Chapter 29

I mounded the pillows behind me, so that I was propped to half-sitting. I'd had to make Kitto move before I could move the pillows. He clung to me with hands and arms, but his eyes were all for Sage. He watched the demi-fey as if he didn't trust him, or expected him to do something dangerous, or maybe he was just wondering what Sage would taste like. Whatever Kitto was thinking, it was not friendly.

Sage didn't seem to notice the goblin's less-than-friendly stare. He simply hovered, fluttering as I made myself comfortable.

I secured the sheet across my chest and held my hand out to him. I cupped my hand upward so Sage could reach my fingers, because that was where he would take the blood from. Niceven had taken blood from me there once, and if it was good enough for his queen, it was good enough for Sage. Besides, something about him unnerved me. It was ridiculous to be nervous of someone I could smash against the wall with one hand, but silly or not, I couldn't deny how I felt. I didn't question it, just covered most of my more vulnerable bits and gave him my hand.

Sage landed on my wrist. He knelt in my upturned palm and wrapped tiny hands around my middle finger. He stroked my finger, and the movement was both nice and disturbing.

I must have tensed up, because he said, "You have given me permission to use glamour, have you not?"

I nodded, not quite trusting my voice.

He smiled, and his mouth was like a tiny red petal, his eyes warm, sincere. I felt myself relax as if a hand had simply stroked all my nervousness away. I didn't fight it, because I had agreed and the pain in my shoulder was gone. Nothing hurt.

Kitto curled around my waist, sliding his leg along mine. My hand fell away from the sheet and stroked his curls. His hair was unbelievably soft. He snuggled his face in against my waist, and the brush of his face against my skin made me shiver. I think anyone could have touched me then and I would have reacted to them.

I looked at Sage. "You're very good." My voice was husky.

"We have to be," he said, as he ran his hands up and down my finger. It was no longer nice; it was erotic, as if there were nerves in that one finger that had never been there before. I knew it was glamour, the natural magic of faerie, but it still felt so good, so very good.

Surrendering to someone's glamour, if his glamour ran to the sensual, could be a wondrous experience. Sidhe did not do it with each other, because to practice glamour on another sidhe in an intimate situation was considered a grave insult. But the lesser fey practiced it often among themselves, and almost always when lying with a sidhe. Perhaps it was insecurity. Perhaps it was just a way of saying, look what we have to offer.

Sage had much to offer.

He wrapped his arms around my finger, and it was as if he touched larger things, so much more intimate things. He laid a kiss against my fingertip that was like the brush of finest silk. I felt his lips part, and they felt larger than they were. I had to open my eye and look at him to make sure that he was still small, kneeling in my hand. I had sunk back upon the pillows, my arm resting in my lap, but Sage was still kneeling in my cupped palm.

Kitto entwined his leg over mine, and I felt him growing firm against my leg. For a moment I wondered what the glamour was doing to and for the goblin, when suddenly Sage bit into my flesh. He bit me like he was biting into an apple, sharp, but the pain floated away, and when he began to suck at the wound, it was like he had a thin, red thread from my fingertip to my groin. Every movement of his mouth pulled on things low in my body.

He fed, drawing faster, harder, and it was as if he stroked lower things, faster, harder. I felt that growing warm weight in my body that said I was on the edge, the edge of pleasure. It was as if Sage had coaxed me to the edge of a cliff I hadn't seen, and I had to choose whether to fall over it into the embrace beyond.

I couldn't think. I couldn't decide anything. I had become only sensation, the growing tug of pleasure, the weight of warmth building, building in my body. Then that warmth flooded out of me, over me, through me. I called out, but it wasn't pain that burst from my lips. I cried out in pleasure and writhed on the sheets, caught between Sage's mouth still locked on my body, and the firmness of Kitto's body pressed against my leg. Kitto's body rode mine as I writhed on the bed, his hands sliding over my waist, upward to brush the tip of one breast. It was a tentative touch, but in my heightened state, it felt like so much more.

I cried out again, and when Kitto slid his body over the edge of my thigh, pressed himself against me, not entering but lying across me, both of us nude, both of us eager, I didn't protest.

Kurag had said that I had to give Kitto true sex, and for a goblin that meant only one thing: intercourse. But I also knew that goblins didn't have sex without drawing blood. Now, nothing hurt, nothing would hurt.

