Blood and Iron (16 page)

Water-horse.
An eyebrow tendriled like a creeper rose, and he stared over Seeker's bowed shoulder at the Kelpie.

The Mebd sighed. “See to it,” she said wearily.

Seeker felt it for a command and lanced a sharp look at Whiskey. He glowered beside the door. “Whiskey,” Seeker hissed.

He opened his mouth to speak, and she half turned to confront him, raising her right hand warningly. “Whiskey.”

A muscle along the side of his long horsey jaw knotted, and she clearly heard teeth like chipped quartz slide one over another. Shoulders square, with infinite dignity, he bowed from the waist and stayed there, his eyes fixed on the toes of Seeker's boots—or perhaps the hem of her glamoured dress.

“You may rise,” the Queen said negligently. “Anything that must be said may be said in front of Peaseblossom.”

Seeker straightened, waiting as the black-haired lad guided the Mebd to a chair by the window. Peaseblossom remained by one door, Whiskey before the other. Seeker heard the clatter of silver on tiles as he shifted from foot to foot, barely restraining himself from pawing the patterned floor. She stole a glance at him. Nostrils flared. His irises were rimmed with white.
Peaseblossom, sure. And the lad?
But she knew better than to ask. The Mebd was playing a game. If she was breathing, she was playing games.

The dim light from the diamond windows sparkled on the Mebd's crown: on amethyst and tanzanite shaped into the clustered blossoms of wisteria, on rubies and red garnet and the oil green sheen of peridot like the newest leaves of spring.

“Your Majesty,” Seeker said, “I have contacted the Merlin and befriended her. She came as far into the Westlands as Morgan's cottage, but turned back. I mean to see her again.”

“She? Interesting.” The Mebd inclined her head. “I'll wish you to remain by my side for a little while. I have arranged for your convenience, and the Merlin's, that time will flow more quickly here. She”—and the Mebd tasted the word again, and smiled—“will be able to complete her training while maintaining her duties in the mortal realm.”

“Kadiska has located her as well, Your Majesty,” Seeker said. “But I spoke with her first, and believe her inclination is to trust me, though she is wary.”

“Excellent on both counts. I will deal with Àine. As you claimed the mortal first, she will withdraw her Seeker. Of course, there will be subtler ploys to win her away from us.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Tension quivered from Whiskey, silken and heavy as the air before a thunderstorm. “May I inquire as to the nature of the delegation from Queen Àine?”

“They are present to witness an announcement,” the Mebd replied. She stood, as if her chair had grown tiresome, and turned to the windows and the rolling mist beyond. The fog coiled like a dancer's veils through yellow trees in an autumn wood, and a slow pensive rain that was barely a rain fell. The leaves swayed and brushed one another in an unfelt breeze, gold coins on a gypsy's dress. “Time grows short, and there is that afoot in the world of men which may trouble us even here.”

“Yes, mistress.” Seeker swallowed bitterness and took a half step toward the Mebd. “Your Majesty, I ask a boon.”

The Mebd did not turn, but she nodded. Seeker saw something sorrowful in the line of the Queen's neck and shoulders, but she poked her old rotten hatred up hot and burned whatever scrap of pity might have followed the thought.

"Keith MacNeill. I wish him permitted at court.”

Behind the Mebd, the black-haired youth glanced up, startled. Peaseblossom leaned over and whispered in the lad's ear, and his eyes grew wider. Seeker caught the amber-green glitter of his gaze—and the matching glitter of the long, smooth collar of golden mesh that lay behind the open neckline of his shirt, low upon his breastbone.

“Mother?” Ian said, his voice so different from a child's that she never would have known it.

It might have been blood roaring in Seeker's ears. She wasn't certain. But she nodded nonetheless.

“Ah, yes,” the Mebd said. “You two have not seen each other in some time. My apologies. I'm sure you'll have time to reacquaint yourselves.” She laid a lily-white hand on steamed glass. “The boon is granted. You will attend court tonight.”

Seeker nodded, as she was constrained to, and stole another glance at Ian. Peaseblossom restrained him, a hand like a naked tree limb on the boy's shoulder, but Ian vibrated with potential action. “Of course.”

