“You got the Many-Mouthed Thing?” I exclaimed. “Way to go, Dani!”
“Thanks,” she said proudly. “He was tough to kill. You wouldn’t believe—”
“Bed. Now.” Her roommate shoved Dani into the room and pulled the door shut behind her, remaining in the hall.
“You know she’s just standing on the other side of the door, listening,” I said. “What’s the point?”
“Stay out of our business, and get that thing out of here.”
“Well said,” came the voice of steel I’d been waiting for.
Sidhe-seers fell back, allowing a silver-haired woman through. I’d wondered how long it would take her to get here. I’d wagered two or three minutes. It had taken her five. I’d wanted a few minutes alone with the sidhe-seers, unimpeded by Rowena, to clear my name. I’d said what I had to say to her followers. Now I had a few things to say to their leader.
I glanced up at V’lane. He returned the look, face impassive, but his eyes were blades, hundreds of sharp shiny edges that could spill blood in the blink of a lethal eye.
With a rustle of her long white robes, the old woman stopped in front of me. Her age was impossible to pinpoint; she might be sixty, she might be eighty. Her long silvery hair was intricately plaited in a crown above a finely wrinkled face. Glasses rested on a small pointed nose, magnifying the fierce intensity and intelligence in her piercing blue eyes.
“Rowena,” I said. She was wearing what I guessed must be Grand Mistress garb: a white hooded robe, with emerald trim, and a misshapen shamrock—the symbol of our Order’s pledge to See, Serve, and Protect—emblazoned on the breast.
“How dare you?” Her voice was low, controlled, and furious.
“Oh, you should talk,” I said, in the same tight voice.
“I invited you to assume your place among us and waited for you to accept my offer. You didn’t. I could only conclude you had turned your back on us.”
“I told you I would come and I was planning to, but a few things came up.” Things like being hunted down, abducted, locked up, and tortured to death. “It was only a few days.”
“It was a week and a half! Days matter now, even hours.”
Had it really been a week and a half? Time flew when you were dying. “Did you give them orders to kill me if it was the only way they could get my spear?”
“Och, it was not I who spilled sidhe-seer blood today!”
“Oh, yes, it was. You sent them after me. You sent six of your women to attack me. I would never have killed any of them, and they know it. They saw it happen. Moira collided with my spear. It was a terrible accident. But it was just that—an accident.”
She slipped her glasses from her nose, and let them rest on her chest, suspended by a chain of delicate seed pearls behind her neck. Without taking her gaze from my face, Rowena addressed her enclave. “She’s calling murder an accident, she is. Betraying us to our enemies and guiding them past our wards. This woman is our enemy, too.”
“I have known where your kind hide for millennia,” V’lane purred. “Your wards are laughable. They could not prevent a nightmare of me from getting in. You stink of old age and death, human. Shall I weave you dreams of it, haunt you with them?”
Rowena stared past him. “I do not hear it speaking.” To me, she said, “Give me the spear and I will permit the two of you to live. You will remain here with us. It will leave and never return.”
Snow dusted my cheeks. Soft gasps filled the corridor. Some of the sidhe-seers held out their hands, palms upward, to catch the whirling, icy flakes. I guessed none of them had seen a Fae prince before.
V’lane’s voice was even colder than the unnatural snow caused by his displeasure. “Do you think to kill me with the sword you have hidden in your robes, old woman?”
I groaned inwardly. Great. Now he had both weapons. Should I Null him and try to take them back?
Rowena reached for the blade. I could have told her not to bother. V’lane raised the sword she sought in a flash of silver, and rested the razor-sharp tip in the wrinkled hollow of her throat.
The Grand Mistress of the sidhe-seers went very, very still.
“I know your kind, old woman. And you know mine. I could make you kneel before me. Would you like that? Would you like your lovely little sidhe-seers to watch you writhe naked in ecstasy before me? Shall I make them all writhe?”
“Stop it, V’lane,” I said sharply.
“She did not save you from me,” he said, reminding me of the time he’d nearly raped me in the museum. “She stood by and watched you suffer. I merely mean to—how do you say it?—return the favor. I will punish her for you. Perhaps then you will forgive me a little.”
“I don’t want her punished, and it wouldn’t be a favor. Stop it.”
“She interferes and offends you. I will eliminate her.”
“You will not. We have a deal, remember?”
Sword poised at her throat, hilt balanced on his palm, he glanced at me. “Indeed, I remember. You are helping me aid your race. For the first time in seven thousand years, Fae and Man are working together for a common cause. It is a rare thing, and necessary if we both wish to survive with our worlds intact.” He looked back at Rowena. “Our combined efforts will accomplish what all your sidhe-seers put together cannot. Do not make me angry, old woman, or I will abandon you to the Hell that is coming if MacKayla fails to find the Sinsar Dubh. Cease trying to steal her weapon from her, and start protecting her. She is the best hope for your race. Kneel.”
I didn’t care for that “best hope for your race” stuff. I test poorly. I’ve never functioned well under pressure.
He forced Rowena, white-lipped and shuddering, to her knees. I could see the battle raging within her small, sturdy frame. Her robe trembled, her lips peeled back from her teeth.
“Stop it,” I said again.
“In a moment. You will never again come before me bearing weapons, old woman, or I will forgo the promises I have made, and destroy you. Help her in her quest to help me, and I will let you live.”
I sighed. I didn’t need to take a look around to realize that I had made no friends here tonight. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d made things worse. “Just give her back the sword, V’lane, and get us out of here.”