I looked up to find Sage hovering over us. He was glowing, a soft honeyed light as if a candle had lit within him. His eyes burned like black jewels and the veins of his wings gleamed with black fire; the yellow, blue, and orangey-red glowed like stained glass in a fall of brightest sunlight.

I had enough sense left to ball up a handful of Kitto's hair and jerk his face up to mine. "Blood only, Kitto. No flesh missing when we're done."

He whispered, "Yes, mistress."

I released his hair abruptly, and he looked up at me, his eyes a solid drowning blue with his pupils like a thin black line within them. It was as if I could have fallen into the blue of his eyes, and I knew it was Sage's glamour still at work, and I didn't care. I gave myself over to it, let the illusion ride me.

Kitto slid inside me, and I was more than wet, more than ready. He seemed larger than I knew he was, filling me up, swelling inside me. He raised himself up on his arms, pressing our lower bodies together, frozen for a moment with his body sunk inside mine, with us joined. He gazed down at me spread underneath him, and a single tear welled up from one blue eye.

I knew what the goblins considered sex, and they didn't cry at the first joining. Through the glamour I saw Kitto -- through all the magic, I truly saw him -- and I raised a hand up, a hand that had already gone white and shining. I touched that one crystal tear and did what goblins do with precious body fluids; I touched it to my lips. I drank the salt of his tears, and he made a sound low in his throat and began to thrust himself inside me.

With every thrust he seemed to grow bigger, swelling wider, touching parts of me that had never been touched, that were not supposed to be touched. I watched him entering my body, and his skin had begun to glow, white and pearlescent. He thrust himself inside me, a glowing shaft as if he were made of light, and that was not glamour. I lay under him, my skin glowing like moonlight. Only for another sidhe would my body shine like this. Colors began to dance under his skin as if rainbows danced inside his body, coming to the surface of his skin like fireworks glimpsed through crystal water.

His eyes held nothing but blue flame behind glass. His short curls moved around his head as if an unseen wind played with them, and the wind was Kitto. He was sidhe. Goddess help us, he was sidhe.

He brought me in a wash of light and magic that blinded me for a moment. All I could see was white light and rainbow flashes across my vision. All I could feel was my body locked around his, as if the place of our joining was the only part of our bodies that was still solid. As if we had become light and air and magic and only the anchor point of our joined bodies held us, tied us, bound us. Then even that fell away as he came inside me, and we became nothing but light and magic and color and wave upon wave of pleasure. It was as if you could become laughter, become joy, become whatever most pleasured you.

I came to myself slowly. Kitto had collapsed on top of me. We were still joined, our bodies still glowing softly like two fires banked down for a long winter's night. A warmth that would keep the house, the family, everything safe through the long cold nights to come.

Flashes of color were still flitting through the room like stray rainbows from some crystal sun catcher. But there was no sun, no crystal, only us.

Well, not only us. The guards stood around the bed, hands held up, palms toward us. I concentrated and saw the nearly invisible barrier that they had thrown up around us. They had put up a sacred circle, a circle of power.

Doyle's deep voice came. "The next time you decide to invoke enough energy to raise an island from the sea, Meredith, a little warning would be good."

I blinked up at him, for he stood closest to me. "Did we hurt anything?"

"We caught it in time, I think, but the news will probably be full of unusual tides. We will have to see if the ground itself holds still for such a release."

Kitto hid his face between my breasts, and whispered, "I'm sorry."

"Do not be sorry, Kitto. It is we who owe you an apology. We thought of you as goblin because you are half theirs. We never thought what it might mean for you to be half ours."

Kitto moved his head enough to look up at Doyle, then he hid his face again. "I don't understand." He spoke with his mouth against my skin, and even after all we'd done, the feel of him whispering against my chest made me shiver.

My voice was a little breathy, but I answered, "You are sidhe, Kitto, truly sidhe. You have come into your power."

He shook his head, his face still buried against my breasts. "I have no powers."

I put a hand on either side of his face and raised him gently to look upon me. "You are sidhe, one of the shining ones. There will be power now."

His eyes widened, and he looked frightened.

"We'll help you," Galen said from the far side of the bed. "We'll help you learn how to control your magic. It's not that hard; if I can do it, anyone can." He smiled, made it a joke.

Kitto didn't look convinced.

