"Your Gloriousness," this one said with a fawning bow. "We elementals would rather serve our queen in hell than any empress in heaven."
"Of course you would. Now tell me where you've found my son."
The minion's billowing body drew back slightly. "Er," it said. "Bodacious One, it is not your son we've found, but the deceitful human woman who stole his loyalty."
Titania narrowed her eyes. She didn't like being contradicted any more than she liked being given indecipherable human compliments. Nervous, the minion bared the white razor teeth that always looked too solid to belong to it.
"If you cannot part your son from her," it suggested, "surely you can part her from him."
"And how do you propose I do that? Considering my doubt-spell worked so well last time."
"The little fairies were protecting her. This time she is alone. We were hoping… that is, we think it might be advisable if you gave us leave to play hardball."
"Hardball?" she repeated, frowning at what was probably human slang.
"A more final solution," the minion translated delicately.
Titania pushed from her gilded chair. This euphemism she understood. She pressed steepled fingers before her mouth. Her soul ought to be quailing. Murder was serious btxsiness even for her. Then again, given the superiority of fairy lovers, this human might cling to Magnus even under torture—and who knew when another chance to get her alone would come?
She paced to the ancient tapestry that hung on her tower's curved wall, a masterpiece whose tiny figures moved and danced when she drew near. It had been created by the little fey, former subjects who now defended this woman.
Was it really murder if her victim was a human? And was it really wrong if it saved her son?
As queen, Titania enjoyed not only her personal power but the power that passed with the throne. Once upon a time, her husband's defection had threatened her position, but she had recovered, and in the years that followed she had arranged this realm exactly as she liked. Today, everyone else's magic was subordinate to hers. She might hate to admit it, but her son's support was becoming necessary to sustain that state of affairs. His philosophical oddities aside, Magnus was strong—both in magic and in character. The nobles would never dare band against her if he stood with her.
That he would stand with her she had no doubt. Her son had forgone his chance to abandon her when Jovian left—and he hadn't stayed just because his friends were, like some people said. Once Titania removed his human distraction, Magnus was bound to remember how devoted he was to her.
Really, once she weighed all the factors, her decision was easy.
She turned back to the waiting minion.
"Torture the woman first," she said. "Then, if she persists in refusing to give up my son, you may execute your 'final solution.' I'll watch you from my scrying pool."
The minion bowed deeply. "My queen," it said with seemingly genuine respect. "Obeying your orders will be our pleasure."
The attack came fast and furious, the minions having learned their lesson from their earlier misfire at the Vista Inn. Magnus thanked the Will-Be that the last ghost had been shooed in time, because he got no warning that his attackers were on their way. The minions were simply there in the thin spot the ghosts had made, lobbing fear spells and insults with equal glee. Zoe would be given no opportunity to muster angelic resources—or in this case, Magnus impersonating Zoe with the help of her lock of hair.
The disguise was so good it could have fooled him. Knowing his limits, Magnus had to wonder if Samuel had broken the little fairy pact about not working magic for their former oppressors. Either that, or desperation had sharpened his skills. When he gasped out his feigned confusion at what was going on, he could have sworn Zoe's voice issued from his throat.
For the first ten minutes, he put up a show of resistance. Not only would his mother mistrust a speedy victory, but it would insult Zoe to suggest she'd give up easily.
Then again, "easy" wasn't what he'd call this experience. The fear spells were just as skin-crawlingly awful as he remembered from boyhood punishments. It wasn't until the rain of rocks began, however, that he realized he might have underestimated his mother's zeal for scaring Zoe off.
"Wait!" he cried in his beloved's voice, his fear not as pretend as it had been before. "Can't we talk about this? Maybe I could just see Magnus on weekends."
"No you couldn't!" three minions roared in unison.
Their native realm was a hell dimension, neither Earth nor Fairy. Where they'd gathered, a flaming void had opened in his bunker's dome. To make the thin spot more inviting, Magnus had scraped away its protective layer of amethysts. The sound that rumbled steadily from the hole was like an evil electrical generator, and it wasn't long before he wished he'd made the opening smaller. He could see new elementals arriving by the minute, flashing their razorlike white teeth as their bloodlust rose. If Magnus didn't find a way to calm them, they were going to do more damage than he could heal. Already he was bleeding from a dozen wounds, his concentration strained from fighting off the artificial terror.
Had Zoe truly been here, she would have been scarred.
"All right," he said, judging the time had come for capitulation. "I will give Magnus up. No man is worth this much grief."
"We don't believe you," the minions chortled, a sound more like rusty chains than laughter. "We can smell fear, and you're not half as afraid as you ought to be!"
Magnus was wishing for his own "in" with Zoe's angels then. Sweat was rolling down him in the now airless atmosphere, stinging everywhere the rocks had broken skin.
"I don't need to be more afraid," he said. "I'm smart enough to cut my losses."
"We'll show you losses," the minions said just as something small and silver flashed through the air.
Magnus raised his forearm defensively. The flash came from an arrow tipped with fairy steel, a metal native to his homeland. He barely registered the slice it made before a second volley of shafts followed. Magnus was stronger than most humans and could heal quickly, but this particular metal demolished his defenses. Where he'd been trickling blood before, now it poured.
Dizziness rose with alarming swiftness. His legs gave way and dropped him to the fluorite floor. The size of the puddle his knees squelched in wasn't comforting.
"Stop," he gasped. "You don't have to do this."
The minions laughed uproariously. "Where are you big stuff angels now?" they said. "Don't you humans know other tricks?"