"Why now?" I asked. "Why after all these years?"
"I do not know. All I know is that you are Princess of Flesh, and you have one more hand of
power that has not manifested yet."
"It's rare for a sidhe to have more than one hand of power. Why would I have two?"
"Your hands had melted two of the metal bars on the bed. Two bars melted, one for each hand."
I stood and stepped away from him. "How did you know that?"
"I watched you sleep from the balcony. I saw the headboard."
"Why didn't you make yourself known to me?"
"At that point you were in what amounted to a drugged sleep. I doubt I could have wakened you."
"Why not the night you used the spiders? The night at Alistair Norton's?"
"You mean the human who was worshiping the sidhe."
That stopped me. I stared at him. "What are you talking about, Doyle? When did Norton worship the sidhe?"
"When he stole the power from the women using Branwyn's Tears," Doyle said.
"No, I was there. I was nearly a victim. There was no ceremony invoking the sidhe."
"Every schoolchild in this country is taught the one thing that the sidhe were prohibited from doing when we were welcomed into this country."
"We could not set ourselves up as gods. We could not be worshiped. I got the lecture at home from Father, and at school in history class, government class."
"You are the only one of us ever educated with the common humans. I forget that sometimes. The queen was livid when she discovered Prince Essus had enrolled you in a public school."
"She tried to drown me when I was six, Doyle. She tried to drown me like a purebred puppy that came out with the wrong markings. I wouldn't think she'd have given a damn what school I went to."
"I don't think I've ever seen the queen so surprised as when Prince Essus took you, and his entourage, and set up housekeeping among the humans." He smiled, a brief flash of white in that dark face. "Once she realized that the prince would not stand for your mistreatment, then she began to try and lure him back to court. She offered him much, but he refused for ten years. Long enough for you to grow from child to woman out among the humans."
"If she was so upset, why did she allow so many of the Unseelie Court to visit us?"
"The queen, and the prince, feared that you would grow too human if you did not see your people. Though the queen did not approve of your father's choices for his entourage."
"You mean Keelin," I said.
He nodded. "The queen never understood why he insisted on choosing a fey who had no sidhe blood in her veins as your constant companion."
"Keelin is half brownie like my grandmother."
"And half goblin," Doyle said, "which you do not have in your background."
"The goblins are the foot soldiers of the Unseelie army. The sidhe declare war, but the goblins begin it."
"You're quoting your father now," Doyle said.
"Yes, I am." I was suddenly tired again. The short burst of humor, the amazing new possibilities of power, a return to the court-nothing could keep me from a bone-numbing weariness. But one thing I had to know. "You said Alistair Norton was worshiping the sidhe. What did you mean by that?"
"I meant that he used ritual to invoke the sidhe when he set up the circle of power around his
bed. I recognized the symbols. You saw no ritual because even the most uneducated human would know that he was not allowed to call on sidhe power for magic."
"He did the preparation ritual before the women came," I said.
"Exactly," Doyle said.
" I saw a sidhe in the mirrors, but I did not see a face. Could you sense who it was?"
"No, but they were powerful enough that I could not break through. All I could send you was my animal, and my voice. It takes a great deal to bar me from a room."
"So one of the sidhe is allowing himself-"
"Or herself," Doyle said.
I nodded. "Or herself to be worshiped, and they gave Branwyn's Tears to a mortal to be used against other fey."
"Normally, humans of fey descent would not qualify for full fey status, but in this case, yes."
"To allow worship is a death sentence," I said.
"To allow the Tears to be used against another fey is to be condemned to torture for an indefinite period. Some would choose death over that."
"Have you told the queen?"
Doyle pushed himself to his feet. "I have told her of the sidhe who is allowing him or herself to be worshiped, and the Tears. I need to tell her that you have the hand of flesh, and you are blooded. She must also know that it is not Sholto who is the traitor, but one who spoke using the queen's own name."
I widened eyes at him. "Are you saying that she sent just you, alone, against Sholto and the entire sluagh, when she thought he had gone rogue?"
Doyle just looked at me.
"Nothing personal, but you needed backup."
"No, she sent me to fetch you home before Sholto left Saint Louis. I arrived the night that I sent the spiders to help you. It was the next day that Sholto began traveling this way."
"So someone found out the queen wanted me home, and within twenty-four hours they'd made a plan to have me killed."
"It would seem so," Doyle said.
"You haven't left the queen's side in-what? six hundred, eight hundred years, except for assassinations?"
"One thousand and twenty-three years to be exact."
"So if she doesn't mean you to kill me, then why send you? There are other of her Ravens that I trust more."