Some small movement made me turn my head farther, and I saw Sage perched upon a stray mound of pillows. He was still glowing softly like a golden, bejeweled doll. His face was tear-streaked, the line of tears like silver glitter upon his tiny face. His face was enraptured.

"Damn you, Princess, and damn this newest prince. I have glimpsed heaven and found it fair, and now I stand on the shores of earth, abandoned. I did not understand until this moment what it meant that you were sidhe and I was not." He laid his face in his hands and wept, curling on his side on a satin pillow, his wings held out behind him, stiff, almost forgotten.

Kitto touched my chest, and it hurt, a little. I realized that he'd bitten me between my breasts, a little to one side, so that some of the mark was in the mound of my left breast. It hadn't hurt until he touched it. It wasn't as deep as the mark on my shoulder, because it hadn't needed to be. The sex had made up for the lack of violence. It should have healed cleanly and quickly, but somehow I knew it would not. Somehow I knew I would bear his mark over my heart forever.

"I am sorry," he whispered, as if he'd read my mind.

I shook my head, touching the silken skin of his cheek. "I wear your mark with honor, Kitto. Never doubt that."

He gave a shy smile, then raised up on his arms much as he had through the beginning of the lovemaking. I noticed first the spots of blood on my own white skin. He had hurt me more than I'd thought; then I looked up at Kitto and saw that from collarbone to waist my nails had marked him. Bloody furrows across the perfection of his skin, across the small mounds of his nipples. I'd sliced into the meat of one of his nipples and it bled there more than the rest.

It was my turn to say, "I'm sorry."

He shook his head, and the smile wasn't shy now. "You have marked me, and there is no higher compliment among my kind. May the marks never fade."

I traced the edge of one of the nail marks, and he shivered above me. "You are among your kind now, Kitto. Right now."

Doyle seemed to know what I wanted, because he pulled his black T-shirt up enough to show Kitto the nail marks on his black skin.

"You are Unseelie sidhe," I said.

He moved off of me, his body grown softer with all the talking. He lay beside me, one arm over my waist. He gazed at the men around the bed. "My mother's people were Seelie. They left me for dead outside the goblin mound." His voice was matter-of-fact, as if it was just truth, something he'd always known.

Doyle lowered his shirt and turned to face the bed. "We are not Seelie." He did not lower the circle around the bed, but stepped inside it. He raised Kitto up with a hand on his shoulder. Kitto seemed frightened but didn't struggle.

Doyle laid a chaste kiss on the smaller man's forehead. "You have already tasted the blood of our court and been tasted in return. Now receive our kiss and be welcome among us."

One by one the other guards bent and laid lips upon Kitto's forehead. He was crying and shaking by the time they had finished. And when the last of my knights had kissed Kitto's forehead, Sage rose up into the air, his wings humming, a blur of color. It made an angry whirring sound.

"I hate you all." The venom in those words was thick enough to choke on. "Now let me out of this accursed circle."

Doyle made an opening in the circle big enough for the demi-fey. The tiny figure flew through it, and Doyle closed the circle behind him.

Sage hovered in front of the closed bedroom door. I thought one of us would have to get up to open it, but the door opened of its own accord, and Sage hurried through the opening. He turned in the darkness of the living room, still glowing faintly from all the magic.

"The queen has had her price, but you have not had your cure. The cure lies within my body where the queen didst place it. I meant to share you with the goblin to ensure his silence, not be displaced by him." He hissed like an angry cat. "Who knew goblin could be sidhe? Would that it were me in thy arms and not he. What could have been done in pleasant glamour will nidst be done in unpleasant bargain." He hissed again, and vanished into the darkness beyond. The door slammed shut behind him.

We all stared at the door. "Did he mean what I think he meant?" Galen asked.

"It would amuse Niceven to force a sidhe princess to pleasure one of her tiny men," Doyle said.

I raised eyebrows at that. "How?"

"Best not to ask," he said, and he looked down at Kitto, "for tonight we will worry over nothing. We have found new blood of our blood, kin of our kin. We will sorrow over nothing tonight."

As celebration of the faerie court went it was modest. We ordered out, Kitto's choice, bought some very fine wine, and partied until dawn.

It was a little after dawn when the earthquake hit, a 4.4 on the Richter scale, centered in El Segundo. There is no major fault underneath El Segundo. It's probably all that saved us from demolishing the entire city. It lasted for only about a minute, really not that much damage overall; no one was killed, though there were injuries. But it added an entirely new twist on the idea of safe sex.

