Sholto’s face was defiant, almost triumphant. I didn’t understand the look. I glanced at Doyle, and saw behind that stern face a flash of anger. For the first time in weeks I remembered how they had both found me in Los Angeles. They had fought, both convinced that the queen had sent each of them to kill me.
But there had been something personal about that fight. I couldn’t remember what they had said to each other that made me think they had some kind of bad history, but I had felt it. The looks they gave each other now confirmed that I was missing something. Some disagreement, or challenge, or even grudge between these two men. Not good.
Rhys came up the slope of the rock, dripping like wet ivory. He stopped short of us all, as if he also sensed, or saw, the tension.
What do you do when you’re naked with one lover, and another lover is standing there? Sholto was not my king, or husband. I took my hand from him and offered it to Doyle. Doyle hesitated a moment, his gaze on his rival and not on me. Then those black eyes moved to me. His expression never truly changed, but some breath of harshness left him. Or perhaps some touch of gentleness returned to him.
There was movement behind him, and Frost and Mistral struggled up the slope. They were dressed, and weapons bulged everywhere. Frost actually caught Mistral’s arm as the other man slipped. The clothes and weapons had slowed them down.
Now they stood there, Frost’s hand on Mistral’s arm. Mistral was almost on his knees, from his slip, but they had frozen, staring at us. They hadn’t just caught a whiff of tension. Their reaction said clearly that there was bad blood between Sholto and Doyle.
Doyle took my hand in his. The moment he touched me the tightness in my chest, which I hadn’t even known was there, loosened.
He lifted me upward, off the other man. Sholto’s hands, all of his body, let me go with such reluctance. The sensation of him drawing out of deep within my body shivered through me. Only Doyle’s grip kept my knees from buckling.
Sholto raised his arms to help catch me, his hands on my thighs. Doyle pulled me in against his body, half lifting me over Sholto’s body. Sholto let me go; otherwise it would have been like a tug-of-war, not seemly behavior for a king.
I stood there wrapped in Doyle’s arms, staring up at his face, trying to decipher what he was thinking. Around me the tiny plants unfurled tiny leaves, and the world suddenly smelled of thyme, that sweet, green herb scent that Sholto had said he sensed when I was smelling roses.
The delicate herbs tickled along my foot, as if reminding me that there were some things more important than love. Staring up into Doyle’s face, I wasn’t sure that was right. In that moment I wanted him happy. I wanted him to know that I wanted him happy. I wanted to explain that Sholto had been lovely, and the power had been immense, but that in the end, he meant nothing to me, not when I had Doyle’s arms around me.
But you can’t say that out loud, not with the other man lying behind you. So many hearts to juggle, including my own.
The herbs touched me again, wound around my ankle. I glanced down at the greenery, and thought of my favorite thymes. My gran had grown them in the herb garden behind the house where my father raised me — so many varieties. Lemon thyme, silver thyme, golden thyme. At that thought, the plants around my ankle were suddenly tinged with yellow. Some of the leaves on some of the plants turned silver, others became pale yellow, and some that bright sunny yellow. There was a scent of faint lemon on the air, as if I had crushed one of the pale yellow leaves between my fingertips.
“What did you do?” Doyle whispered, his deep voice thrumming along my spine so that I shivered against him.
My voice was soft, as if I didn’t want to say it too loudly: “I just thought that there is more than one kind of thyme.”
“And the plants changed,” he said.
I nodded, staring at them. “I didn’t say it out loud, Doyle. I only thought it.”
He hugged me. “I know.”
Mistral and Frost were with Rhys now. They did not approach us, and again I wasn’t sure why. They waited, as if they needed permission to come closer — the way they would have waited to approach Queen Andais.
I thought it was me they waited on, but I should have known better. Sholto said behind me, “The sidhe do not usually stand on ceremony, but if you need permission, then I give it. Come closer.”
Mistral said, “If you could see yourself, King Sholto, you would not ask why we stand on ceremony.”
The comment made me look back at Sholto. He was sitting up, but where he had been lying was an outline of herbs. Peppermint, basil — as I recognized them, I smelled their perfumes. But the herbs spreading out from where he had lain, where we had lain, wasn’t what made the men stop. Sholto was wearing a crown; a crown of herbs. Even as we watched, the delicate plants wove like living fingers through his hair, creating a wreath of thyme and mint. Only the most delicate of the plants, entwining themselves as we watched.
He raised a hand, and the moving plants touched his fingers as they had touched my ankle. I was wearing an anklet of living thyme, gold-flecked leaves, smelling of green life and lemons. The tendril wrapped around his fingers like a happy pet. He lowered his hand and stared at it. The plant wove itself into a ring as we watched — a ring that bloomed on his hand, the delicate spray of white blossoms more precious than any jewel. Then his crown burst into bloom, shades of white, blue, lavender. Finally, the blooms spread across the island, so that the ground was nearly solid with tiny, airy flowers, moving not in a breeze — for there was none — but nodding as if the flowers were speaking to one another.
“A crown of flowers is not a crown for the king of the sluagh!” Agnes shouted, harsh, from the shore. She was on hands and knees, hidden completely under her black cloak. I saw the flash of her eyes, as if there was a glow to them; then she lowered her head, hiding from the light. She was a night-hag. They didn’t travel at noon.
Ivar spoke, but I couldn’t see him. “Sholto, King, we cannot approach you in this burning light.”
His uncles were half-goblin — which, depending on the type of goblin, might make sunlight a problem. But they were also half-night-flyer, and that definitely made sunlight a problem.
“I would that you could come to me, Uncles,” Sholto said.
Doyle’s arms tightened around me, a warning. “Be careful what you say, Sholto; you do not understand the power of the words of someone whom faerie itself has crowned.”
“I do not need advice from you, Darkness,” Sholto said, and again there was bitterness in his voice.
The sunlight faded, and a soft twilight began to fall. There was the sound of splashing, then Ivar and Fyfe came up upon the island. They were nude except for enough clothing to hold their weapons. They fell to one knee before him, heads bowed. “King Sholto,” Ivar said, “we thank you for sending the light away.”
Sholto said, “I didn’t…”
“You are crowned by faerie,” Doyle said again. “Your words, perhaps even your thoughts, will shape what will happen this night.”
I said, “I thought — only thought — that there is more than one variety of thyme, and it changed the herbs. What I thought about became real, Sholto.”
Agnes called from the shore, “You have freed us from the light, King Sholto. You have given us back the Lost Lake and the Island of Bones. Will you stop there, or will you give us back our power? Will you remake the sluagh while the magic of creation still burns through you, or will you hesitate and lose this chance to bring us back into ourselves?”
“The hag is right, Your Highness,” Fyfe said. “You have brought us back the magic of making, wild magic, creation magic. Will you use it for us?”