Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter
Forty-Four
I waited until the spring equinox to summon Mab.
It wasn’t an insult to do it like that. The equinox marked the beginning of the transfer of the majority of power from the Winter Court of the Fae to Summer, a point of balance.
That said, it was still a symbolic handoff—a time for Mab to be focused on consolidating her power through the duration of Winter’s nadir, over the summer season.
A time for her to be thinking about such things as keeping secure the loyalty and service of her vassals.
I knew there was a major Fae shindig at the equinoxes, where members of Summer, Winter, and Wyld would gather for revels and celebrations.
The Fair Folk were big on their seasonal parties, if they weren’t fighting at the time, hosted by the youngest queens.
Molly was somewhere in the Black Forest for this one.
I don’t know where the Summer Lady, Sarissa, was hosting.
It probably would have been good form for the Winter Knight to have been there, but I wasn’t really a party person, and I hadn’t ever been to one without my life being threatened, and this year that just didn’t sound fun.
Instead, I was up on the roof of the castle at midnight.
I’d brought up a table and two chairs, a couple of glasses, a bottle of ice wine, some decent cheese, homemade bread, and some thinly sliced cold steak.
I wore one of the suits Molly’s staff had provided last year, and I’d spiffed up a bit, trimming my hair and short beard.
The Queen of Air and Darkness probably wasn’t going to be happy with me. No reason to show up in sweatpants with crackers and Cheez Whiz on top of it.
I broke a small piece of bread off the round loaf, pinked a fingertip with a pin, put a drop of blood on the bread, and set it on the plate across the table from me.
I took a slow breath, closed my eyes for a moment, focused my will into my breath, and murmured, “Mab, Mab, Mab. At your convenience, I would speak with thee.”
I felt the rush of power spread out from the words into the night air, faint echoes and distortions bouncing back to me from the enchanted stone of the castle in response.
After that, I waited. Mab’s global empire was only a part of the realm she ruled.
She had more than a little territory in the Nevernever, too.
She could get around it really fast, and she wasn’t exactly known as a Chatty Cathy, but there would be a lot of her vassals and clients who would want to speak to her this evening.
Time passed. I waited. The night was cold, flirting with the freezing point, with occasional gusts of wind, rich with chill moisture from Lake Michigan, making it bitter.
I’d noticed that my body could sense the freezing point as a subtle thrill of pleasant sensation, now accompanied by a simple sense of relaxation.
The night grew deeper and more frigid, and I waited in my seat at the table, just soaking in the cold and the quiet.
I was getting better at that. Waiting.
There’s a big difference between being still and doing nothing.
A cold wind blew across my face, making me blink my eyes closed against it for a second, and then Mab stood across the table from me, slim and pale, wearing a white gown, her white hair spilling down her back, a crown of icicles glittering on her head.
Her bare arms gleamed in the moonlight, silver sparkling around her wrists and biceps.
Her eyes wavered through dark shades of glacial blue and green.
I rose at once.
“My Knight,” Mab murmured.
“My Queen,” I replied, inclining my head slightly.
She looked me up and down and then regarded the table between us.
“Thou hast gained some measure of discretion,” she noted. She tilted her head, staring at me intently. Ah hah. This was a formal and intimate occasion in Mab’s view. She tended to use the archaic grammar at such times. “And of self-mastery. Thou dost exert control over thy pain.”
“I’ve been healing,” I said.
“As have I,” Mab murmured. “Last summer was a difficult time for us all. I greet thee this eve.”
I blinked a little at that.
I mean, sure, I’d seen Mab take on an army virtually single-handed, at the absolute lowest point of her seasonal power. I’d seen her impaled upon cold steel. I’d seen her struck down by a Titan.
But…it honestly had never occurred to me that she might actually have been affected by her wounds. That the Queen of Air and Darkness might have been hurt. Might have needed time to restore herself.
That she might have needed to hide her pain.
“Welcome,” I said. I walked around the table and drew out her chair for her. She settled into it with inhuman grace.
Her eyes focused on the bread with the drop of blood on it, glittering and sharp. But she folded her hands in her lap while I poured out the ice wine, a modest amount for each of us, then seated myself across from her.
I took up my glass as she did.
“To promises kept,” she murmured.
“Promises kept,” I agreed.
We touched glasses and tasted the ice wine. It was sweet, cold, and strong.
“May I?” I asked, gesturing at the food.
“Yes,” Mab said.
I served her out some cheese and meat to go with the bread and served the same to myself.
I took up my bread.
Mab snatched hers and shoved it into her mouth like a starving animal.
It was such an utter reversal of her usual demeanor that my belly jerked in a sudden startled reaction, a thrill of primal fear jolting through me.
She didn’t eat the bread with my blood on it.
She devoured it, her eyes closed, letting out small sounds of pleasure and satisfaction as she did.
She tilted her face to the starry sky when she swallowed.
When her eyes opened, they had to roll down, and it took a long breath before they came into focus again.
I gulped. And took a small bite of my bread, chewing it with a dry mouth.
“Small pleasures,” she murmured, her voice throaty and rich, “grow more significant over time.”
I swallowed and said, “You’re right.”
She took up a bite of cheese and deliberately wrapped a bit of the thin-sliced steak around it. “Thou dost wish to choose the boon I have granted thee.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Wealth?” she said, a coy smile on her frozen-mulberry lips. “Influence? An army? Slaves? The perfect lover?”
