A Stroke of Midnight (Merry Gentry #4)(22)

Peasblossom was moaning in terror, hysterical. The illusionary wind was not warm now but cold with that icy threat of storm on its edge.
The teacups rattled with her frantic attempt to shove herself tighter against the back of the cabinet.
I had to raise my voice to be certain she could hear me. “I promise that neither Frost nor Doyle will harm you.”
Doyle said, “Merry,” as if I’d surprised him.
Silence from the teacups, then in a very neutral voice, “You promise?”
“Yes,” I said. I didn’t think she was guilty of anything, but just in case, I’d promised only that Frost and Doyle would not harm her. If she took that to imply that I’d promised her none of my guards would harm her, that wasn’t my fault. I was sidhe enough and fey enough to split the difference with her and not feel guilty. Every fey from least to greatest knew the kind of games we all played. To lose meant you were careless. Your own damned fault. She eased around the china cup and came to the edge of the shelf. She was one of the rare demi-fey that had skin like a human’s. Her hair was dark brown, falling in waves around her face. Only the delicate black lines of antennae ruined the perfect doll look. That and the wings she flicked across her back.
Her dress looked like it was formed of brown and purple leaves, though when she stepped off the shelf the “leaves” moved like cloth. She flew toward me, and a glance from Doyle made me move farther away from the table, farther away from the curtain.
One of the other guards called, “Maggie May, could you come here for a moment?” I think if she hadn’t been suspicious, she’d have argued, but she let herself be called out of the line of danger.
Peasblossom adjusted her angle to follow me and put delicate feet on the palm of my hand. Her feet were not as baby soft as Sage’s had been, but her weight was like his, heaver than it should have been, as if there was more to her than a doll-size body and butterfly wings.
Ivi and Hawthorne moved in front of me, so my view was blocked, but they were offering their very bodies as shields to keep me safe. I could not protest.
Ivi whispered, “I hope I get to fuck you before you get me killed.” Hawthorne smacked him in the chest with his mailed fist.
He made an oof sound, then I heard cloth rip and the shouting begin.
Peasblossom darted to my shoulder, hiding in my hair, screaming wordlessly and in terror.
Such a small creature to make so much noise: I heard the men yelling, but what they yelled was lost to Peasblossom’s shrill screams. The broad bodies of the guard kept me safe, but also hid the action from me, so I was left unknowing, unseeing, and could only trust that nothing too bad was happening. I took it as a good sign that the guards were still merely standing in front of me and didn’t feel the need to hide me between the floor and their bodies. Things weren’t deadly, yet.
Peasblossom clung to my hair and jacket, shrieking right next to my ear. I fought the urge to grab her and stop the screams. I was afraid I’d crush her wings, and with Beatrice’s death, I was no longer certain what would and would not heal on the lesser fey.
I put my hand between her and my ear but jerked it away, because something pricked me, like a thorn or pin.
She stopped screaming and started apologizing. Apparently I’d caught my fingers on her rose-thorn bracelet. My fingertip held a minute spot of blood.
Doyle’s deep voice cut off Peasblossom’s babbling apology. “Why were you hiding from us?”
A rough male voice said, “I wasn’t hiding from you; I was hiding from him.”I tried to peer around Adair and Hawthorne, but when I tried to move around them they moved with me, blocking my view and keeping me safe.
I called, “Doyle, is it safe?”
“Hawthorne, Adair, let the princess see our prisoner.”
“Prisoner?” the rough voice said. “Princess, there’s no need for that.” There was something vaguely familiar about the voice.
The two guards moved, and I was finally able to see the hairy, smallish figure Frost and Galen held between them. He was a hob, a relative to the brownie.
Harry Hob, he’d worked in the kitchens off and on for years. Off when Maggie May caught him drunk on the job, on when he could control himself. He was only about three feet tall and covered in so much thick, dark hair that it took a minute to realize he was naked.
“Why are you afraid of Onilwyn?” Doyle asked.
“I thought he’d come to kill me, the way he killed my Bea.”
I think we all took a breath and forgot to let it out.
“Did you see him do it?” Doyle asked. His deep voice fell into the silence like a stone thrown down a well. We waited for the stone to hit bottom.
