“Actually, Meredith, she could,” Doyle said.
I shook my head. “I don’t mean that it’s not possible, Doyle, I mean it’s not acceptable. I don’t want her in my bedroom mirror like some living trophy mounted on a wall.”
“I understand.” He looked at the trapped goblin. “I will entertain suggestions, but in honesty, I do not see an easy solution.”
“Could we break the mirror?” Kurag asked.
“That would likely cut her into pieces.”
“It won’t kill her,” Kurag said.
“No, no breaking,” Siun said.
Everyone ignored her.
“But it might leave one piece on your side of the mirror and one on our side of the mirror,” Doyle said. “Can your goblins heal such a terrible wound?”
Kurag frowned. “They won’t die of it.”
“But once we cut her in two, can she be put back together, or will she live bisected?”
Siun started to push and pull harder. “No breaking the mirror, damn it!”
I couldn’t really blame her for that, but it was one of those problems that even among the fey was so peculiar you couldn’t really be horrified by it, not yet. Seeing her stuck in the mirror didn’t even seem quite real.
“Well, if we can’t break the mirror, I’m damned if I know what to do,” Kurag said.
Holly came up close to the glass. He touched Siun’s body where it went into the glass. He didn’t hurt her, but she complained as if he had. Holly’s voice came out awed: “Kitto did this. I saw him. I felt the magic race across my body like crawling wind.” He traced his hands around Siun where she entered the mirror.
“Ssstop touching me,” she said.
Holly looked out at us. “I will agree to what my brother wants. I will come to the princess, if there is a chance to gain such power.” He gazed at the mirror, and Siun’s body. Then his crimson eyes found mine. “We will come to you, Princess.” He looked at me, and there was something close to lust in his gaze, but it wasn’t the lust of flesh. It was the lust for power. It’s a colder wanting, but it can lead to warmer things, hotter things, dangerous things.
“We will see you all at the banquet, Holly,” I said. Saying I look forward to seeing you would have been a lie.
“We will see you there,” Ash said.
“Let us be clear, Kurag,” I said. “A month for every goblin we make sidhe.”
“Agreed,” he said.
“And let us also be clear on this,” Doyle said. “There are other ceremonies that can bring sidhe into their power. Not all of them are sexual.”
“Blood combat, you mean?” Kurag said.
“That, and the great hunts, the great quests.”“There is no more great hunt, Darkness, and the quests are over. We have not the magic for either.”
“Perhaps, Kurag, but I want the options open to us.”
“If it does not cost them their lives, then you may bring my goblins over as you see fit. In truth, Holly is not the only one who would rather not bed a sidhe.” He grinned then, a pale imitation of his usual leer. “None of you has enough extra body parts to be handsome.”
“Oh, Kurag,” I said, “you ol’ flatterer.”
“I want one thing very clear,” Ash said. “For my brother and I it will be sex with Princess Meredith, or nothing.”
“Brother, we do not have to do this,” Holly said.
Ash shook his head, his blond hair sliding around his shoulders. “I want it.” He looked at his brother, and something passed between them, some message that I couldn’t read. “I will lie with her, Holly, and where I go, you go.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Don’t like it, just do it,” Ash said.
Holly gave a small nod.
Ash smiled at us. “We will see you at the banquet, Princess.”
“Agreed,” I said.
“What about me?” Siun half screamed, half whined.
I shrugged. “I have no idea how to fix this.”
“Nor I,” Kurag said.
“I know how to fix it.” Rhys rose from his knees to stand over Siun. She slashed at him with her spined legs. He jerked out of reach, and laughed. It was a strange laugh, pleasant and unpleasant at the same time.
“How?” Doyle asked.
“I claim blood price on Siun here and now.”
“Killing her will not rid her from the mirror,” Doyle said.
Rhys nodded. “Yes, it will.” He stood over the goblin, just out of reach of her one arm and frantic legs. “I saw this done once on purpose to trap an enemy. Once he was dead, the mirror closed and each side of the glass got the parts on its side, but the mirror was whole.”
Siun struggled, beating against the glass, her spined legs making great white scratches in the varnished wood of the vanity. “No,” she said.
