A Stroke of Midnight (Merry Gentry #4)(54)

Galen pulled back so hard, I stumbled against him. He caught me automatically, but that put him closer to the tiny hovering fey. He seemed to freeze against me, his arms pinning mine.
Niceven hissed, flashing tiny needle-like teeth, and darted in. I think she only meant to land on my shoulder, but Frost put his arm in her way. He didn’t try to hit her, but her guard reacted, flying toward their queen. They descended on us like a swirl of rainbow leaves, with tiny pinching hands, and sharp biting teeth.
Galen yelled and threw up a hand, turning so that he used his own body as a shield against them. He started to run, but he tripped and fell, landing on the ground with me underneath him. He caught himself with one arm so that I didn’t take his full weight. My face ended up buried in the rich green smell of crushed leaves. I opened my eyes and found myself nearly buried in greenery. I thought for a moment that Galen and I had been transported, but my fingers found the bareness of the hallway stone underneath. I looked at the far wall, and saw the other guards still standing around us. Plants had sprung from the naked rock.
Galen had curled himself over me, shielding me with his body. He was still tense and waiting for the first blow. A blow that did not come. I turned enough to see his face, his eyes screwed tight. He had given himself over to one of his greatest fears to protect me. He hadn’t seen the flowers yet, but the others had.
Niceven’s voice hissed, “Evil sidhe, evil, evil sidhe. You have bespelled them.”
“Interesting,” Doyle said, “very interesting.”
“Most impressive,” Hawthorne said, “but whose work is it?”
“Galen’s,” Nicca said.
Galen’s body had begun to relax above me. He opened his eyes, and I watched his puzzlement as he looked at the plants that had filled the hallway. “I did not do this.”
“Yes,” Nicca said again, in a voice that was very certain, “yes, you did.”
Galen raised up on one arm, so that he was half sitting above me. He turned and looked behind us, and whatever he saw covered his face in astonishment. I sat up and looked, too.
Flowers filled a small space of hallway. The winged demi-fey were cuddled into those flowers, rolling in the petals, covering themselves with pollen. They were reacting like cats to catnip.
Queen Niceven hovered above them untouched by the call of the flowers. Less than a handful of her winged warriors were at her side. All the others had fallen to Galen’s flowers. It was an enchantment, that much I understood, but beyond that I was as lost as the look on Galen’s face.
“He’s the only one who has not had new power manifest.” Frost poked at one of the nodding blossoms with the tip of his sword.
“Well,” Doyle said, gazing at the flowers and the drugged demi-fey, “this is certainly manifested.” He grinned, a quick flash of teeth in his dark face. “If his power continues to grow he could do this to human, or even other sidhe, armies. I had almost forgotten that we ever had such nice ways to win battles.”“Well,” a voice said from behind us, “I leave for a few minutes and you’ve planted a garden.” It was Rhys, back from escorting the police outside the sithen. Nicca told him what had happened. Rhys grinned at Galen. “What is this, the hand of flowers?”
“It’s not a hand of power,” Nicca said. “It’s a skill, a magical skill.”
“You mean like baking or doing needlepoint?” Rhys asked.
“No,” Nicca said, not rising to the joke, “I mean it is like Mistral’s manifesting a storm. It is a manifestation, a bringing into being.”
Rhys gave a low whistle. “Creating something out of nothing. The Unseelie haven’t been able to do that in a very long time.”
Galen touched one of the largest cupped blossoms, and it spilled a tiny demi-fey out into his hand. He jerked as if he’d been bitten, but he didn’t drop the delicate figure. A female dressed in a short brown dress, with her brown and red and cream wings fanned out on either side of her as she lay on her back in his hand. She was tiny even by demi-fey standards. Her entire body did not fill Galen’s palm. She lay almost completely limp, a smile on her face, her eyes rolled back into her head. Her body was covered in the black pollen of the flower she’d crawled into. She wasn’t just drunk, she was passed out, happy-drunk.
Galen looked more and more puzzled. He gazed up at Doyle, half holding the little fey up to him. “For those of us under a century, what in the name of Danu is going on? I didn’t do this on purpose, because I didn’t know it was possible. If I didn’t know it was possible, then how could I have done it at all? Magic takes will and intent.”
“Not always,” Doyle said.
