When I could hear again, it was her frantic breathing and ragged laugh that came first. Then it was Rhys's voice: "I don't know whether to applaud or cry."

"Cry," Galen said, "because we missed the entire show."

I turned my head, and it seemed to take a lot more effort than it should have. I ended up staring at the room through a mist of Maeve's pale blond hair. I swallowed and tried to speak, but that was still beyond me.

Galen, Nicca, and Frost were just inside the door. Rhys and Doyle were by the bed, but not close enough to be accidentally touched.

Maeve found her voice before I did. "I'd forgotten, forgotten. Goddess bless me, I'd forgotten what it could be like with another sidhe." She rolled off me slowly, awkwardly, as if her body wasn't working right. She turned to look at me, a smile on her face even as she struggled to focus her eyes. "You were wondrous."

I managed to whisper, "Remind me the next time I ask for a kiss to be more specific."

That made her laugh, which made her cough. "My throat is dry."

Funny, so was mine.

"Nicca," Doyle said, "go get the ladies some water."

As Nicca left the room, he walked wide outside the door as if someone were standing on the left-hand side of it. It was Galen who said, "There's a tree in the hallway. I think it's an apple tree. It burst through the stone floor just inside the pool area, and by the time we got upstairs it had made a hole in the floor up here."

Rhys walked over to peer at the tree in the hallway. "The blossoms are opening."

The smell of apple blossoms began to drift in through the door.

Doyle stared down at us, at me. "How do you feel?"

"Better. My throat doesn't hurt anymore."

He offered me a hand, and I took it, let him lift me from Maeve's bed. My knees wouldn't hold me, and only his arm around my waist kept me from the floor. He picked me up, cradling me against his bare chest. I was too spent to do much more than lie there. I had an urge to play with the silver ring in his nipple, but it seemed too much effort. I was suddenly tired. Tired in a good way, but tired nonetheless.

He carried me out into the hall, past the pink-and-white mass of blossoms that almost filled it. I was drowning in the scent of apple blossoms again, and for a moment power flared through me, a strong pulse that made Doyle stumble.

"Be careful, Princess, I do not wish to drop you."

"Sorry," I mumbled, "didn't mean to."

I noticed the unevenness of the stairs, and got a glimpse of the grey tree trunk before we got to the sliding glass doors, but the last thing I remembered was a flash of blue water and sunlight from the pool. Then I closed my eyes, snuggled against Doyle's chest, and gave up the fight. Sleep swept up and over me, as complete and deep as any I could remember. Do the gods sleep well at night? I think, maybe, they do.

CHAPTER 8

I dreamed. I stood on a hill with a rounded top and gazed down upon a vast open plain. There was a woman beside me, but I couldn't see her face. She wore a grey cloak; or it was black, or perhaps green. The harder I tried to see her, the thicker the shadows around her grew, until I knew that I wasn't meant to see her. Her face was hidden in the shadows of the cloak's hood. I couldn't tell her age, though I thought she was not young. She had the feel of someone who had seen much, and not all of it happy. One thing I was sure of: I did not know her.

She held a staff in her hand, so ancient that it was black and shiny with use. She motioned outward with her empty hand toward the plain. Doyle strode across the grass with hounds roiling around him, huge black hounds with eyes of fire. The Gabriel Ratchets, Hell Hounds, curved like shadows and smoke around him. They gathered close to him so he could rub an ear, stroke a head, thump a chest bigger around than I was. He was smiling and at ease, and in a breath they vanished. Galen was there, and where he walked trees sprang up, entire forests spread, and children appeared in the woods, chasing after him, tugging on his arms. He touched their heads, chucked them under the chin, played tag among the trees and flowers. One of the little boys touched a tree, and his palm glowed golden. Nicca stepped out of the trees, and wherever he walked flowers sprang up. He met Galen, and the children, and they played. Far across the plain, away from the happy scene, Rhys appeared. He was at the head of a vast army, and somehow I knew that the warriors at his back were dead. But when he looked at me he had two good eyes; the scars were gone. Somehow I knew this wasn't glamour, that he'd been healed. He had a hammer in his hand, and it shone with a light of its own. There were bodies on the ground, wounded. He touched them with the butt of the hammer and they rose, healed.

The lady turned me to face away from all of that, to find Kitto. He was shining, and fully sidhe, but it was a group of goblins at his back. He raised his hand and light so white and pure that it blinded like lightning shot from his palm to rake through the army they faced. The goblins chanted his name like a prayer. I saw from a great distance, but still could see snakes in the grass among the opposing army. Poisonous snakes struck the enemy, and I knew that they did so at Kitto's bidding. The enemy broke apart, fleeing in panic, and the goblins gave chase to cut down those who remained.

The woman moved, brought my attention back to her. Her staff stood in the middle of the hill, stuck into the earth, and as I watched, it grew into a great spreading tree, so old and ancient that its trunk had split and it had died. She put her hand in the opening of the trunk, and when she withdrew it, she held a shining cup; a chalice formed of silver and set with precious stones. The chalice began to shine the way the skin of a sidhe shines when power is running through him. The shine became a glow, until the chalice was like a star sitting in her hands, a glowing, pulsing star. Light seemed to spill out of it, as if light could be liquid and held in a cup.

She held the cup out to me. "Drink." That one word echoed through the plain. It never occurred to me to say no. It never occurred to me to question her. I put my hands over hers where they held the cup, and found her skin soft, and fragile with age. She was old, much older than I'd thought. We raised the cup to my lips together, and the light inside it was so bright that for a moment I could see nothing but golden light, so warm, so comforting, so perfect. I drank from the cup, and it was like drinking power, drinking light.

She lowered the cup, and my hands were still upon hers. Her hands had changed. They were young, strong, with clean, delicate fingers. Wind spilled across the hilltop, rustling in the leaves. I looked up and found the dead tree thick with summer leaves. The trunk had healed except for a small knot that my hand would barely have fit inside. A bird began to sing high up in one of the branches. A squirrel scolded us from nearer the ground.

She squeezed my hands, and I caught a glimpse of her face. For a moment it was me, then she smiled, and I knew it wasn't my face inside the hood, yet it was.

I woke gasping in a strange bed in the dark, my heart thudding. I felt good, refreshed, and frightened all at the same time.

Rhys turned to me, his white hair gleaming in the moonlight. "Merry, are you all right?"

I started to say yes, then felt something beside my hip. I reached under the covers and touched something hard and metallic. I jerked the sheet back and there, gleaming softly in the moonlight, was the chalice from my dream.