“I shall see you then. Rested. There will be a ball.”

It was a dismissal. Seeker nodded once, murmured a “Your Majesty,” and fled, Whiskey sulking behind her.

Seeker paced over the flagstones, her back stiffly upright, acutely aware of Whiskey following.
Show no weakness,
she thought, and almost summoned Gharne. Not that Gharne would have been able to so much as slow the water-horse down if he'd decided to challenge her then. She didn't understand why he didn't. Didn't understand why he caught her by the arm when she tripped and would have gone to her knees, would have buried her face in her fists and wailed like a bean sidhe.

“No weakness,” he snarled like the voice of her own conscience, and tugged her up. The ridge of his ring, the edge of his nail bruised her as he lifted her to her feet. “Never show weakness, mistress. Stand up. Walk. Where are your rooms?”

She pointed, and he led her, making it look like a solemn escort. She unlocked the door and brought him in. The chamber was cold, the fire unkindled, and as Whiskey dragged a chair before the door Seeker steadied herself against the mantel. She wobbled like a newborn colt but managed to turn and face him. “Challenge me not today,” she commanded, leveling her voice.

“I'd rather not see you dead.” The water-horse circled her to kneel before the grate. He laid kindling and larger wood together before taking up a lucifer match and setting fire against it. It bloomed, and he backed away without haste.

“You can't tell me you're professing affection,” she said. He supported her to another chair, and sat her down within its green-embroidered wings.

“Affection?” He nickered, and his voice took on the rhythm of poetry. “I've no soul to love with, mistress, nor kindness to give. I am of the Fae so old we blur into things that are ancienter still, and I will tell you true that there is nothing in me that cares for you.” Strong fingers combed her hair, avoided the braids.

“Then what?”

“Self-interest. You're powerful. And I want my freedom given, and you as an ally. My offer stands. I'll swear on my father Manannan's domain, which is also my own, and on the justice so long denied my mother. I'll swear. By the white shoulders of my father's sister, Fionnghuala the Swan Maid—”

“No.” Seeker leaned forward. She would have pulled away, had Whiskey's hand not cupped her chin and stroked her throat. “Release me.”

He did, and she stood. “Challenge me,” she said. “Get it over with.”

He came a step closer. “That is the one command I cannot be made to obey.”

“And if I bid you importune me no more, little treachery? ”

“I should obey, of course.” His voice was level and cool but she sensed something dark moving under it, a shadow in the depths. “But you know what I am, mistress. What I am for. I am but a petty godling, it's true, but I am the god of the dark depths of passion, the sea that drowns and gives back life. Tell me you don't crave the attention. How long have you been alone?”

“I . . .”

“Lie to me,” he encouraged. “Put yourself that little bit in my power. Tell me nothing in you chafes at the cool certainty of Faerie. That there is no human soul in you, craving touch, craving passion and emotion.”

Seeker's hands clenched into fists. She didn't move, still swaying on her feet. He closed the distance between them, lifted her hair, let it fall between his fingers. “Lie to me,” he said.

“Fuck you.”

His nostrils flared, as if he scented prey. “It hurts, doesn't it?”

She thought of court, a few scant hours away, and feared it. It would be good to rest. Not to worry about Keith, about Mist, about the Merlin. About the Cat Anna's machinations and Ian's safety. If she did have a soul left, as Mist and Uisgebaugh insisted, she was certainly going to Hell.

The rules were different for the ones who were gods. Not for the ones born after the Christian days.

Just tell him begone,
she thought.
Third time tempted.
But the command died on her tongue. “Why don't you just try to snap my neck? Get it over with. Today, you could win. I'd probably
let
you win,” she snarled.

“I like to play with my food, mistress mine. They're no fun that don't fight.”

She raised a hand against the smooth-rough ivory silk of his suit when he came up to her. His breath tickled her ear; she felt the heart beating in his chest with a slow, calm rhythm that she wanted to lean into and weep. Shivers trembled across her neck when he brushed her earlobe with his lips. A salt-grass aroma surrounded her, touched with the copper scent of blood from the scabbed-over wound on his neck. “Not so cold and fey after all,” he whispered.