“Not if it is simply part of what you are,” Frost said.
Galen shook his head. “What does that mean?”
“Maybe we should save the magic lessons for later,” Rhys said, “when we’re more alone.” He was looking at the tiny queen who was still hovering above us, gazing at her fallen army.
“Yes, white knight, keep your secrets from me,” she said, “for the princess has broken the bargain she made with me. My people are her eyes and ears no longer. We serve Prince Cel once more.”
I got to my feet, careful not to step on the demi-fey who were passed out in and among the flowers. That would be bad on so many levels. “I did not break our bargain, Queen Niceven; you took Sage away. He could not take blood if he was not allowed near me.”
She buzzed to hover in front of my face, her white wings moving in a blur of speed that would have shredded true moth wings. I knew from Sage that that blur meant she was angry. 
“I bargained for a little blood, a little sexual energy to come to my proxy, and thus to me. I did not bargain for him to be made sidhe. I did not bargain for him to lose the use of his wings. I did not bargain for him to . . .”
“Be too big for your bed,” I said.
“I am married,” she said, and that last word sounded like a curse. “I have no lover save my king.”
“No, and because you cannot have your favorite lover, you forbid him the pleasure of anyone else.”
The wind from her wings played along my hair, buffeted my face. The air was cool, though her anger was not. “What I do with my court is my business, Princess.”
“It is, but you accused me of breaking our bargain, and I did not. I am still willing to offer a taste of royal blood to you.” I held my hand out slowly, gently, offering her my upturned wrist. I did not want another misunderstanding. “Do you wish to take the blood personally? You sent Sage as your proxy because the Western Lands are far from faerie, but now I am here.”
She hissed at me like a startled cat and buzzed high into the air above me. “I would not taste your sidhe flesh for all the power in the world. You will not steal my wings from me.”
“But Sage was always able to change to a human size. You are not, so you can’t get stuck in a larger size.”
She hissed again, shaking her head, sending rainbow dazzles to dance around the walls, on us, and the flowers. “Never!”
“Then choose another proxy,” I said.
“Who would take such a risk?” she said.
A small voice came. “Someone who has no wings to lose.”
I looked down until I saw a cluster of demi-fey against the far wall. None of them had wings, but they had other means of transport. Carts pulled by sleek, cream-colored rats, and one dainty chariot that had more than a dozen white mice tied to it. There were two ferrets with multiple tiny riders, one the standard black mask, the other an albino with white fur and reddish eyes. A Nile monitor that was nearly four feet long had two of the larger riders. The monitor was not only harnessed but muzzled like a dog that you’re afraid will bite. Nile monitors could be vicious and ate anything small enough to catch and kill. If I’d been the size of a Barbie doll, I wouldn’t have wanted one anywhere near me.
Movement on the wall brought my attention to the fact that there were tiny many-legged demi-fey clinging there. Some looked like tiny spider centaurs, eight legs combined with a rounded fey body hidden under a sway of gauzy cloth. One looked like a black beetle, so like that only staring showed the pale moon of a face under the insect camouflage.
“I spoke,” said one of the men in a rat-drawn cart. There was a woman in the cart with him. She was pulling on his arm, trying to stop him from waving. “No, Royal, no,” she said, “don’t do it. There are worse things than not having wings.”
He let go of the reins that led to a lovely rat, and grabbed the woman’s arms. “I will do this, Penny. I will do this.”
Penny shook her head. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“You won’t lose me.”
“I will if she makes you sidhe.”
“I have no other size, Penny. She can’t trap me in human size the way she did Sage, because it’s not one of my abilities.” He hugged her to him, petting her short dark hair, and looked up at me. His hair was short and black, and just under his bangs were two long graceful antennae, as black as his hair. His eyes were large and almond-shaped, and a perfect blackness like Doyle’s, or Sage’s come to that. His skin was very white in contrast to all that darkness. The woman turned her head to gaze up at me, and she, too, had long graceful antennae. It was rare for any of the demi-fey to have antennae, but for those without wings it was doubly surprising.The two pale oval faces stared up at me. There was a little more squareness to his jaw, a somewhat daintier curve to hers. He was a little taller than she, a little more broad of shoulder, narrow of hip, but beyond the basic differences that made them male and female, they looked identical.