Chapter 30

On the first day of my being restricted to the apartment, hiding behind our wards, Taranis's main social secretary, Dame Rosmerta, had called. She'd been dressed in pink and gold cloth that complemented her gold-tinted skin and dark gold hair to perfection. She'd been the soul of polite and proper decorum, more than making up for Hedwick's rudeness. She also made it clear that the ball in question was the Yule ball. I had to decline. If I attended any Yule ball, it had to be the Unseelie ball. Rosmerta had made noises that she, of course, understood that.

We weren't missed in helping with the murders, because Peterson had forbidden anyone from the Grey Detective Agency from interfering with the case. Jeremy had been pissed enough that he told Teresa not to tell them what she'd seen, but Teresa is all about helping her fellow man. She went dutifully from the hospital to the police station and finally found a detective who would take her report.

Teresa had felt the people suffocate, felt them die, and she'd seen the ghosts -- white shapes, she said, sucking the life from them. The police had informed her that everyone knew ghosts didn't do shit like this. Peterson had come in about then and thrown the report in the trash can in front of Teresa. Usually the police wait until someone's left the room before doing that.

Teresa had managed to drag her husband out before he got himself arrested for assaulting a police officer. Teresa's husband used to play for the Rams back when they were the football team in L.A. Ray's like a nicely maintained mountain, with a winning smile and a very firm handshake.

We ended up with a lot of time on our hands. No, we did not just have sex all day. We pestered Sage. I had paid the price that Queen Niceven asked, but we had no cure. Why hadn't Sage given us the cure last night? Why did Kitto becoming sidhe change everything for Sage? Did he really mean to imply that he needed to have sex with me to effect the cure? Sage didn't want to answer any questions.

He had flown around the apartment trying to escape our questions, but it was a small apartment, even if you were the size of a Barbie doll. Late in the day he launched himself from the windowsill and got a little too near Galen, who batted at him like you'd swat a mosquito. I don't think he meant to strike him.

Sage fell heavily on the floor. He lay very still, a tiny butter-colored thing with his bright wings like a fragile shield. He raised slowly onto one arm before I could finish kneeling by him. "Are you all right?" I asked.

He looked at me with such hatred in those tiny doll eyes that I flinched. He stumbled a little in rising to his feet, but he fanned his wings and caught his balance. He refused the hand I offered him. He stood there, hands on hips, and stared up at us as we towered over him.

"If I die, green knight, the cure dies with me. Best remember that, when you're being careless."

"I didn't intend to hurt you," Galen said, but there was something in his eyes that was not kind, not gentle, not Galen. Perhaps, more than just his manhood had been damaged by the demi-fey.

"Too close to a lie, that," Sage said, rising into the air, his butterfly wings a blur. Butterfly wings just didn't work like that. It was more the way a dragonfly moved. When he'd gained height enough to meet Galen's gaze, the wing beats slowed and he hovered, the large wings fanning more slowly but still with enough force to stir the curls around Galen's face.

"I didn't intend to strike you that hard." Galen's voice was low and warm with anger. There was a hardness there that I'd never heard before. Part of me mourned that tone; part of me felt a flare of hope. Perhaps even Galen could learn those harsh lessons that would be needed if he ever became King. Or perhaps he was just learning how to hate. That lesson I would have spared him if I could.

I watched the two men glare at each other, both hating. Sage was still the size of a Barbie doll, but his anger wasn't amusing anymore. That he could elicit such negativity from my smiling Galen was a little frightening.

"All right, boys, play nice now." They both turned and glared at me. So much for breaking the tension. "Fine, be that way, but what did you mean that if you die, the cure dies with you?"

Sage rotated in midair, arms half crossed on his tiny chest as if he couldn't quite cross them and fly at the same time. "I mean, Princess, that Queen Niceven left a present in my body. The healing for your man here is trapped in this tiny package." He spread his arms wide as he said it, almost bowing as he hung, fluttering.

"What does that mean, Sage?" Doyle said. "Exactly what it means, no prevaricating, just the truth, all of it."

He gave another turn in midair so he could look directly at Doyle. Sage could have simply glanced over his shoulder, but I think he wanted Doyle to know he was being looked at. "You want truth, Darkness, all of it?"

