"Exile," Sholto said.

We were agreed. Now we just had to find Rhys and Galen and tell them we were leaving.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Doyle borrowed a nonmagical dagger from Sholto, who had several weapons stashed around the office. I wondered if his bedroom was similarly armed, and figured that it probably was. It showed a lack of arrogance and a caution that I found commendable in a sidhe warrior, and outrageously attractive in a king. Tonight, we were trying to survive and flee, and extra weapons that weren't major artifacts of power seemed like a very good idea.

Doyle used the dagger to contact Rhys. Most of faerie used mirrors, but some of the first reflection magic had been with one of the few reflected surfaces that all of us had carried. Even nonwarriors had carried a blade to cut food or do chores. A knife was useful for many things besides killing. You just needed a body fluid to paint across the blade. For whatever reason, mirrors didn't need that extra personal touch, which was probably why we'd gone to mirrors.

Doyle made a small cut on his finger and painted his blood across the side of the dagger. Then he leaned close and called for Rhys.

I sat in Sholto's big office chair, my feet curled up underneath me. The living crown had unraveled and gone to wherever it went. Sholto's hair was also bare once more. Apparently, the power had made its point.

I wasn't certain if it was the retreat of such major magic, or the events finally catching up with me, but I was cold. It was a cold that had little to do with the constant temperature of the faerie mound. Some types of cold have nothing to do with skin and blankets, but are a cold of heart and soul.

The sword Aben-dul lay on the clean surface of Sholto's big desk. The images that had appeared on its hilt were still there, frozen in whatever the hilt was made of. It felt like bone, but not quite. There was a woman's nude body frozen in a miniature attitude of pain and horror, her face melting into the leg of the man above her.

The hand of flesh was one of the most terrible magics that the sidhe possessed. I'd used it only twice, and each time haunted me. If I'd used it on humans it might have been less awful, for they would have died if you turned them inside out. The sidhe did not die. You had to find another way to bring them death while they screamed, and their internal organs glistened in the lights. Their heart beat in the open air, still attached by blood vessels and other bits and pieces.

The last person to wield the hand of flesh had been my father. But the sword on the desk had not reappeared to him. It had come to me. Why?

Mistral stepped between me and the desk, pushing the chair back with his hands on its arms. The chair rolled smoothly back, and I looked up at him where he bent over me.

"Princess Meredith, you look haunted."

I opened my mouth, closed it, then finally said, "I'm cold."

He smiled, but his eyes were serious as he turned to Sholto. "The princess is cold."

Sholto simply nodded, and opened the door to speak to the guards waiting outside. He was a king, and simply assumed that the guards would be there, and that one of them would be all too happy to fetch a servant, who would in turn fetch a blanket or a coat. It was the arrogance of the nobility. I'd never had enough servants who listened to me to acquire the habit. Though maybe my father had planned it that way. He'd been a man who thought far ahead. Maybe he'd understood that without that arrogance I would be more fair. Faerie was overdue for a little fairness.

Mistral knelt in front of me, and he was tall enough that he still blocked my view of the desk. The sword was not the only thing on the desk. His spear lay there too. It was no longer a shining, silver-white thing, but looked like some pale wood, though it was carved with runes and language so old that I could not read it all. I wondered if Mistral could, but I did not wonder enough to ask. There were other things that I needed to know more.

"Why did the sword not come to my father's hand? He held the hand of flesh."

Doyle answered from behind us. "He also held the hand of fire."

I did not look behind, but answered. "And I have the hand of blood. What does one thing have to do with another? Aben-dul is made for anyone who holds the hand of flesh. Why me, and not my father?"

"The artifacts of power had not begun to return when Prince Essus was alive," Doyle said.

Mistral asked, "Did you reach Rhys?"

"Yes." Doyle came to stand on my right side. He took my hand in his, the hand that had allowed me to touch a sword that without a matching magic would have turned me inside out, and I would have died, just like that.

He kissed the palm of my hand, and I tried to pull away from him, but he held me. "You carry a great power, Meredith. There is nothing wrong or evil in it."

I pulled harder on my hand, and he finally let me go rather than fight about it. "I know that a magic is not evil in and of itself, but because of what it does, Doyle. You've seen what it does. It is the most horrible magic I have ever seen."

"Did the prince never demonstrate the power for you?" Mistral asked.

"I saw the enemy who the queen keeps in a trunk in her bedroom. I know my father made him into the... ball of flesh that he is."

"Prince Essus did not agree with what the queen chose to do with... it," Doyle said.

"Not it," Sholto said. "Him. If it hadn't been a him do you really think the queen would have gotten him out of his trunk?"

We all looked at him. Mistral's look was not a happy one. "We're trying to make her feel better, not worse."

"The queen took pride in letting Meredith see just how terrible she could be."

I nodded. "He's right. I saw the... what was left of the prisoner. I saw him in her bed, and was told to put him back in his trunk."

"I did not know," Doyle said.

"Nor I," Mistral said.

"Did you really think the queen spared the princess anything?"

"Andais spared her the worst of our humiliations," Mistral said, "because Meredith had never seen her torture us as she did the night the princess saved us." He took one of my hands in his, and gave me the look that I had earned at last. It was a look of respect, gratitude, and hope. It had been Mistral's eyes that night, his glance at me, that had given me the courage to risk death to save them all from the queen. His eyes that night had said clearly that I was just another useless royal. I had done my best to prove him wrong.

I wondered if he knew that, and something moved me to tell him. "It was your eyes that night, Mistral, that made me risk death at the queen's hands."

He frowned. "You barely knew me then."

"True, but you looked at me while she bled some of you and made the others watch. Your eyes told me what you thought of me, that I was just another useless royal."

He studied my face. "You nearly died that night because I looked at you?"

"I had to prove you wrong, Mistral. I had to risk everything to save you all, because it was the right thing to do. It was the dutiful thing to do."

He held my hand in both of his, though his hands were so big, and mine so small, that he was holding more of his own skin than mine. He was still studying my face, as if judging the weight of my words.

"She does not lie," Doyle said from the other side of me.

"It's not that. It's that I have not had a woman care so much what I thought in longer than I can remember. That she reacted so, from just that glance... " He frowned at me, then asked, "Were we always destined to be together? Is that why one glance from me did so much?"

I hadn't thought about it that way. "I do not know. I only know that it is what happened. You make me have to be more than I planned on being, Storm Lord."

He smiled then. It was a smile that any man might have given a woman. A smile that said how pleased he was, and how much my words had meant to him. Everyone thinks that the magic of being with all the men is about the otherworldliness of them and me, but some of the most precious moments are the most ordinary. Moments that any man and woman could share, if they loved, and spoke the truth.

Did I love Mistral? In that moment, as he gazed up at me, I had only one answer: Not yet.