Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter
Twenty-Three
The Witch of November came two days after Thanksgiving, rain and sleet and fog and snow all mixed together, as Mab knocked at the castle door.
Will sent the Knights of the Bean on duty out the back door to get an early lunch, which was likely a good idea.
Some of the guys had gotten ideas about looking out for me.
It was just possible that they might have had a higher-than-average level of snark for some reason, and Mab wasn’t the sort to be terribly tolerant of snark.
I had scars and lumps on my skull to prove it.
I came down the stairs from the second floor quickly, with Fitz in tow. “What are you supposed to do?” I asked.
“Keep my mouth shut unless asked a direct question,” Fitz repeated dutifully. “Be courteous. Offer nothing, not even thanks. Accept nothing, not even compliments.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m throwing you into the deep end here, kid. You’re probably going to be dealing with Fae in the future, and Mab is pretty much the most dangerous one there is. Follow my rules and keep your eyes open.”
I was halfway across the emptied great hall when Bear escorted Mab in from the entry chamber.
She was wearing one of those huge fur winter hats and a white fur coat that fell to her white heels.
Silver-white hair spilled down her back in a cascade like an abruptly frozen waterfall.
Her opaline eyes were thoughtful, her lips the color of frozen mulberries, and when Fitz saw her, he tripped over his own feet and fell.
I paused and offered him a hand up. He had kind of a stunned look on his face.
The Fae have that effect the first time you see them.
And the second and the seventy-third. They are inhumanly beautiful.
I didn’t trip because of my awesome wizardly self-restraint, and because experience had taught me that Mab would look that beautiful even when she was swinging an axe at my skull.
Which she had done.
She was more terrifying than she was lovely.
“It’s okay, kid,” I said under my breath. “Pretty much what I did the first time I saw one of the Sidhe, too. Remember the rules.”
Fitz swallowed, his eyes wide, and nodded mutely.
“Good man.”
We finished walking over to Mab and Bear, and I felt Mab’s eyes on me the way I would feel the winter wind on my face.
“My Knight,” Mab said coolly.
“Queen Mab,” I said, and inclined my head.
Fitz was just staring so I elbowed him. He blinked and then emulated me.
“And who is this?” she asked. There was the barest hint of a smile around her eyes.
“This is Fitz,” I said. “My apprentice.”
Mab arched a silver brow. “Is he capable, or is this another of your charity projects?”
“He set one of the Fomor’s heavy troopers on fire during the battle. He’s able to use all the basic elements. He’s got Council-level potential.”
“Interesting,” Mab said. Her eyes raked Fitz. “Young man,” she said, “there are those among my Court who could teach you the paths of power, if you wish to bargain for the knowledge.”
Fitz blinked again and put his eyes firmly on the floor. “Your offer is thoughtful, Queen Mab. But Harry is already doing that.”
Mab actually smiled. It was like seeing a cat walk on its hind legs. “Dresden is a capable teacher,” she agreed. “But should you find yourself in need of another instructor—and another aegis against the White Council—you have but to call my name three times.”
Fitz started to speak, thought better of it, and inclined his head instead.
“You were not so wise when you were his age,” Mab noted to me.
“Possibly not even now,” I said. “Why are you trying to bogart my apprentice?”
Mab gave me an even look, by which I mean one that told me she regretted not bringing an axe. “It has worked out well for me in the past. Perhaps it will again.”
A muscle in my cheek twitched. Molly.
Mab eyed Fitz once more and then said, “I will speak to you alone, my Knight.”
—
I took Mab to the library that Michael’s crew had finished only days before.
It didn’t look like a fancy room in an enchanted castle.
It looked more like a school library. Barred windows, lightly stained wooden shelves, which were still largely empty, and several seating areas made of comfortable secondhand couches and easy chairs.
Mister had claimed the place even before the workmen had left and was currently sleeping on top of a row of old leather-bound encyclopedias at the outlet of a heating duct from the castle’s gas furnace.
Sleet rattled on the windows. The wind gusted and blurred the buildings across the street through the precipitation. I closed the door to the library behind us, and Mab stared out at the worsening storm with a fascinated, sensual expression on her face.
“I do love the first winter storm here,” she said quietly. “How it sends so many souls scurrying for shelter. Tests those living without it. We will see who is strong.”
