I nodded. «I understand.»
«No, you do not. You will not understand until you have children of your own. Everything before that is pretense of sympathy, a dream of understanding, a nightmare of things you think you believe.»
«You're right, I have no children, and I don't understand.»
She held Mortal Dread up to the light, as if she could see more in its slender surface than was there for me to see. «I am still not sane. I can feel the madness inside me now, can feel what I've become. I've felt this feeling before, but now I wonder if my love for seeing the blood of others has had help. Help for years, perhaps.»
I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing. Silence was good when anything you said could be taken so wrong.
«I will see Nuline dead, and the ones who are behind the attack on you, my niece.»
«And if they are the same people?» I asked.
Her eyes flicked to me. «And what if they are?»
«You decreed that if any of Cel's people tried to kill me while he was still imprisoned, his life would be forfeit.»
She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the flat of the blade. «Do not ask me for the life of my only child, Meredith.»
«I have not asked.»
She let me see that famous anger in her eyes. «Haven't you?»
«I have merely given the queen's words back to her.»
«I have never liked you, niece of mine, but nor have I hated you. If you force me to kill Cel, I will hate you.»
«It is not me who will force your hand, Queen Andais, it is him.»
«They could have acted without his knowledge.» Even as she said it, her eyes showed that she didn't believe it. She wasn't crazy enough to believe it anymore.
She looked at me, and something passed through her tri-grey eyes with their rings of black that left each grey darker and richer because of it, as if she had used eyeliner on her own irises.
«Far be it from me to complain if we're talking about killing Cel,» Galen said, «but everyone knows that any attempt on Merry while Cel is still imprisoned means a death sentence for him.»
«If we can prove his people were responsible,» Mistral said.
«But don't you see, Nuline is part of his guard. If Nuline brought the spell, then it must be Cel who sent her—but what if it wasn't?»
«I am listening,» Andais said.
«Nuline is like me, she's not good at court politics. She's not good at deception. What did she say when she brought the wine to you?»
«That she knew it was one of my favorites and hoped its sweet taste would remind me of just how sweet my son could be.» Andais was frowning now. «The words do sound like a speech given to her by someone else.» She shook her head. «I am the Queen of Air and Darkness, I do not fear assassination attempts. Perhaps such arrogance has made me careless.» She said it slowly, as if she didn't really believe it.
«People often give her gifts,» Mistral said. «It is a way of currying favor.»
«One more offering in a wealth of offerings will go unnoticed,» Doyle said.
«We need to know where Nuline got the wine,» Galen said.
Andais nodded. «Yes, yes, we do.» There was something in her voice that I didn't like. It was a purr of hatred. Hatred will blind you to the truth, especially if you want to be blinded. She said, «Bring me my Darkness.»
Doyle came at her call, but he stayed by my side. «I am, by your own words, the princess's Darkness now.»
She waved it away, as if it meant nothing. «Call whomever you like master, Darkness. I ask only if you can track this spell back to its owner.»
«I could not track it off your skin, but the bottle is still here. It is too powerful a spell not to leave a taint, a signature as it were, of the one who made it. If I can smell their skin, taste their sweat, then yes, I can track this to its owner.»
«Then do it,» she said, and she looked at me as she said the last: «Wherever this trail leads, we will follow, and punishment will be swift.»
I looked at her, afraid to believe that she meant what I hoped she meant.
«Heard and witnessed,» Barinthus said.
The queen did not look at him, but only at me. «There, Meredith, another oath to hold over my head.»
«What do you want me to say, Aunt?»
She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her gaze fled from my face and found a piece of wall to look at, as if she didn't want anyone to read her eyes in that moment. «What would you do, if you were me, niece?»
I opened my mouth, closed it, and thought. What would I do? «I would send for the sluagh.»
She looked up then, her eyes very hard, as if she were trying to see through me. «Why?»
«The sluagh are the most feared of all the Unseelie. The sidhe themselves fear them, and they fear little. With the sluagh at your back, as well as your Ravens, no one will try a direct attack.»
«You believe someone would dare attack me, us» — she motioned at the waiting knights—"head-on?»
«If the spell had gone its course, Aunt Andais, you would have slaughtered all your guards, and then with no one left to kill in this room, where would you have gone? What would you have done?»
«I would have found others to kill, any others.»
«You would have ended in the banquet hall where there are sidhe who would not stand idle while you sliced them open,» I said.
«They would have looked for a reason for my behavior,» she said.
