"Not as badly as before," I said.
He planted a soft kiss on my forehead. "Come on, honey bun, tell me what the Wicked Witch of the East did to you?"
I smiled. "Honey bun?"
He grinned. "Honey bear? Honey child? Snookums?"
I laughed. "Worse and worse."
His smile faded. He glanced at the ring lying against the whiteness of his sleeve. "Doyle said the ring came to life for him. Is that true?"
I glanced at the heavy silver octagonal band and nodded.
"It lies quiet against my arm."
I looked up into his face. He looked... forlorn. "The queen used to let the ring choose her consort," he said.
"It's reacted to almost every guard I've touched tonight."
"Except me." His voice was so thick with regret that I couldn't let it stand.
"It has to touch bare skin," I said.
He started to reach for my hand and the ring. I pulled away from him. "Please don't."
"What's wrong, Merry?" he asked.
The light had faded to a dim twilight glow. Cobwebs draped the hallway like great shining silver curtains. Pale white spiders larger than my two hands together hid in the webs like round bloated ghosts.
"Because even at sixteen I was the one who said stop. You should have known better."
"A little slap and tickle and I'm exiled from the game forever. Baby, that is cruel."
"No, it's practical. I don't want to end my life nailed to a Saint Andrew's cross." Of course, now that didn't apply. I could tell Rhys and we could do it up against a wall right this minute, and there would be no penalties. Or so Andais said. But I didn't trust my aunt. She'd told only me that the celibacy had been lifted. I only had her word that Eamon knew, and he was her consort, her creature. What if I threw Rhys up against a wall, and then she changed her mind? It wasn't going to be real, to be safe, until she announced it in public. Then, and only then, would I really believe it.
A large white spider came to the edge of the webbing. The head was at least three inches across. I was going to have to pass right under the thing.
"You see one mortal woman tortured to death for seducing a guard and you remember it for the rest of your life. Long memory," Rhys said.
"I saw what she had her pet torturer do to the guard who transgressed, Rhys. I think your memory is too short." I stopped him, pulling on his arm, just short of the heavy-bodied spider. I could call will-o'-the-wisps, but the spiders weren't impressed by them.
"Can you call something stronger than a will-o'-the-wisp?" I asked. I stared at that waiting spider, its body bigger around than my fist. The spider webs above my head seemed suddenly heavier, weighed down with the round bloated bodies like a net full of fish about to spill on my head.
Rhys looked at me, face puzzled, then he looked up as if just seeing the thick webs, the scurrying sense of movement. "You never did like the spiders."
"No," I said, "I never did like the spiders."
Rhys moved toward the spider that seemed to be lying in wait for me. He left me standing in the middle of the hall, listening to the heavy scurrying and watching the webs waver above my head. He did nothing that I could see. He simply touched a finger to the spider's abdomen. The spider started to scurry away, then it stopped abruptly, and started to shake, legs spasming frantically. It writhed and jerked, tearing a partial hole in the webbing, and it dangled helplessly half in and half out of the webbing.
I could hear dozens of the things running for safety in a soft clattering retreat. The webs swayed like an upside-down ocean with the rush of their flight. Lord and Lady, there had to be hundreds of them.
The spider's white body began to shrivel, falling in upon itself as if some great hand were crushing it. That fat white body turned to a black dry husk until I wouldn't have been sure what it was if I hadn't seen it alive.
There was no sense of movement in the spider webs now. The hallway was utterly still except for Rhys's smiling figure. The dim, dim light seemed to collect around his white curls and the white suit until he glowed against the grey cobwebs and the greyer stone. He was smiling at me, cheerful, normal for him.
"Good enough?" he asked.
I nodded. "I only saw you do that once before and that was in battle, but that was when your life was in danger."
"Do you mourn the insect?"
"It's an arachnid, not an insect, and no, I don't mourn it. I've never had the right kind of power to walk safely through this place." But... I'd really meant for him to call fire to his hands, or brighter lights, and frighten them away. I hadn't meant for him to...
He held his hand out to me, still smiling.
I stared at the black husk swaying gently in the webbing as our movement caused tiny air currents to pass through the hallway.
Rhys's smile didn't change, but his eyes grew gentle. "I am a death god, or was once, Merry. What did you think I was going to do, light a match and yell boo?"
"No, but..." I stared at his offered hand. I stared at it for longer than was polite. But finally, tentatively, I reached toward him. Our fingertips touched, and his breath came out with a sigh.
He gazed down at the silver band on my hand. His gaze came up to meet mine. "Merry, may I,
please?"
I looked into his pale blue eye. "Why is it so important to you?" I wondered if the rumor had already spread about what she planned to announce tonight.
"We're all hoping she called you back to choose another would-be consort for yourself. I'm assuming that if the ring doesn't recognize someone, they're out of the running."