The twilight had deepened to near darkness, so that the pale white light from the opening seemed brighter than it was. Barinthus carried me into that light. We stood in a grey stone hallway, big enough for the semi to have kept on driving, at least to the first bend of the hallway. The size of the door didn't change the size of the first hallway. It was one of the few things that never changed about the sithen. Everything else could change on the sithen's, or the queen's, whim. It was like a fun house made of stone, so that entire floors could move up and down. Doors that led one place would suddenly lead somewhere else altogether. It could be irritating, or amazing; or both.
The opening vanished as Frost, the last of us, stepped through. It was just another grey stone wall. The door could be just as invisible from this side as the other. The white light came from everywhere and nowhere. It was steadier than firelight, but softer than electric light. I'd asked what the light was once, and been told it was the light of the sithen. When I'd protested that that told me nothing, the reply was, it told me what I needed to know. A circular argument at best, but in truth I think it's the only answer we have. I don't think anyone alive today remembers what the light truly is.
"Well, Barinthus, are you going to carry the princess all the way to the queen?"
The sound of swords clearing sheaths made a soft metallic hiss, like rain on a very hot surface. Guns are quieter when you draw them. But guns and swords pointed down the hall toward that voice, and some weapons pointed back toward the now invisible door, just in case. Barinthus and I were suddenly standing in the center of a well-armed circle.
The sidhe who'd spoken was smiling. The sidhe standing next to him was not. Ivi's smile was insolent, mocking. He made himself the butt of his own jokes more often than anyone else. He was tall, as tall as Frost or Doyle, but he was slender as a reed, and as graceful as a bed of reeds when the wind makes them dance. I'd have liked him better with shoulders a little wider, but the lack of them made him seem even taller, willowy. His hair fell straight and fine to his ankles. The hair was his most outstanding feature, medium to dark green, with a pattern of white veins running throughout. It was only when he got closer that you realized that his hair bore the mark of leaves as if the hair had been tattooed with ivy. As he moved down the hall, it was as if wind blew the leaves apart, and they reformed only as his companion grabbed his arm and held him back. I think Ivi would have kept on in the face of all those weapons; walked down that hallway with a smile on his face and laughter like darkness in his eyes. Once I'd thought him careless, but as I grew older I tasted the sorrow in him. I began to realize that it wasn't carelessness, but despair. Whatever had prompted him to become one of the Queen's Ravens, I don't think he enjoyed the bargain as much as he'd hoped.
The cautious hand on his arm belonged to Hawthorne. His black hair fell in thick waves past his knees. When he turned his head, the light gleamed rich green from those black waves. He wore a silver circlet that held that heavy mass back from his face. The rest of him, from broad shoulders to feet, was covered in a cloak the color of pine needles, a rich deep green, that was held closed over his shoulder by a silver brooch.
"What is wrong, Darkness?" he called to us. "We have done nothing."
"Why are you here?" Doyle called back.
"The queen has sent us to meet the princess," Hawthorne said.
"Why only the two of you?"
Hawthorne blinked, and even from this far away I could see that strange pink shade that his inner circle of eye had. Pink, green, and red were Hawthorne's tricolored eyes. "What do you mean, only the two of us? What has happened?"
"They don't know," Barinthus said, quietly.
"How long have you been standing here, waiting?" Doyle asked. But he'd already relaxed his pose, the gun in his hand beginning to lower to point at the floor.
"Hours," Ivi said, and swirled the edge of his own pale green cloak out like a skirt at a dance.
Hawthorne nodded. "Two hours, or more. Time moves oddly in the sithen."
Doyle put up his gun, and as if that were a signal, swords were sheathed, guns holstered, until they all stood at ease, or as easy as they got.
"I ask again, Darkness, what has happened?" But no one had to explain, because some shifting among the guards had let him see me. I'd forgotten about the blood on my face. I'd wiped some of it off with a bit of wet cloth from one of the men, but not all of it. Only soap would get it all off. "Lord and Lady protect us, she's hurt!"
"It is not her blood," Doyle said.
"Then whose?"
"Mine," Frost said, and he moved up through the crowd of guards, and again, as if that were a signal, they all began to move down the hallway toward the other two guards.
Ivi wasn't smiling when he said, "What happened?"
Doyle told him, the brief outline, leaving out what happened when Barinthus touched the ring.
Ivi was shaking his head. "Who would dare? Princess Meredith bears the queen's mark. To harm her is to risk the queen's mercy. None of her Ravens would risk that." There was absolutely none of Ivi's banter in those words. It was as if the news of the assassination attempt had frightened him out of his jokes and into something more real.
Hawthorne's tricolored eyes were wide. "Who indeed would dare?"
Barinthus was still holding me in his arms, but there was no snow now, no cold. I touched his shoulder. "I can walk now."
He looked at me as if he'd forgotten he was holding me, and maybe he had. He had to bend over to put me safely on the stone floor. I shook the back of my skirt in place, smoothed it with my hands, and knew that the pleats in back simply would not be perfect until the skirt was ironed. There was nothing I could do about it. I just hoped that the news of my near death would distract her from my less-than-perfect clothing. You never knew with Andais; sometimes she would direct her anger at small things if she couldn't deal with the large.