“It cannot be,” I whispered, looking up at Doyle, watching fear cross his face, too.
“It is he,” Nicca said.
Galen wrapped himself around me as if I were the last solid thing in the world. Doyle moved so he could embrace me as well. “It’s my fault,” Galen whispered, “I didn’t mean to do it.”
Aisling spoke, and the flock of birds sang as if they were moved to joy by the sound of his voice. “We reemerged in the Hallway of Mortality.”
“Major magic doesn’t work there; that’s why we’re all so helpless to stop the torture,” Rhys said.
“We came out of the walls and floors — and trees and flowers, and shining marble came with us,” Aisling said. “The hallway is forever changed.”
Galen started to shake, and I held him as hard as I could. “I was buried alive,” he said. “I couldn’t breathe, I didn’t need to breathe, but my body kept trying to do it. I came up through the floor screaming.” He collapsed to his knees while I fought to hold him.
“The queen was walling up Nerys’s clan alive,” Amatheon said. “Galen did not take well to that after his time in the earth.”
Galen shook as if he were having a fit, as if every muscle were fighting itself, as if he were cold, though fevered. It was too much power and too much fear.
Adair’s glow had dimmed enough so that I could see his eyes. “Galen said ‘No prisoners, no walls.’ The walls melted away, and flowers sprang up in the cells. He hadn’t understood how much power he had gained.”
Another shriek approached in the distance. “Cousin!”
Doyle said, “Galen’s exhortation, ‘No prisoners,’ freed Cel.”
Galen started to cry. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Onilwyn and the queen herself — and some of her guard — are wrestling Cel even now,” Hawthorne said, “or he would be here already, trying to harm the princess.”
“He is quite mad,” Aisling said, “and he is intent on hurting all of us. But most especially you, Princess.”
“The queen told us to run back to the Western Lands. She’s hoping he’ll grow more calm with time,” Hawthorne said. Even by starlight, he looked doubtful.
“She has admitted before her nobles that she cannot guarantee your safety,” Aisling said.
“We should flee, if we are going to,” Hawthorne said.
I realized what he meant. If Cel attacked me now, here, like this, we would be within our rights to kill him, if we could. My guards were sworn to protect, and Cel was no match for the strength and magic that stood with me now. Not alone, he wasn’t.
“If I thought the queen would allow his death to go unpunished, I would say, Stay, fight,” Doyle said.
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.”