"Yes," Doyle said, his thick voice, lower, deeper, not angry, but a tone that had made many a sidhe pale.

Sage laughed, a joyous tinkling sound that nearly drew a smile from me. He was very good at glamour, better than I thought any demi-fey could be. "Oh, you'll be angrier than that when you hear what my dear queen has done."

"Just tell us, Sage," I said. "Quit drawing out the story."

He turned to me, hovered close enough for the breath of his wings to caress my face. "Say please." His tone made it an insult.

Galen tensed, and Rhys laid a hand on his shoulder. I think I wasn't the only one who didn't quite trust Galen around the demi-fey.

"Please," I said. I had a lot of faults, but false pride wasn't one of them. It cost me nothing to say please to the tiny man.

He smiled, obviously happy. "Since you asked nicely." He grabbed his tiny crotch through the filmy skirt he wore. "The cure is trapped here, where Queen Niceven laid it."

I felt my eyes widen.

"How does Meredith retrieve the cure?" Doyle asked. His voice held emptiness, no tone at all.

Sage smiled, and even on a face not much bigger than my thumb, I recognized a leer when I saw it. "The same way the queen gave it to me.

"Niceven is not allowed intercourse with anyone but her husband," Doyle said.

"Ah, but there are exceptions to every rule. You should know that, Darkness, better than most."

Doyle seemed to blush, though through the pure night of his skin, it was hard to be sure. "If Queen Andais knows she has broken her marriage vows, it will go badly for your queen."

"The demi-fey never held to such rules until Andais grew jealous of Niceven's children. Three children she has, three pure-blood demi-fey. Only one belonged to Pol, but Andais chose that match to be permanent. Andais envies Niceven her babes, and all the court knows it."

"I would be careful who I told that to," Rhys said. There was no teasing in his voice, just truth.

Sage brushed it away with his tiny hands. "You requested a cure for your green knight, and there is only one cure for it. She had to lay with me to lay the spell within me. Andais agreed that the green knight must be cured at all costs. She didn't seem too concerned what those costs might be."

I shook my head. "No, no intercourse, not with you."

Sage rose into the air. "Then your green knight stays unmanned."

I shook my head again. "We'll see about that." I felt the first stirrings of anger. I didn't let myself get angry often. In the courts it was an indulgence that only the most powerful could afford. I had never been that powerful. Maybe I still wasn't, but we'd see.

"Doyle, call Queen Niceven. We need to talk." The anger had leaked out into my voice.

Sage came hovering close enough that the wind from his wings fanned my face. "There is no other way, Princess. The cure has been given for this curse, and cannot be given twice."

I glared at him. "I am not every man's meat to feast upon, little man. I am Princess of Flesh, and heir to the Unseelie throne. I do not whore for Niceven."

"Only for Andais," Sage said.

I came very close to swatting him, but I wasn't sure how hard I would have hit, and I didn't want to hurt him that badly, not by accident. No, if I hurt Sage that badly, I wanted it to be on purpose.

"Doyle, contact Niceven, now."

He didn't argue, just went for the bedroom door. I followed him with the others trailing behind. Sage kept talking as we went. "What do you plan to do, Princess? What can you do? Is one night with me such a high price to pay for your green knight's manhood?"

I ignored him.

Niceven was already in the mirror when I entered the bedroom. She wore a black dress today, utterly sheer so that her pale body seemed to gleam through the dark cloth. Discreet touches of black sequins sparkled at neck and sleeve. Her white hair fell loose around her body. The hair fell almost to her tiny ankles, but it was thin, thin and strange looking, almost like it wasn't hair at all. All I could think of was a spider-web blowing in the breeze. Her pale wings framed her like a white curtain. Her three ladies-in-waiting stood behind her chair, but each was clad only in a tiny silken robe, as if they'd been roused from bed. Each robe still matched each set of wings, rose-red, daffodil-yellow, and iris-purple. The hair that flowed loose around their faces was sleep-tousled the way real hair should be.

The white mouse was back at her side complete with bejeweled collar. For Niceven to wear no crown, no jewels, meant she had been in true haste to answer our call.

"Princess Meredith, to what do I owe this unexpected honor?" Her voice held just a trace of peevishness. Apparently, we had awakened her entire court from their beds.

"Queen Niceven, you promised me the cure for Galen if I fed your servant. I have lived up to my bargain, but you have not lived up to yours."

