"More lies," Agnes said.
I had an idea. "I swear by my honor - " I began. One of the hags laughed at that, but I kept going. " - and the darkness that devours all things that it was raining in the Unseelie gardens when we left them." I'd given not just an oath that no sidhe would willingly break - because of the curse that went with the breaking - but the oath that I'd demanded of Sholto weeks ago when he found me in California. He'd sworn the oath that he meant me no harm, and I'd believed him.
The severity of the oath silenced even the night-hags. "Be careful what you say, Princess," Sholto said. "Some magicks still live."
"I know what I swore, and I know what it means, King Sholto, Lord of That Which Passes Between. I am wet with the first rain to fall upon the dead gardens in centuries. My skin is decorated with soil reborn, dry no more."
"How is this possible?" Sholto demanded.
"It is not possible," Agnes said. She pointed one dark, muscled arm at the door. "This is Seelie magic, not Unseelie. They conspire together to destroy us. I told you, the golden court would never have dared if they did not have the full support of the Queen of Air and Darkness." She pointed a little dramatically at the shiny door. "This proves it."
"Meredith," Doyle said softly, "make the door go away."
"Whispering will not make you my friend, Darkness," Sholto said.
"I told the princess to make the door go away, so that you would understand this is not Seelie business."
Agnes turned so suddenly that her hood fell back to reveal the dry black straw of her hair, the ruin of her complexion, covered in bumps and sores. The hags hid their ugliness, which was an exception among the sluagh. Most of them saw every oddity as a mark of beauty, or power. The hags hid themselves, though - as did the two shorter guards.
Agnes pointed the long hand with its black-taloned claws at me. "She did not conjure this door. She is mortal, and mortal hand never made this doorway."
"Princess, if you would," Doyle said low but clear, so that he couldn't be accused of whispering.
I spoke loudly, so they'd hear me, and the cave caught the echo of my voice, so that it seemed to bounce along the walls. "I need the door to go away now, please."
There was a moment's hesitation, as if the door wanted to give me a second to reconsider; then, when I didn't, the door vanished. Sholto's guards shifted, and Agnes startled as if something had goosed her. "Mortal flesh cannot control the sithen. Any sithen."
"I would have agreed with you, until a few hours ago," I said.
"How did you come here?" Sholto asked.
"I asked for a door to the dead gardens. It never occurred to me that any door I could conjure would bring me to your home, Sholto."
"King Sholto," Agnes corrected me.
"King Sholto," I said dutifully.
"Why would that request bring you to our garden, Princess Meredith?" Sholto asked.
"Doyle told me to get us back to the dead gardens. I did just that: I called a door to the dead gardens. But I did not specify which garden, and you know the rest."
Sholto stared at me. The triple gold of his irises - molten metal, autumn leaves, and pale sunshine - made his face beautiful, but it did not make the look one bit less intense. He stared at me as if he would weigh me with a look.
"This cannot be true," Agnes said.
"If it was a lie, they'd have a better one than this," Sholto said.
"Do you still believe everything that a piece of white sidhe flesh tells you, King Sholto? Have you learned nothing from what they did to you?" Agnes asked. I wasn't sure what she meant, but I guessed it had to do with the bandages he wore.
"Silence," Sholto said, but there was something in his face, the way he turned, that spoke of embarrassment. The last time I'd seen Sholto, he had hidden behind a mask of arrogance, much as Frost did. Whatever mask he had built to hide behind in court seemed to have shredded, so that he now had nothing for his emotions to hide behind.
"May we approach you, King Sholto?" I asked, and my voice was clear, but softer. The tall, elegant, arrogant man whom I'd met in Los Angeles wasn't the same man who stood before me now, shoulders slightly hunched.
"No, you may not," Agnes said, in her strangely rich voice. Most night-hags spoke in a cackling voice, as if they'd swallowed gravel.
Sholto turned on her, and the movement cost him, for he nearly stumbled. It seemed to feed his anger. "I am king here, Agnes, not you. Me!" He thumped himself in the upper chest. "Me, Agnes, not you, me! I am still king here!"
He turned to us. The front of his bandages showed fresh blood, as if he'd torn stitches. Sholto was half highborn sidhe and half of the sluagh, and the sluagh were even harder to injure than the sidhe. What could have hurt him this badly?
"Bring her onto solid land, Darkness," Sholto said.
Doyle led me forward, carefully. Rhys's hand never left my other arm. They eased me out onto the broader shoreline. The others followed, mincing their way onto secure ground.
Doyle took my hand and led me forward, very formally, toward the waiting sluagh. We had to come forward slowly, because of the bones. We'd seen what they'd done to Abe, and we were both barefoot. We'd had enough injuries for the night.
"How I hate you, Princess," Agnes said.
Sholto spoke without turning around to look at her. "I am very close to losing my patience with you, Agnes. You don't want that."
"They move like shadow and light, so graceful through the bone field that is our garden," Agnes said, "and you watch her as if she were food and drink, and you were starving."