Ivi kept his darkly joyful face turned up toward me. "He asked, and if she will not be persuaded?" And again he echoed the queen's voice so well that it raised chills upon my skin, "Persuade her, or take her, or tell her what I have said, and let that be your persuasion. If Meredith will not take the pleasure I offer her, then perhaps she will take pain instead. For there is both to be had here among the Unseelie. Remind her of that if her sensibilities are too delicate for fucking."

"I would change what she has sent us for, if I could," Hawthorne said, and he prostrated himself against the stone, his forehead pressed to the floor.

I turned from Ivi's gloating face to Barinthus. "I thought you said she'd gotten better over the last few months."

"She has, she had," he said, and he had the grace to look embarrassed.

"Come on, Princess," Ivi said, "put that pretty hand out and see what happens. If the ring doesn't know us, then we're all free."

"He's right," Doyle said, "let them touch the ring, and if it is cold to them, then we can go to the queen and give our news."

"And if it is not cold?" Frost asked.

"Then we can fuck up against the wall," Ivi said.

"Over my dead body," Galen said.

"If you want it that way," Ivi said.

"Boys," I said.

Galen looked at me. Ivi continued to look at Galen.

"No killing each other unless I tell you to."

Ivi looked at me then, and that fierceness held a note of puzzlement. "What does that mean?"

"It means that if you annoy me enough, Ivi, I have more than half a dozen of the best warriors the sidhe ever produced, and if I asked nicely, they'd slice you into pieces for me."

"Ah, but that would not be obeying the queen's directive."

I bent down just the little bit I needed to be face to face with him, and I felt an unpleasant smile cross my face. "Oh, but it would be. Corpses routinely have one last orgasm just as they die. The queen's exact orders are not to come before her without your seed upon my body. She didn't specify where or how that happens, now, did she?"

The triumph was gone, the mockery faded as I watched, until the only thing left in those dark green eyes was fear. It didn't make me happy to see him fear me, but it did give a certain satisfaction.

He licked his lips as if they'd suddenly gone dry, and said, "You are your aunt's bloodline."

"Yes, Ivi, I am, and it would be best if you did not forget that" —I leaned in close above his lips —"ever again." I laid a gentle kiss upon his mouth, and he flinched.

As I raised my hand to cup Ivi's face, Barinthus grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand away from the other man's flesh. "Perhaps the queen should know of other events before we use the ring again."

We all had a moment of exchanging glances. Hawthorne said, "What else has happened?"

"Let us say, that the ring has risen in power," Barinthus said, "and I am no longer certain of what will happen when the princess presses it to anyone's flesh."

Ivi gave a dark laugh. "I see what happened when she touched you, Lord Barinthus." He was staring at the other man's groin, and the stain that had set into the front of the leather pants.

Abloec pushed to the front, to stand near Ivi. He knelt down beside the other man. It was the steadiest I'd seen him, as if the cold had sobered him. "I am soaking wet, freezing, and sober. I don't want to be any of those three things. You are going to shut up, and we are all going to go to the queen." He looked up at the rest of us. "When she hears about the flooding, she'll want to make sure that the princess is in a secure area before the ring is used."

"Flooding?" Hawthorne said.

"Every river in the area," Abloec said.

Hawthorne glanced up at Barinthus. "You mean touching Lord Barinthus flooded the area?"

Doyle and Barinthus said in unison, "We believe so."

Galen and Rhys said in unison, "Yes."

Usna pushed through us all, still nude, and getting angry. "We're going to see the queen now, because I want to be warm again."

"Would you risk your life for a little comfort?" Frost said.

Usna gave him a wide grin. "What else is there to risk one's life for these days? Haven't you heard, Killing Frost, the days of myth and magic are gone. The days when there was anything worth fighting for are over." He looked at Barinthus as he finished, then his grey eyes found me, and he gave me a lingering look. It wasn't sexual, or food, or anything that I would have expected from Usna. It was a considering look. A look that held far too many guesses that were far too close to the truth.

The moment passed and his eyes were simply full of good cheer. He clapped Abloec on the shoulder. "Let us go forth and beard the queen in her den of iniquities."

Abloec got to his feet frowning. "You would help bear such news, knowing what she may do?"

"She'll hate the assassination attempt, someone will bleed for that one, but the rest" —Usna threw his arm across the other's shoulders—"the Queen will love the other news." He started moving Abloec down the hallway, and the rest of us began to trail after. Usna called back over his shoulder at me, "If I were you, Princess, I'd be worried that she does not put you in a magical circle like an animal in the zoo, and just send one of us after another to see how many of us you can bring back to..." He put his sword pommel over his lips as you'd place a finger to say, Shhhh. "Save that for the queen's ears, eh." And he glided down the hallway ahead of us, his nude body in its calico colors leading the way, with Abloec still pressed to his side.

CHAPTER 27

The only doors in the entire sithen that were black were the doors leading to my aunt's chambers. They were a shining improbable black stone that stood taller than the tallest guard, and wider than that semi the first hallway could hold.

The doors were their usual ominous selves, but the two men who stood at attention before the doors were not usual. One, there were rarely guards on this side of the doors. The queen enjoyed an audience, especially if that audience could not participate, no matter how much they wanted to. Sometimes you'd find guards outside if they were waiting to escort people away once the queen was finished speaking with them. But somehow I didn't think that was it. Call it a hunch, but I was betting the guards were there waiting for me. What was my first clue? They were nude except for enough leather belts and straps to hold swords and daggers, and boots that came to their knees.

"I'm sensing a theme," Rhys said.

So was I. Because not only were they more nude even than Hawthorne and Ivi had been, but they were also vegetative deities. Adair still bore the name of what he had been once, for adair means "oak grove." His skin was the color of sunlight through leaves, that color more common among the Seelie than the Unseelie, the color we call sun-kissed. His ankle-length brown hair had been butchered short, shorter than Amatheon's by nearly half a foot. Someone had shorn him, so that there was almost nothing left to remind the eye what beauty once framed that golden body.

Amatheon spoke as if I'd asked, "I was not the only one who was reluctant, Princess. She began her... example with Adair."

Adair's eyes were three circles of gold and yellow, like staring into the sun. Those eyes held nothing as he watched us come toward the doors. He had been cast out of the Seelie Court for speaking too strongly against their king, and to avoid exile from faerie he had joined the Unseelie. But he had never truly taken to the dark court's way of life. He existed among us, and tried to be invisible.

I spoke low: "I know why you do not want my bed, but Adair and I have no quarrel."