One of the great black mastiffs nudged Galen. He reached for it, almost automatically, and it changed before my eyes. It became a sleek white hound with one red ear. It licked the tears from Galen’s face and he stared at it in wonder, as if he hadn’t seen the dogs until that moment.
Then came Cel’s voice, broken, almost unrecognizable. “Merry!” His screams broke off abruptly. The silence was almost more frightening than the shouting, and my heart was suddenly pounding hard in my chest.
“What happened?” I called out.
Andais walked over the rise of the last gentle hill, following Galen’s trail of flowers. She was alone, save for her consort, Eamon. They were almost the same height, their long black hair streaming out behind them in a wind that came from nowhere. Andais was dressed as if she were going to a Halloween ball — and you were meant to fear her beauty. Eamon’s clothes were more sedate, and also all black. The fact that Andais arrived with only him at her side meant she didn’t want extra witnesses. Eamon was the only one who knew all her secrets.
“Cel will sleep for a time,” she called, as if in answer to a question we hadn’t asked.
Galen fought to stand while I steadied him. Doyle moved a little in front of me. Some of the others did, too. The rest looked behind us into the night, as if they suspected their queen of treachery. Eamon might be on my side some of the time — he might even hate Cel — but he would never go against his queen.
Andais and Eamon stopped far enough away that they were out of easy weapon range. The goblins watched them, and us, from a tight huddled knot, as if they weren’t sure whose side they were on. I didn’t blame them, for I’d be going back to L.A. and they would be staying here. I could force Kurag, their king, to lend me warriors, but I couldn’t expect his men to follow me into exile.
“Meredith, niece of mine, child of my brother Essus, greetings.” She’d chosen a greeting that acknowledged I was her bloodline. She was trying to be reassuring; she was just so bad at it.
I stepped forward until she could see me, but not beyond the protective circle of the men. “Queen Andais, aunt of mine, sister of my father, Essus, greetings.”
“You must go back to the Western Lands tonight, Meredith,” said Andais.
“Yes,” I answered.
Andais looked at the hounds that still milled among the men. Rhys finally let himself touch them, and they became terriers of breeds long forgotten, some white and red, others a good solid black and tan.
The queen tried to call one of the dogs to her. The big mastiffs were what the humans called Hell Hounds, though they had nothing to do with the Christian devil. The big black dogs would have matched the queen’s costume, but they ignored her. These wish hounds, the hounds of faerie, would not go to the hand of the Queen of Air and Darkness.
Had I been her, I would have knelt in the snow and coaxed them, but Andais did not kneel to anyone, or anything. She stood straight and beautiful, and colder than the snow around her feet.
Two other hounds had come to my hands, and they now bumped against me on either side, leaning in to be petted. I did it, because in faerie, we touch someone when they ask. The moment I stroked that silken fur, I felt better: braver, more confident, a little less afraid of what was about to happen.
“Dogs, Meredith? Couldn’t you return our horses to us, or our cattle, instead?”
“There were pigs in my vision,” I said.
“Not dogs,” she said, her voice matter-of-fact, as if nothing special had happened.
“I saw dogs in a different vision, when I was still in the Western Lands.”
“True vision then,” she said, her voice still bland and faintly condescending.
“Apparently so,” I said, ruffling the ear of the taller of the hounds.
“You must leave now, Meredith, and take this wild magic with you.”
“Wild magic is not so easily tamed, Aunt Andais,” I said. “I will take back with me what will go, but some of it is flying free, even as we speak.”
“I saw the swans,” Andais said, “but no crows. You are so terribly Seelie.”
“The Seelie would say otherwise,” I said.
“Go, go back to where you came from. Take your guards and your magic, and leave me the wreck of my son.” It was tantamount to admitting that if Cel fought me tonight, he would die.
“I will go only if I can take all the guards who would come with me.” I said it as firmly and bravely as I could.
“You cannot have Mistral,” she said.
I fought not to look for him at my back, fought not to see his big hands touching the huge hounds that his caress had brought into being. “Yes, I said. I remember what you told me in the dead gardens: that I could not keep him.”
“You will not argue with me?” she asked.
“Would it do any good?” The tiniest hint of anger seeped into my voice. The hounds tucked themselves tighter against my legs, leaning in for all they were worth, as if they would remind me not to lose control.
“The only thing that will call Mistral from my side to yours in the Western Lands is if you come up pregnant. If you become with child, I will have to let go of any who could be the father.”
“If I become with child, I will send word,” I said, and fought to keep my voice even. Mistral was going to suffer for being with me, I could see it in her face, feel it in her voice.
“I do not know what to wish for anymore, Meredith. Your magic runs through my sithen, changing it into something bright and cheerful. There is a field of flowers in my torture chamber.”
“What do you want me to say, Aunt Andais?”
“I wanted the magic of faerie to be reborn, but you are not enough my brother’s daughter. You will make of us only another Seelie Court to dance and parade before the human press. You will make us beautiful, but destroy that which makes us different.”
“I would humbly disagree with that,” said a voice from the crowd of my men. Sholto stepped forward. His tattoo had become a nest of real tentacles again, glowing and pale, and strangely beautiful, like some underwater sea creature, some anemone or jellyfish. It was the first time I’d ever seen him display his extra bits with pride. He stood tall with the spear and knife of bone in his hands; at his side was a huge white hound with different red markings on each of its three heads. Sholto used the side of the hand that held the knife to rub the top of one of the huge heads.
Sholto spoke again. “Merry makes us beautiful, yes, my queen. But the beauty is stranger than anything the Seelie Court would allow within their doors.”
Andais gazed at Sholto, and for a moment I thought I saw regret. Sholto’s magic rode him, and power breathed off him into the night.
“You had him,” she said to me, simply.
“Yes,” I said.
“How was it?”
“It was our coming together that raised the wild hunt.”
She shivered, and there was a hunger on her face that frightened me. “Amazing. Perhaps I will try him some night.”
Sholto spoke again. “There was a time, my queen, when the thought of a chance at your bed would have filled me with joy. But I truly know now that I am King Sholto of the Sluagh, the Lord of That Which Passes Between, Lord of Shadows. I will no longer take crumbs from the table of any sidhe.”
She made a sharp sound, almost a hiss. “You must be an amazing bit of ass, Meredith. One fuck with you and they all turn against me.”
To that, there was no safe answer, so I said nothing. I stood in the midst of my men, with the weight and press of the hounds milling around us. Would she have been more aggressive if the dogs — war dogs, most of them — had not been there? Was she afraid of the magic — or the more solid form the magic had taken?
One of the small terriers growled, and it was like a signal to the others. The night was suddenly thick with growls, a low chorus that shivered down my spine. I petted the heads of those I could touch, hushing them. The Goddess had sent me guardians, I understood that now. I thanked her for it.