"It's okay," I said, and still my voice sounded strained. My throat was actually sore. I frowned up at Galen. "Why is my throat sore?"

He glanced back, and Maeve met his eyes. They had one of those moments that said, more clearly than any words, something had happened, something I didn't remember, and it had been bad.

"Just tell me." I raised a hand and touched his arm.

He jerked as if I'd bit him and moved out of reach. "Don't touch me, Merry, not just yet."

"Why?" I asked.

"Look at the coverlet," he said, "near your head."

I turned my head and found a wide wet spot on the off-white bedspread. I frowned, and didn't understand, until I touched the wetness and found ice crystals in the water. I frowned up at Galen. "Why is there melting ice on the bed?"

"Because you threw it up."

I stared at him, and wanted to ask if he was kidding, but one look at his face and I knew he wasn't. "How, why?"

"That's the part we're not entirely sure of," Maeve said.

"Tell me the parts you are sure of."

She walked around the edge of the bed until she stood opposite me, but she made no move to get on the bed, or come closer. "I tried to seduce you, and it worked, a great deal better than I'd planned. I forget sometimes that you're part human. I used the power I'd use for another sidhe, another deity."

I nodded, and even that hurt my throat. "I remember that part, but then it changed, became something else. I saw you sitting under a tree, and it hurt my eyes to look at you."

"No mortal can look full upon the face of a god and survive," Galen said.

"What?" I asked.

Maeve leaned against the bed. "I was Conchenn for a moment. I was what I had been. I think I'd almost made myself forget. The loss of faerie is a new wound, Merry, compared to having lost my godhead."

I was getting a headache. "I'm not following this."

"Let me." Galen looked serious, determined, very un-Galen. "Maeve used her powers, or what was left of them, as the goddess Conchenn to try to seduce you. But you brought on more power. You brought her into her godhead again."

I gave him wide eyes. "I thought that once you gave up being a god you couldn't get it back."

"So did I, until today," Maeve said.

I frowned at her. "Besides, only the Goddess can make you a god."

"I believe that is still true," Maeve said. "But perhaps anyone can be a vessel for Her power."

"Not just anyone," Galen said. "If just anyone could have done it, it would have happened centuries ago." He looked at Maeve as if she'd been rude.

"You're right. You are right. I will not belittle the gift. I know the touch of the Goddess when I feel it."

"What goddess?" I asked.

"Danu." She said the word in a whisper that seemed to echo through the room.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, let it out, counted slow, took another breath. I opened my eyes. "I'm hearing things," I said. "I thought you said, Danu."

"I did."

I shook my head, and didn't even care that it hurt my throat. "Danu is the Goddess whom the Tuatha De Danaan, the children of Dana, are named after. She's the Goddess. She was never personified."

"I never said she was a person," Maeve said. "I said that she gave me my godhead, and she did."

I frowned at her, the headache starting to pound between my eyes. "I don't understand."

"In the first treaty we ever signed with the Formorii, both sides worked the first weirding magic. We lessened ourselves lest our two races destroy the land that we now shared. Danu, or Dana, agreed to distance Herself from us for the great spell to be done." Maeve's eyes shimmered, and it was tears, not magic. "I don't think that any of us understood what we were giving up. Except perhaps Danu Herself." She sat on the edge of the bed and let the tears fall. This time I didn't think it was a bad day at work and baby hormones. I think she sat in the Southlands, on the edge of the Western Sea, and wept for a Goddess who had never seen America.

CHAPTER 7

Doyle entered the room at a run, still wearing nothing but the thong, his shoulder holster flapping loose over his bare chest, gun naked in his hand, and his power riding before him like a storm. Rhys was at his back, wearing white dress slacks and an unbuttoned shirt, a gun in his hand, no holster in sight. Rhys's power marched into the room on whispers, half heard.

They both stopped in the doorway, looking for something to shoot, I think. Nicca nearly ran into Rhys as he came through the door. He was more out of breath than either of the other two; of course, he'd had to run back and forth from the guest house to the main house, twice. He panted as he leaned against the doorjamb. "Not assassins. Magic... gone bad."

Doyle and Rhys visibly relaxed. Doyle holstered his gun, though he had to use his other hand to steady the holster because the straps weren't buckled on as they were supposed to be. Rhys just stood there, the gun slowly lowering beside his thigh. Both their powers receded like the ocean pulling back from the shore, like feeling it go down from def-con 1 to def-con 3.

I just lay on the bed and watched them, because trying to sit up had hurt my chest. It felt as if I'd swallowed something down the wrong way. Something very big and very solid, so that I ached all around my ribs. Other than that I didn't feel bad. It seemed like I should feel tired if I'd actually done what Maeve and Galen had said I'd done. Shouldn't you be tired when you make a god? If that's what had happened. Since that was impossible, I was still waiting for an alternate theory that I could buy. If anyone could come up with one, it would be Doyle. For a high royal of the court of faerie, he was a very practical man.

He came to stand beside the bed. I realized that he was wet from the waist down as if he'd waded in the swimming pool, but there was no smell of chlorine. I remembered Kitto, then. He'd been helping the little goblin clean up. I'd forgotten about him coming into his hand of power today. A future queen shouldn't forget things like that, should she? Maybe I wasn't thinking as clearly as I thought I was.

"Kitto, how is he?" I asked.

Doyle smiled. "He's fine. A little confused, but he'll be fine." The smile faded around the edges. "How are you?"

I frowned. "Not sure." My voice still sounded harsh, but it was getting better, sounding more like me. "I thought I was fine, but I'm not sure I'm thinking as clearly as I think I am. Does that make sense?"

He nodded and turned to Maeve and Galen. "What happened?"

They both started to talk at once, and he held up a hand. "Ladies first." He motioned her away from the bed, and they went to the far side of the bedroom to talk. The bedroom was almost bigger than my old apartment, so there was plenty of room for privacy. Rhys gave me a smile, then trailed them so he could hear.

That left Galen with me. He still hadn't touched me. I badly needed to be touched, to have that reassurance. "Why won't you touch me?"

He smiled down at me, but his hands were clasped in his lap. "Believe me, it's hard not to, but you touched Maeve and this major goddess energy came down, then Frost grabbed you to stop Maeve from using you, and it happened again, with him."

"Maeve using me?"

"We thought she'd called out her major-goddess-seductive powers on you. It wasn't until Frost used his power to break what we thought was her hold on you that we realized something else was happening." He started to reach out to, touch my arm, then put his hand back in his lap. "I can feel how badly you need comforting, and Consort knows I want to hold you right now, but I'm afraid that if I touch you, it'll happen again."

"I don't buy that I brought on anyone's godhead," I said.