She sat up a little straighter, hands folded in her lap, ankles crossed. "Sage has not given you the cure?" She sounded truly puzzled.

"No," I said.

Her gaze left my face and found the tiny man who had alit upon the edge of the dresser so he could be easily seen from the mirror. "Sage, what is this about?"

"She refused the cure," he said, spreading his hands out as if to say not my fault.

Niceven looked back at me. "Is this true?"

"Did you truly think I would accept him in my bed?"

"He is a wonderful lover, Princess."

"To one of your height perhaps, but to one of mine, it grows a little ridiculous."

"Or rather doesn't grow enough," Rhys said, from the back of the bedroom.

I shot him a hard look. He shrugged, almost an apology, then turned back to the mirror.

"If size is the only problem, that can be remedied," Niceven said.

"Your majesty," Sage said, "I do not think this is wise. Only Meredith swore a solemn oath not to reveal our secret."

"Then let them all swear," she said.

I shook my head. "We swear nothing," I said. "If you do not give the cure for my knight now, then I call you oath breaker. Oath breakers do not have long political careers among the fey."

"The cure is there for the taking, Princess. It is not my fault if you will not partake."

I stepped closer to the mirror. "Sex is a greater boon than sharing blood, and well you know it, Niceven."

Her face seemed to become even thinner, her pale eyes glittering with anger. "You overstep yourself, Meredith, forgetting my title."

"No, it is you who overstep yourself, Niceven. You retain your title as queen at Andais's sufferance, and well you know that. I will have you up before my aunt as an oath breaker if Galen's cure is not forthcoming immediately."

"I will not be turned from my course by anger, no matter how much you taunt me, Meredith," Niceven said. "Reveal yourself, Sage."

"My queen, I think this unwise."

"I did not ask what you thought, I said only to do it." She leaned forward in her chair. "Now, Sage." You didn't need a translator to hear the threat in those two words.

Sage's wings slicked tight together, then he flung himself off the edge of the dresser, not flying, as if he meant to plunge to his death, but he didn't fall. He grew. He was suddenly tall, taller. He was nearly as tall as I was, four feet eight, nine. The wings that had been lovely when tiny were like stained glass, artwork worn across the back of his body. Muscles showed under his butter yellow skin, and when he turned to look at me over his shoulder, the black eyes were the shape of almonds, and his red lips were moist and full. There was something terribly sensual as he stood there, his wings nearly filling one side of the room.

"Is he not lovely, Meredith?" Niceven said, her voice full of longing.

I sighed. "He is lovely to the eye, but in his present size sex is an even greater boon, for whosoever gets me with child will be King." I had to step to one side to see her clearly past Sage's wings. "Is it a bid for the Unseelie throne, Niceven? Is that your goal? I wouldn't have thought you that ambitious."

"I bid for no throne," she said.

"Liar and oath breaker," Doyle said. He had never moved out of the mirror's sight, as if he wanted her to remember, always, that he was by my side.

She turned a flat and very unfriendly gaze to him. "Mind your manners, Darkness."

"Give Meredith the cure as you swore you would."

"Queen Andais said the green knight was to be cured at all costs."

Doyle shook his head. "She could not have dreamt this cost. There have always been rumors that some of the demi-fey could grow larger, but rumors, fables, no truth until now. The Queen would think ill of a demi-fey king, especially one who is your puppet in all things."

She hissed at him, and in that one movement she seemed very alien, as if I'd figure out what she truly was if I thought hard enough, and it wouldn't be human. The white mouse had crouched away from her as if it feared her temper.

"You have a choice here, Queen Niceven," I said. "You can either give me the cure for Galen as you swore you would, or I can tell Queen Andais about your plotting."

Niceven looked at me, eyes narrow. "If I give you the cure, you will not tell Andais about all this?"

"We are allies, Queen Niceven. Allies protect each other."

"I have not fully agreed to an alliance merely for an offering of blood once a week. Have sex with Sage and I will be your ally."

"Give me the cure for Galen, take your blood offering once a week, be my ally, or I tell Aunt Andais what you tried to do here."

Niceven didn't look angry anymore, she looked frightened. "If I had not had Sage show you his secret, then you would not have had anything to blackmail me with."

"Perhaps, or perhaps even a little seed in the wrong place can cause a large problem."

"What do you mean?"

