Andais called, «Why do you need extra guards, my niece?»

Doyle answered for me, «She heals, my queen.»

«Yes, be careful that your act of mercy does not get you killed, Meredith. That would be a shame.» She said it almost carelessly, as if it truly didn't matter to her. «You will find, niece, that no one here will respect you for being merciful.»

I said too softly for her to hear, «I do not do it for their respect.»

«What did you say, niece?»

I took a deep breath and did my best to make myself heard. «I do not do it for their respect.»

«Then why?» she asked.

«Because if I were in her place, I would want someone to do it for me.»

«That is weakness, Meredith, and the Unseelie will not forgive it. It is a sin among them.»

«I do not do it for their pleasure or their pain; I do it because it matters to me what I do, not what they do, not what anyone else does, only what I do.»

«You are like an echo of my brother. Remember what happened to him, Meredith, and take it as caution. It was most likely his sense of mercy and fair play that got him killed.» She stalked down the steps, holding her black skirts out, and she looked as if she were waiting for a roving photographer to snap her picture. She always moved in front of the court as if she were on display.

«Strange then, Aunt, that it was your violence and love of pain that was nearly your undoing.»

She stopped on the last step. «Have a care, niece.»

I was too tired, and the shock was beginning to wear off, and my arm was beginning to hurt. I wanted to be somewhere where I could pass out when I could feel my arm completely again. The first twinges promised much, none of it good.

I looked down at Miniver. «Do you wish true death? Or would you go alive into the pots of the goblins?»

I watched thoughts slide through those blue eyes, some good, some bad. Some I couldn't even begin to understand. «What will they do to me?» she asked, at last.

I leaned in against Doyle's chest, and didn't want to answer the question. I wanted to be done with this. I did not want to be sitting here talking to someone who should have been dead. Someone who was, in a way, already dead. Miniver still held hope in her eyes, and she should not have.

«At the rate you are healing, the goblins will most likely use you for sex before they begin to cut off pieces of you for food.»

She stared up at me, and I saw the denial in her eyes. She didn't believe me. She was rebuilding herself, not just her body, but her sense of self. I was watching that arrogance begin to take hold again. She did not believe that such horrors would befall her. She believed that she would somehow survive, as she'd survived my attack.

«You will wish for death long before it comes, Miniver.»

«Where there is life, there are always possibilities,» she said. The skin of her chest showed white and whole through the blood, as if this was new skin, freshly made, that the blood had not touched.

Doyle put two guards on her and carried me back to Nerys. She was not healing as quickly, because I'd been more thorough, but she was healing.

I gave her the same choice that I'd given Miniver, but Nerys said, «Kill me.» Her eyes had flicked up to the circle of Red Caps, and Holly and Ash. Seeing them stare down at her had convinced her she did not want to be alive when they took her.

«Ash.» I had to repeat his name twice more, before he turned his green eyes to me. «Take the Red Caps and stand around Miniver. Let her see what fate awaits her if you take her living into the mound.»

«We will be staying here with you, so we will not be touching her.»

I sighed. «Please, do not split hairs with me, just do what needs doing.»

«How convincing do you want us to be?» he asked, and there was something in his face of anger. I'd spoken dismissively to him, and that is not a good tone to take with a goblin warrior, especially one who will share your body soon.

Saying I was sorry would be seen as weakness, and would make it worse. I did the only thing I could do: I grabbed his arm — not as hard as I would have liked, but as hard as I was able with the inside of my head feeling so fragile. «You and Holly are not to be convincing at all. You are mine, and I will not share you. Let the Red Caps be convincing.»

Ash gave me a smile that managed to be fierce and lusty at the same time, a look you wore if slaughter was your idea of sex. «You played the first sidhe well, Princess.» He leaned in close and almost whispered, «Helpless little noises. Will you make helpless little noises for us?»

I felt Doyle's body go very still, as if he didn't like the question, or what it meant. But truth was truth. «Helpless little ones, and probably great big screams.»

He chuckled, and it was that masculine sound that all men make when they think of such things. It was almost reassuring that he made that laugh. Male was male, some of the time.

«Your screams will be the sweetest of music.» He took my hand from his arm and laid a kiss upon the back of it. Then he motioned, and all the Red Caps, save Jonty, followed him away.

Jonty looked at me. «My king ordered me to guard your body, not hers. I got distracted by this one's blood, and let you get too close to that other one just now. If she'd killed you, I'd have never heard the end of it.»

He was well spoken for a Red Cap, but I didn't say so out loud, because that would imply I was surprised that any Red Cap was well spoken.