“The last time we were together it was me who was trapped and helpless. I don’t think you like it any better than I did.”
She lashed out at him, the black spike on the side of one leg striking the wood so hard it stuck, and Siun had to struggle to free the leg.
“Temper, temper, Siun,” Rhys said.
“Damn you, Rhysss.”
“If she curses any of us,” Doyle said, “then we will trade curses with the goblins. The sidhe are much stripped of their power, but you still do not want to trade curses with us, Kurag.”
“If she curses again, you can cut off her ungrateful head,” Kurag said.
Siun’s scream sounded more from anger and frustration than fear. I don’t think she feared death here and now. I couldn’t blame her. There were very few things that could cause death to the immortal of the fey. It took a great deal of magic invoking mortal blood, or a special weapon. We were fresh out of both.
Rhys stepped out of reach of Siun’s struggles and turned to Kitto. “Frost, give Kitto your short sword.”
Frost looked at Doyle. Kitto didn’t even bother looking up.
“What are you about, Rhys?” Doyle asked.
Rhys walked around the bed to Frost and Kitto. He knelt so that he was at eye level with the smaller man. He stroked Kitto’s hair until he turned his head and looked at Rhys. “I was with her for only a few hours, Kitto. I cannot imagine what it was like to belong to her for months.”
Kitto’s voice came hoarse, but clear. “Years.”
Rhys held the smaller man’s face between his hands, and pressed their foreheads against each other. He spoke low, and I could no longer understand all the words; only the tone was still clear: persuading, sympathetic, cajoling.
“Do not ask this of him, Rhys,” Frost said.
Rhys looked up at the bigger man, his hands still holding Kitto’s face. “The only way to cleanse yourself of a fear is to face it, Frost. We will face it together, he and I.”
Kitto nodded, his face still held between Rhys’s hands.
“Give him your short sword, Frost, or I’ll go fetch him one.” There was something in Rhys’s face, some command, some strength that hadn’t been there before. Whatever it was, Frost responded to it. He sat Kitto on the edge of the bed and stood up. He reached underneath his suit coat and came away with a sword that wasn’t much longer than a large knife. In Frost’s hands it looked too small. He offered it hilt-first to Kitto.
Kitto hesitated, then reached a tentative hand for it. The guards had been teaching him weapons skills. He had some, but goblin tactics relied on strength and body mass. It wasn’t the right approach for someone Kitto’s size. He was learning to use his body the way it was meant to be used, but he was still hesitant in practice, as if he didn’t trust himself yet.
He wrapped his small hands around the hilt, and it was big enough for both of them to hold it, one above the other. He stared down at the naked blade as if it might turn in his hands and bite him.
Rhys knelt out of sight and came back up with a sheathed sword from under the bed. We kept weapon caches throughout the house, just in case. But I guess there wasn’t anything short enough to fit Kitto’s hands under the bed.
Rhys walked back around the bed with a hand on Kitto’s shoulder, half guiding and half pushing. Kitto began to hang back as they rounded the bed. The short sword drooped in his hands.
Siun began to yell, “Kurag, my king, you can’t let them do this.”
“Calling me king will not help you now, Siun.”
“Help me, Kurag, help me. Would you ssstand idly by while ssidhe ssslay your goblin?” She held out the one white hand that was on his side of the mirror as far as it would stretch, beseeching.
Kurag sighed. “Is there anything I can offer you, white knight? A wergild price to replace her life.”
“I won’t die, Kurag,” Siun said. “They can cut me up, but I won’t die!”
“She’s right, pale prince, you cannot truly slay her.”
Kitto had stopped, refusing to go closer to Siun than the last corner of the bed. Short of Rhys picking him up bodily and carrying him the last few feet, Kitto was not getting closer.Rhys left him where he was and moved to the mirror, just out of reach of Siun’s struggling limbs. He stared down at the trapped goblin, and there was a distant look on his face, a remembering. “Leave the killing to me, Kurag,” he said.
“Name something I am willing to offer, pale prince, and I will pay wergild for her. Surely there is something you would trade for?” Kurag had stepped just behind Siun. He stroked her black-furred back, a soothing gesture.