"Galen's father was a pixie, and that's not much bigger than Sage in his true form. There have been odder mixes in the courts. I think Andais would see your demand that one of your men fuck me as a grave breach of trust."

She spat, and the mouse scrambled out of sight; even her ladies-in-waiting backed up. "Trust, what do the sidhe know of trust?"

"About as much as the demi-fey," I said.

She gave me a truly evil look, but I was expecting it, or something like it. I smiled at her around the curve of Sage's wings. "I'd asked for an alliance so you and yours could spy for me." I looked at Sage, nearly as tall as I was. "But here is proof that you have other talents. Your swords are not merely the pinpricks of bees but something much more."

She shifted in her chair, a small movement, but she was nervous. "I do not know what you mean, Princess Meredith."

"I think you do. An alliance I still want, but your contribution to the alliance will go beyond spying."

"To what? Sage is but one man. You have other and larger swords at your back."

I touched Sage's shoulder. He jumped as if it had hurt, but I knew that it hadn't. I leaned in against the back of his body. He tensed. "Is what the queen says true, Sage? Is your sword so small?" I looked at Niceven as I said it.

She gave me angry eyes. "That is not what I meant and well you know it."

"Do I?" I asked, running my fingertips down Sage's arm. He shivered under my touch. I watched jealousy flare across her face before she could catch it back. "Niceven, Niceven, do not give up to others what you hold most precious."

Her face was angry, blank. "I don't know what you mean."

I touched Sage's hair, and the hair was soft as spider silk, or downy feathers, softer than any hair I'd ever touched. "Never offer to give up that which you cannot afford to lose."

She shook her head. "I don't understand you, Princess."

"Be stubborn then, but know this. I offer you alliance, true alliance in exchange for a blood offering once a week. You cease to spy for Cel and his people."

"Prince Cel may be locked away, Princess, but Siobhan is not, and she is more frightening to some than Cel will ever be."

I noticed her phrasing. "More frightening to some, but not to you."

Niceven bowed her head. "I find Cel's brand of madness more frightening than Siobhan's ruthlessness. You can plan around a ruthless man, but a madman throws all your plans to the wind."

I nodded. "Your wisdom does you credit, Queen Niceven."

"For a chance for one of my men to be King of all the Unseelie, I would have risked all, but for mere blood, I will have to think upon it."

"No, an alliance now, or the queen will know of your ambition."

Niceven gave me a look of pure venom.

"I will do it, Niceven, do not mistake me on this. Alliance, or answer to Andais."

"I have no choices left then," she said.

"No," I said.

"Alliance then, but I think both of us will regret it."

"Perhaps," I said, "but now the cure for Galen and our business can be done for today."

Niceven turned her attention to Sage. "Give the princess the cure, Sage."

He frowned. "How, my queen, if I am not allowed to give it to her as you gave it to me?"

"Though I gave it to thee through more intimate contact, it only needs your body to enter hers to be given."

"No sex," I said.

She gave me a long-suffering look. "A kiss, Meredith, a kiss and you are free to take no pleasure from it."

I had to move to one side by Doyle so Sage could turn around. His wings seemed to fill all the space between the dresser and the bed. When Sage was turned around, I stepped back in front of him. His wings rose above his shoulders like the top of some golden bejeweled heart. His hair was only a shade more golden than the soft yellow of his skin. He looked almost unreal in his loveliness until you reached his eyes. Those glittering black eyes held not just anger, but malice. It made me remember that he was just a bigger version of the things that had taken bites out of Galen.

"No biting, no bloodletting," I said.

He laughed, flashing teeth that were a little too pointy for comfort. "Blunt negotiating for a sidhe princess."

"I don't want you to have any room to say you misunderstood me, Sage. I want this to be very clear between us."

Niceven spoke from the mirror. "He will not harm you, Princess.

Sage turned his head to gaze over his shoulder at her. "A little blood is fine spice for a kiss," he said.

"Perhaps to us, but you are to do exactly as the princess bids you. If she says no blood, then no blood."

"Why should we heed a sidhe princess?" he asked.

"You are not heeding the princess, Sage, you are heeding me." She gave him a look that leaked some of the malice from his eyes.

His shoulders slumped a little, his wings flexing until they touched the dresser. "As my queen bids, so shall it be." He didn't sound happy about it.

"My word that he will not harm you in this," Niceven said.

I nodded. "I will take the queen's word."