Seeker sighed once, softly, and closed her eyes. “No, Uisgebaugh. ” She pressed her face against his breast and let him hold her for a long and silent moment. He kissed her ear, the downy place under the fall of her hair. His hands slid up her body from her waist.

Then she leaned her head back and looked up at him, his strange pale eyes and his smiling mouth. “No, Uisgebaugh, ” she said once more, and drove her elbow up under his ribs. “Act like a studhorse, and I'll treat you like one, dammit.”

“Understood,” he said, eyeing her with wary respect.

“You were vulnerable.”

“Like a shark scenting blood,” she answered, and sighed.

“Whiskey. After the Merlin. After that. We'll talk again, about arrangements. But you know, even if I set you free . . . now that the Mebd knows I know your Name, she can force me to tell her.”

“Then I shall have to kill her, shan't I?” He smiled and swept another bow, turned away and went to sit by the fire.

“Kill her, kill me,” Seeker answered. “And half of Faerie. Unless you were bound to her instead of to me, of course.”

“But I'm not that, am I?”

“No.” She sighed. “Not that at all.”

Carel Bierce took the train into the city from Hartford, and Matthew met her at Penn Station. The train was five minutes late. He stood on the greasy granite-paved platform in a cavern that pounded like the hollow, chambered heart of the city with train wheels, and tugged his tweed jacket irritably over a steel-banded watch the third time he caught himself checking it.
She'll come if she comes.

He half hoped she wouldn't. But she was the third one down precarious steel steps, a swirl of heavy cinnamon velvet skirts brushing the calves of her boots like a beautiful woman's hair falling across her neck, and Matthew walked forward to meet her. He extended a hand as she turned, smiling as she folded it in her own. “Welcome to New York.” His words had the ring of formality, and he knew she understood them for what they were. The sideways twitch of her head told him as much, and the slight smile that touched the corners of her eyes but didn't curve her lips.

“I am pleased to be your guest.” She had a suede knapsack slung over one shoulder. Swags of love beads strung across its surface rustled as she dropped it from her shoulder to the crook of her elbow and dug inside, frowning until she came up with a sunglasses case. She slipped the glasses up her nose, and Matthew smiled in recognition of the gesture.

“You wear contacts.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because you handle your glasses like somebody who wore them constantly for years,” he answered, suddenly self-conscious about adjusting his own. He hadn't ponytailed his hair, and the ends brushed the underside of his jaw when he turned to lead her between yellow-painted metal beams. “Hungry, Dr. Bierce?”

“Carel.” A small lowering of the walls. The curious tilt of her head remained. “I could eat. Where are you taking me?”

“To dinner,” he answered, leading her toward the escalators that would raise them out of the hollow darkness and into the bustle of the station proper. “And then to meet my brother.”

She ate the way Matthew imagined a raptor would eat: delicately, ravenously, with sharp and total concentration. She used the fork in the European manner and chewed each bite precisely. Matthew found himself watching her hands, the way the tendons moved across their backs, and he fussed at his own chicken Caesar salad while she worked methodically through hers.

“And who might your brother be?” She hummed lightly under her breath when she looked at him, seemed to catch herself, and ended the music with a sip of beer.

“A man who was kissed by Faeries,” he said. She arched an eyebrow at him. He shrugged. “You'll see.”

Five hundred years of conspiracy had left the Prometheus Club unworried about funding. Kelly's care was not
quite
the best that New York City's medical establishment could offer, but it was certainly more than Matthew or his parents could have managed on their own.

It was just as well that Matthew had the help.

Kelly needed it.

Carel must have picked up on Matthew's mood; her politely aimless conversation—about movies, music, politics, anything but magic and the truth—halted as they passed through the scrolling doors of the elevator. She cast a sidelong glance at him and frowned, but bit her tongue; Matthew had the strangest feeling that she was looking
past
him as much as
at
him, and only with effort forced himself not to turn to check the angle of her gaze. She stood beside him, her shoulders rising and falling with her breath, and said nothing at all until the half-second before the doors slid open. “What's his name?”