«You must strike the death blow from your own two feet, Meredith,» Andais said, «or Nerys goes to the goblins as she is.»

Real fear flared in Nerys's eyes, and she mouthed, Please.

Doyle pressed his mouth against my ear. «Can you stand?»

I laid my face against his and gave the only answer I had. «I don't know.»

He set me on my feet, and steadied me that moment I needed. I looked at her chest. I was short enough that I could rest the tip of the blade over her heart. My legs began to tremble, but that was all right. I gripped the hilt with my good hand, took a deep steadying breath, and let my body fall upon the hilt of the sword, driving the point through her chest and into that still-beating heart. The blade rested against bone for a second, then slid home. I collapsed to my knees beside the body, my one good hand still wrapped around the hilt.

Nerys's eyes, almost a twin of the queen's, were open and unseeing. I'd done what I could for her.

Screams came from behind us.

I leaned my forehead against my good arm. I wasn't sure I could stand on my own. If the queen insisted on me walking to Miniver, then I could not do it.

Galen knelt beside me. «Take off the high heels, Merry.»

I turned my head just enough to see his face, and managed a smile. «Smart you.»

He slid the shoes off my feet while I stayed kneeling. I realized that I was swaying on my knees. Shoes or no shoes, that didn't bode well for walking. «What are they doing to her?»

«Playing,» Doyle answered.

I raised my head enough to meet his eyes. «Playing?»

Doyle and Galen exchanged a look. That was enough. «Take me to her.» Doyle lifted me as gently as he could, and the sword trailed from my hand. It felt so heavy. Apparently being dead once today, and nearly having my arm ripped out, was taking its toll. I was beginning to look forward to passing out, the way you look forward to sleep after a long, hard day.

The goblins had moved so that the court could see what they were doing. It was a show—and what good is a show without an audience? One of the smaller Red Caps was kneeling beside Miniver. His fingers were playing in the healing flesh of her chest. He traced and tickled her flesh, as if he were touching her genitalia. A touch here, a caress there, and it showed skill, but his fingers weren't between her legs. His fingers were inside the meat of her chest. He was caressing the top of her heart as if that would finally bring her to orgasm.

Doyle carried me around to her head. «Don't let them take you like this, Miniver.»

«Get them away from me. Get them away from me!»

I looked at Ash, and he motioned the rest of them away. The one who was playing in her body left reluctantly, and squeezed her breast as he moved away.

Miniver lay there gasping on the floor, her eyes wild. She looked up at Jonty, still standing over her, and said, «Get him away.»

«No,» he said, «I am her guard, and I will guard her. I have no interest in your white flesh.»

Doyle put me on my feet, but my legs did not hold this time. I collapsed to my knees beside her.

Miniver reached out toward me with her healed hand, beseeching. I had a heartbeat to realize that she lied with her eyes and her body. Doyle hit her hand away, and the bolt of energy sizzled outward to scar along the table on the other side of the room. Jonty trapped her arm under his big knee. He was shaking his head. «Do you want me to tear her arm off?»

I thought about it, then shook my head. «Bind her, and let them take her.»

«No,» Andais said, «for that last, I think we should see some of her punishment.» The queen came in a hiss of black silk. She looked down at Miniver. «You are a fool. Do you not understand that the very fact that you are alive and healing means that Meredith is no longer mortal? I watched her die today, and breathe again. You have lost everything you are, for nothing.»

«Lies,» she said.

Andais leaned down, touched the other woman's face, a strangely tender caress. «You craved blood and violence. I saw it. We all saw it. You tried to destroy me with it. Now we will see you destroyed with it.» She turned to me. «Do you see now, Meredith? You offered her mercy and she tried to kill you. You cannot be weak among the sidhe, not if you wish to rule.» She touched my face, much as she'd touched Miniver's. «Heed this lesson, Meredith, and wipe mercy from your heart, or the sidhe will surely cut it out.» Her smile was half wistful, half something I could not read, and probably did not want to. «You look tired, Meredith.»

She eased the sword from my hand. «Take your princess to my room, use my bed as if it were your own. I will send Fflur with you.» She motioned and a sidhe as golden-haired as Miniver came forward, but Fflur's skin was also a pale yellow, and her eyes a solid black. She had been Andais's personal healer for more years than I remembered.

She gave a lovely curtsey and said, «I would be honored to tend the princess.»

«Yes, yes,» the queen said and waved it away, as if it were a given and Fflur had had no real choice.

Chains had been brought, and Miniver screamed as they shackled her. It was cold iron, and her hands of power would not work while she wore it. Goblins handle base metal better than the sidhe, probably because it interferes with magic more than the strength of arm.