Sage turned to glare at me. "But not mine."

"My word is your word," Niceven said, and her voice had fallen to a low hiss.

The look on Sage's face was so unfriendly that I knew if Niceven saw it, she wouldn't have been happy. His back shielded her view, and for just an instant something traveled through his eyes that was almost sorrow, almost, dare I say, human. It was gone almost instantly, but that one brief glimpse gave me something to think about. Maybe Niceven's little court wasn't any happier than Andais's.

I slid my hands on either side of Sage's face, not for romance, but to control him. His skin was like a baby's, so soft, unbelievably fine under my fingertips. I'd never touched a demi-fey this much, because there had never been enough of them to touch. I leaned toward him, and he just stood there, hands at his sides. He waited for me to complete the act.

I turned my head slightly to the side and hesitated, my mouth hovering just above his. The lips looked redder than they should have. I wondered if they would feel different, like the texture of his skin, then my lips brushed his, and I had my answer. They were just lips but soft, soft like silk, satin, rich like tasting some ripe fruit.

It was interesting, but there was no magic to it. I leaned back from him, hands still on his face. I looked at Niceven in the mirror. "There was no spell, no cure."

"Did his body enter yours?" she asked.

"You mean tongue?"

"That is what I mean, since you seem so determined to have nothing else."

"No," I said.

"Kiss her, Sage, kiss her like you mean it, then this can all be done."

He gave a heavy sigh, his body moving under my hands. "As my queen bids."

His hands slid around my body, pulling me against him. We were too close for my hands on his face, but as my hands slid down his back, I found wings and didn't know where to hold on.

"Underneath where the wings attach to my back," he said, as if he understood the problem. Maybe he'd had the problem before with other non-demi-fey.

I moved my arms under his, sliding them along his back to where the wings attached to his body. His back felt normal other than the extra softness of the skin. Shouldn't he have had extra muscles under there to flex the wings?

His hands kneaded my back as he brought his face close, closer. We kissed, and this time he kissed me back, gentle at first, then his arms convulsed around my body and he thrust himself inside my mouth. It was as if his tongue, his mouth, were heat. Heat to fill my mouth, heat to spill down my throat, heat like a stream flowing through my body, spilling out, out to my fingertips, my toes, until I was full of it, until my skin ran hot with it.

It was Niceven's voice that brought me back. "You have your cure, Princess. Give it to your green knight before it cools."

Sage and I pulled away from each other, bodies reluctant to part. Our hands slid down each other's arms as I turned from him to find Galen. Galen had moved up closer to us.

I went to him, slid my hot, hot hands over his arms, and even through the sleeves of his shirt I could feel his skin, feel the heat gliding over him. His breathing was fast and hard by the time he bent down to receive his kiss.

Our lips touched and it was as if the heat were hungry for him. Our lips sealed together, so that no drop of heat would be lost. Lips, tongue, even teeth fed at each other's mouths. The heat filled my mouth almost like liquid. I could feel the warm, sweet thickness of it like warm honey, warm syrup that filled my mouth and spilled into Galen. He drank at my mouth, drank the magic down.

He drew the heat out of me, pulled the magic from me with his mouth and his hands and his body. The magical heat fed on heat of a different kind, and with a small cry I climbed his body to wrap my legs around his waist. He cried out when my body touched his groin, and it wasn't pleasure.

He set me down quickly, not quite pushing me away. In a breathless voice, he said, "I don't feel healed."

"You will be healed two days hence by nightfall, or earlier," Niceven said.

I was still standing, half swaying, breath coming in ragged gasps. I could barely hear over the pounding of my own pulse in my ears. So it was left to Doyle to be sensible. "I want your word, Queen Niceven, that Galen will be healed two days from now."

"You have it," she said.

He nodded. "We thank you."

"Don't thank me, Darkness, don't thank me." Then she was gone, the mirror just a mirror once again.

Galen sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. He was still gasping, struggling to breathe, but he smiled up at me. "In two days."

I tried to touch his face, but my hand was shaking so badly I missed. He grabbed my hand and put it against his cheek. "Two days," I said.

He nodded, still smiling, my hand still pressed against his face. But I couldn't smile back at him; I could see Frost's face. Arrogant, angry, jealous. He seemed to notice me noticing him, and looked away. He hid his face because I don't think he could control his expression. Frost was jealous of Galen. It was not a good sign.

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