But it was Onilwyn’s voice that came first. “I did not.” His voice was thick, not with emotion, but with blood and the broken mess of his nose. “I did not know her well enough to kill her.” He struggled to his feet, and with no prompting from anyone, Adair and Amatheon took his arms, as if he were already a prisoner. In that moment I knew I wasn’t the only one who disliked Onilwyn.
He kept protesting his innocence in that same thick voice that sounded like he had a very bad head cold, but I knew it was his own blood he was choking on.
“Silence!” Doyle said, not a yell, but his voice carried all the same.
Onilwyn was silent for a moment, until Harry Hob said, “I saw . . .”
Onilwyn cut him off. “He lies.”
Harry made himself heard then, bellowing loud enough to shake the cups on their shelves. “I lie! I lie! It takes a sidhe to be a liar inside fairie.”
Doyle stepped between them, motioning them both to silence. “Hob, did you see Onilwyn kill Beatrice?” He turned at a sound from Onilwyn. “If you interrupt again, I will have you dragged from this room.”
Onilwyn made a sound, then spat blood on the kitchen floor.
Maggie May stalked toward him with a small iron pot in her hand.
“No, Maggie,” Doyle said, “we’ll have no more of your bogarting.”
“Bogarting? Why, Darkness, if you think that was bogarting, you must never have seen a true bogart.” There was something threatening in her golden eyes.
“Don’t force me to have to ban you from your own kitchen, Maggie May.” 
“Yo’ wouldna’ dare!”
He just looked at her, and the look was enough. She backed off, muttering under her breath, but she put the pot down and went to the far corner. Her dogs boiled about her feet like a furry tide.
Doyle looked back to Harry Hob. “Now, once more, did you see Onilwyn kill Beatrice or the reporter?”
“If not to finish the job, then why did he come ahead of you all into the kitchen? Why not ask him that?”
Doyle’s voice was low and almost evil sounding, with an edge of a growl. “I ask you one last time, Harry. If you do not answer me straight and simply, I will let Frost shake you until some answer falls out.”
“Ah, now, Darkness, no need to threaten old Harry.”
“Old Harry, is it?” Doyle smiled. “You can’t claim age here, not among us. I remember you as a babe, Harry. I remember when you had a human family and farm to tend.”
Harry scowled at him, a look as unfriendly as he’d given Onilwyn. “No need to bring up hard memories, Darkness.” He sounded sullen.
“Then answer me straight, and no one here need know how you lost your place.”
“You wouldna’ tell,” Harry said.
“Give me truth, Harry Hob, or I will give you truth you don’t wish shared.”
Harry scowled at the floor. He looked somehow diminished and more delicate than he should have, held between the two tall guards. Maybe he was playing for sympathy, but if so, he was playing to the wrong audience.
Doyle knelt in front of him, staying on the balls of his feet. “One last time Harry; did you see Onilwyn kill Beatrice and/or the human reporter?”
The “and/or” had been a nice touch, because without it Harry would have room to wiggle: if he’d seen only one murder, but not both.
He answered, still staring at the floor, “No.”
“No, what?” Doyle asked.
Harry looked up at that, his dark eyes glittering with anger. “No, I didna’ see the tree lord slay my Beatrice or the human.”
“Then why did you hide from him?”
“I did not know he was hid there,” Maggie May said. “Mayhaps, Darkness, it was na’ the tree lord he first hid from.”
“Very good,” Doyle said, acknowledging it with a nod of his head. He stood and asked Maggie’s question: “Why did you hide yourself, Harry?”
“I saw him,” and he used a nod, since his arms were still held, to point at Onilwyn, who was also still being held.
We waited for him to say more, but he seemed to think he’d said enough. Doyle prompted him, “And why should the mere sight of Onilwyn make you hide?”
“Thought he was her sidhe lover, didno’ I.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Harry gave me a dirty look.
“I’m sorry, Hob, but Onilwyn doesn’t think even I am pure-blooded enough. I can’t imagine him having a completely non-sidhe lover.”
“Thank you, Princess,” Onilwyn said in that still thick voice.
I gave him the look he deserved and said, “It wasn’t a compliment.”
“Just the same,” he said, “I am grateful for the truth.”
“Who but her sidhe lover would come here alone?” Harry asked.