I blinked again.
She was…Stars and stones. She was joking with me.
Mab making a joke was perhaps more frightening and disorienting than Mab slamming my head against an elevator wall.
I tried to smile. I think it came out a little sick.
“Thinkest thou I know not thy heart, my Knight? For while I am mortal no longer, yet do I remember what it is to care. To love. To yearn.” She took a bite of steak and ate it slowly. “To feel pain for family.”
“If you know,” I said, “why not just grant it?”
“Of all folk, a wizard should know the importance of the word, imbued with the very breath of thy life.”
She had a point.
Words mattered. Even the little ones.
The little ones matter most, in fact.
All of the most powerful words are brief.
“I need to consult with you on something,” I said.
Mab tilted her head.
“Lara,” I said. “Last summer when she touched me, she was burned. On Halloween, she wasn’t. I don’t understand why.”
Mab stared at me for a long moment. She took a sip of ice wine, considering.
“Twice,” she said, “you have loved. And twice death has claimed that love.”
I grunted.
“The protection granted from the White Court by love is not a mechanical process. It is an interaction of energy. Where that energy exists, it threatens the White Court. It exists under specific circumstances. When those circumstances have changed, it exists no more.”
“You’re telling me death defeats love?” I asked dully.
Mab regarded me. “Poetry does not suit you, my Knight. To accept love and give it back in equal measure, one must believe one is worthy of it. By your own judgment of yourself, you have failed. Twice.”
There wasn’t an actual knife sticking in my heart, but it felt like an argument could have been made. I closed my eyes.
But it made sense. The older I got, the more I realized that most of the things that happen to you in life are your own doing.
But it hurt.
I opened my eyes. Mab was staring at me with the oddest expression, one I couldn’t read. Maybe the emotion behind it wasn’t something a human could understand. I don’t know.
“One day,” I said quietly, “I’m going to be free of you.”
Free.
Little word.
It hung in the air between us.
Mab’s eyes glittered. Her rich lips spread slowly, showing me her pointed canine teeth. “Perhaps,” she purred, “but not today.”
Difficult to argue with that one.
“Eat,” Mab said quietly. “Thou shalt need thy strength, my Knight. One way or another.”
Difficult to argue with that one, too.
Besides. Of late, I was hungry most of the time anyway.
“Of course thou art,” Mab noted, almost idly. “Thy mind and spirit heal. Thy flesh must follow.”
A small, cold thrill went through my belly. Followed by a flash of annoyance.
“Stop that,” I said.
Mab…Okay, it wasn’t a giggle. I refuse to believe that’s possible. But it was a low, smug, satisfied sound she made that was technically laughter.
“Am I to take that as the boon thou dost crave?”
Another joke. I scowled at her, and she made the laughing sound again. Instead of answering her, I ate a few bites of steak and cheese.
She watched, her expression relaxed and satisfied. She nibbled a bit more cheese. Sipped a bit more wine. Just two people having dinner.
Hah.
“I want your help with a problem,” I said quietly.
“Indeed,” Mab said. Her eyes didn’t actually get larger, just harder and harder to ignore.
“Thomas,” I said. “For my boon, I wish you to grant him every aid at your disposal. This aid will include several aspects: your sincere and genuine cooperation and counsel on how to pacify his Hunger and restore him to health. I want Justine found and returned to him, whole and sane. I want his child safe and secure. And I want his debt to Etri made right, so that he may live in safety from the svartalves.”
Mab’s huge eyes grew darker, and she shivered so that gooseflesh ran down her arms. “Ahhh,” she said gently. “Mab is Mab. Her word is good, and must be. But Mab is neither all-knowing nor all-powerful. This, then, is thy request?”
I took a slow breath. “It is.”
“What thou dost wish may be done,” she warned, “but not without pain.” She leaned forward intently.
“Sooth, my Knight. It is within my power to make possible what now is not—but even Mab cannot know all ends. Riches and power, slaves and pleasure, would be far more easily given. This is a road that may wind toward great joy or great sorrow, and I cannot foresee its ending.” She drew back, spine straightening, chin lifting, regal in a way that no mortal who has walked the world could ever hope to be.
“Knowing this,” she said, “is it still thy desire?”
“Thrice said and done,” I breathed. “It is.”
Mab shuddered. Her exhalation of breath came out in a dense plume of frost. There was a deep crackling sound, and a film of ice spread over the table, the food, the glasses, the surface of the wine. It spread out across the stones of the castle, whose faded runes began to glow with icy blue light.
“So be it,” she whispered. “Let the scales be balanced, the debt repaid.”
And she was gone.
I sat there alone on the roof of the castle.
If I wasn’t so brave and manly, I might have been feeling a sense of horrible dread.
But…
Somewhere, deep down, there was also a small, fierce, bright light of hope.
I’m a wizard. And believe me, I know damned well that there aren’t any magical solutions in life. Not from spells. Not from Queens of Faerie. As far as I can tell, not even from the Almighty Himself.
Nothing is easy. Nothing is perfect.
But if I’d given my brother his life and his family a fighting chance, maybe that would be enough.
Maybe that’s all there ever is.
And if it hurt to do it, well. Only the living felt pain.
My stomach growled.
I ate my food and Mab’s share, too. The ice just made it crunchy.