«I don't think they would. You have slaughtered and terrorized this court for a very long time. What you did here tonight is not that far from things I have seen you do before.»
«Before, most of the slaughter had a purpose,» she said. «My enemies fear me.»
«Slaughter done coldly, and slaughter done in the heat of madness, look much the same when you are on the wrong end,» I said.
«Have I been such a tyrant that the entire court would believe this of me?»
The silence in the room was thick enough to wrap around us all. To wrap us and choke us, because none of us knew how to answer the question without either lying, or angering her.
She gave a bitter laugh. «There is answer enough in your silence.» She rubbed at her head as if it ached. «It is good to be feared by your enemies.»
«But not by your friends,» I said, softly.
She looked at me, then. «Oh, niece of mine, have you not learned, yet, that a ruler has no friends? There are enemies and allies, but not friends.»
«My father had friends.»
«Yes, my dear brother did have friends, and it's most likely what got him killed.»
I fought back that flare of anger in me. Anger was a luxury that I could not afford. «If I had not been here today with the hand of blood, to bleed the magical poison out of your body, you would be dead, too.»
«Be careful, Meredith.»
«I have been careful all my life, but if we are not bold tonight, then our enemies will see us both dead. Perhaps Cel was even meant to die tonight. To be executed for killing me, and you. It would clear the way to the throne for other bloodlines.»
«No one would be so foolish,» she said.
«No one at court knows that I have the hand of blood. But for a quirk of magic, this would have worked exactly as they planned it.»
«Fine, call the sluagh, and then what?»
«If I were you, or if I were me?» I asked.
«Either, both.» Again she was studying me, trying to understand me.
«I would contact Kurag, Goblin King, and warn him, and have him bring more goblins than he is usually allowed into our sithen.»
«You think he will throw his lot in with you against the entire Unseelie sidhe?»
«If I gave him a choice, no, but he has no choice. He is my sworn ally, and to deny me aid is to be forsworn. The goblins will kill a king for that.»
She nodded. «Three months from now, he will not be your ally.»
«Actually, four,» I said.
«It was only six months, and they are half gone,» she said.
«True, but Kitto is now sidhe, and for every sidhe-sided goblin I bring into their power, I gain a month of Kurag's aid.»
«Will you fuck them all?» It was said with no offense, as if it was the only way she knew how to ask the question.
«There are other ways to bring someone into his power.»
«You would not survive hand-to-hand combat with a goblin, Meredith.»
«Kurag has agreed that we may help the princess bring over his people,» Doyle said. He touched my arm, and in anyone else I would have said it was nerves. But it was the Queen's Darkness; Doyle didn't get nervous.
«Most will not agree to fighting you, Darkness, or the Killing Frost. They will pick on those among Meredith's guard whom they believe they can defeat. They will try to kill your men.» She turned back to me. «How will you prevent that once the fight is joined?»
«I will choose champions,» I said. «They fight the warriors of my choice, not theirs.»
«I assume you will choose Darkness and Frost.»
«Probably,» I said.
«Many will refuse to fight them, so I ask again, are you willing to bed all the goblins who will line up for a taste of your shining flesh?»
«I will do what I said I would do.»
She laughed. «Even I have not stooped so low as to bed a goblin. I would have thought it was beyond the pale for you.»
«I think you'd like goblin sex. They like it rough.»
She looked past me, and I realized she was looking at Kitto, who was trying to stay close to me and be as invisible as possible at the same time. «He looks a little fragile for my idea of rough.»
Kitto pulled back even farther behind me and Doyle, and Galen. I moved just enough to bring her attention more firmly to me. «When you have to lay ground rules that your lover is not allowed to bite off pieces of your body, I think that qualifies as rough.»
She looked past me again at the sliver of face that Kitto had left in view. She jumped, and said, «Boo.» He scrambled behind me, and then pushed back into the other guards, putting distance between himself and the queen.
Andais laughed. «Fierce indeed.»
«Fierce enough,» I said.
«I will call the sluagh. You call the goblins.» She put her head to one side like a bird that had spied a worm. «I can call the sluagh from a distance, for I am their queen, but how will you call the goblins?»
«I will try the mirror first.»
«And if that fails you?» she asked.
«I will use blade and blood, and magic to call him.»
«An old method,» she said.
«But effective.»
She nodded, then closed her eyes for a moment. «The sluagh come to my call. I grant you the use of my own mirror to try for Kurag's attention.»
«You sound doubtful that I will gain his attention.»