“It makes me remember that we still don’t have a snow shovel for the walk.” I sighed. “I’ll have to go out and get one.”
Mab made a throaty sound that might have been amusement and turned to eye me. “I suppose a kiss is a beginning, at least.”
The memory of Lara’s kiss made me feel queasy.
Well.
Also queasy.
“Have I told you how sexy it isn’t for you to keep leaning on me like this?” I asked her.
Any amusement her expression might have held vanished. “Half the men in the world would kill you to be in your place,” she snapped. “See that it is done.”
“And after she turns me into some kind of dopamine zombie, who are you going to replace me with?”
She tilted her head, annoyance replaced by confusion. She frowned, silver brows beetling. “I have told you before that in my calculations, replacing you at this point would be less productive than continuing to use you. Those calculations have not changed. I have no intention of replacing you.”
Now I got to frown. The Sidhe can do a lot of things, but they can’t tell direct lies, much like lawyers and most politicians.
Also like them, that rarely slowed them down from practicing deception when they deemed it necessary—but when you got straight, direct, declarative sentences, they were certain to be the truth, or at least a significant part of it.
“Then why are you shoving me at Heroin Barbie?”
Mab’s face went blank and her eyes all but glowed. Mister looked up abruptly, took one look at Mab, and silently vanished behind a freestanding bank of bookshelves.
“I am not,” she said very quietly, “in the habit of explaining myself to my vassals.”
“Ours is not to reason why,” I said.
“Precisely,” Mab said, biting off the word in crisp syllables. “Be assured, my Knight, that your disobedience in this matter will cause me to take you into my bower while I search out a new candidate.”
That sent a cold chill through my guts. The last Knight to visit Mab’s bower had been Lloyd Slate, my predecessor.
Mab had tortured him to the brink of death.
Then nursed him back to health. Then tortured him again.
Over and over and over. By the end of it, he’d barely been recognizable as a human being.
“Thought that kind of thing was supposed to wait for the wedding,” I said.
Mab made a disgusted sound. “Our tomorrows are more severely limited than you believe. The work must be done, and before it is too late. Lara wields tremendous influence amongst the mortals. Winter must have this alliance.”
“What, did you agree that I would boink her instead of signing a treaty?”
Mab smiled slowly. “I believe you recall the nature of our act of conclusion, when you pledged yourself to me.”
I swallowed. I’d been through easier battles. I still had dreams about that one. Sometimes flashbacks. Mostly it was a big, terrifying erotic blur.
“You,” Mab said, “are my proxy in this negotiation. You must act on it to conclude the bargain.”
“You can’t do it yourself?” I asked.
Which…was an image. One that rapidly expanded in my mind’s eye to a short film. Which caught on fire and burned through before it really got anywhere.
“Obviously, or it would already be done,” Mab snapped.
“You are capable and have a disciplined mind. You have the power of my mantle to draw upon. Close the deal, my Knight. Or I will perforce begin afresh.” She walked over to one of the bookshelves, where Lewis’s Narnia books stood in a row.
She idly began changing the order of them around.
“Have you sated Etri’s need for vengeance as yet? ”
“No,” I said. “I’m working on it.”
“Good,” she said. “I expect the matter to be closed before spring.” She gave me a gimlet look. “You met Drakul.”
“Looked like a big old stuffed shirt to me,” I said.
“I will not fight him,” Mab said.
Whoa. That took me aback. It was a second before I said, “You won’t?”
She lifted an eyebrow.
“He’s…more powerful than Winter?” I asked carefully.
“Winter,” Mab corrected me frostily, “has no power over him. There would be nothing to gain and much to lose in such a confrontation.” Her mouth twitched.
“And there are considerations, amongst immortals. I may need him two thousand years from now. Or five thousand. You, at my most optimistic, might give me a few centuries’ service. Be mindful of your importance.”
I frowned. “Well. I’m probably going to fight him.”
“The Winter Knight, throughout history, has engaged in many personal battles that have nothing to do with me. It is in the nature of the role.” Her mouth twisted as though the words were bitter on her tongue.
“It is one important way in which you are well suited to the mantle. But mark me, my Knight—you are not yet able to carry your battles to the likes of Drakul. If you do so, you court your own ending. And not a pleasant one.”
“Like the one you have planned for me,” I said bitterly.