Swallowing Darkness

Chapter Twenty-Seven

My breath fogged in the winter night as we walked across the frosted grass. Mirabella had found me a cloak made of cream-colored fur. It was a hooded cloak out of some fairy tale, all white and gold and cream, over the black leather of the coat. Sholto had had enough winter cloaks and coats to fit the men. My hands were on the arms of King Sholto and Captain Doyle, which would be the titles they would use with the soldiers. Mistral came behind us, with his spear wrapped in soft cloth to hide it from prying eyes. There would be spies watching. It was faerie; there was always someone watching. Not necessarily spies for either court, but the fey are a curious lot. Anything unusual will bring them out to hide, and cling to the leaves and trees, and watch.

The sight that met our eyes was unusual enough to bring out an audience. If the fey had been human, we'd have had a crowd of gawkers that the soldiers would have had to hold back, but our people could watch and never be seen. We weren't called the Hidden Folk for nothing.

Major Walters was there at the front of the group of men, but at his side was a man who had his own air of authority. And to either side of them were more police and more soldiers. But mostly soldiers.

Sholto leaned over and whispered, "More soldiers than we've ever seen since we came to America."

Doyle must have heard, because he whispered, "I think the Major was preparing for trouble."

"A good leader always does," I said.

"We do," he said. I felt a push of magic from him.

Mistral spoke low from behind us. "There are too many curiosity seekers to discern any ill intent."

Doyle nodded.

Sholto said, "I'm not sure what you mean."

"Cannot you sense our hidden audience?" Doyle asked.

"Obviously not," he said.

"Neither can I, though I knew they would be there," I said softly.

A voice called out, "Just give yourselves a few more hundred years of practice." Rhys walked out of the mass of soldiers and police. He was grinning at me. Someone had loaned him a uniform, so he was all in camouflage. His white waist-length curls looked out of place against the military look. Someone had even loaned him an eye patch, in basic black.

I let go of the men on either side of me and held my arms out to him. He wrapped me in a hug, and laid a kiss on my forehead. Then he moved our faces back, just enough so he could study me.

"You look good," he said.

I gave him a look. "Was I supposed to look bad?"

He grinned again. "No, but... " He shook his head. "Later."

"Where is Galen?" Doyle asked.

"He is talking to their wizard. I made her nervous."

I frowned up at him, still with my arms around his solid, muscled realness. I wanted all my men out of faerie and safe in Los Angeles tonight. "What did you do to make her nervous?"

"Answered too many questions truthfully. Some humans — even wizards, or in this case witch, though the military term is wizard — some humans are freaked at the idea that I lost my eye hundreds of years before they were born."

"Oh," I said, and hugged him again.

Major Walters came forward with the man in camouflage who seemed to be in charge. There was almost no rank to see on his uniform to my uninformed eyes, but the way the other soliders treated him made any gaudy ribbons unnecessary. He was simply in charge.

"Princess Meredith, this is Captain Page. Captain, may I introduce Princess Meredith NicEssus, daughter of Prince Essus, heir to the throne of the Unseelie Court, and from what I hear, maybe the Seelie Court, as well."

Walters gave me a look. "You've been a busy princess," he said.

I wasn't sure if he really knew about the Seelie offer, or if he was pretending to know to fish for information. Police can be tricky, sometimes because it's their job, and sometimes because it's become habit.

The Captain held out his hand, and I took it. He had a good handshake, especially for a man with a hand as big as his shaking a hand as small as mine. Some big men never get the hang of it. I was close enough now to see his name on his uniform, and to notice the two district bars on the front and neck of it.

"The Illinois National Guard is honored to escort you to safety, Princess Meredith."

"I am honored that I have such brave men and women to call for help."

Page studied my face as if wondering if I was being sarcastic. He finally frowned at me. "You don't know my people well enough to say that they're brave."

"They came to the faerie mounds thinking they might have to go up against the Seelie Court itself. There have been human armies that refused to do that, Captain Page."

"Not this one," he said.

I smiled at him, putting some effort into it. "My point exactly."

He smiled, then looked flustered.

Rhys leaned in and whispered, "Tone it down."

"What?"

"The glamour, tone it down," he said without moving his smiling lips.

"I didn't... "

"Trust me," he said.

I took a deep breath and concentrated. I did my best to swallow back the glamour that Rhys said was getting away from me. I'd never had enough of this kind of glamour to worry about it before.

Captain Page shook his head, frowning hard.

"You okay?" Walters asked him.

He nodded. "I think I need more... preventive."

Rhys said, "They've actually got essence of four-leaf clover smeared on them."

"Did you give it to them?" I asked.

"Nope, they came up with it all on their own. Apparently, they have contingencies in place in case the fey get nasty."

"We would never presume," Page began.

Doyle interrupted. "It's all right, Captain. We are pleased that you have protection. We will not purposefully bespell any of you, but there are others among the fey who are not so scrupulous."

The humans looked around them nervously, though Page and Walters kept looking at us.

"I do not mean an overt attack," Doyle said. "I just mean our people's sense of... humor."

"Humor," Walters said. "What does that mean?"

"It means that the fey enjoy poking at anything new. This many of our good men and women of the military would be almost irresistible to a certain number of our populace."

"What he means," Rhys said, "is that we have a lot of gawkers, but they're fey so you won't see them. But we know they're there. They might have a hard time resisting luring some of your soldiers off the beaten track, just to see if they could do it."

"Your people came as close to war on American soil as they've ever come tonight. I would think you all risking getting kicked out might make them more serious."

I shook my head. "The sidhe, perhaps, but there are a lot more people here than the sidhe. Besides, Captain, it was the Seelie who were threatening to make war, not the sluagh, not the Unseelie. The only court that was in danger of breaking the treaty was the Seelie."

"Yeah, and the last time we all had a little battle, it wasn't a war because they were monsters of faerie, and not any of the other courts," Walters said, but his voice was a little dry.

I shivered. Strangely, I wasn't really chilled from the cold. Apparently, my growing power, or perhaps my men's, was keeping me warm. But Walters didn't know that, and if I acted cold, we might speed things up, and get us to a plane and the hell out of here.

Captain Page said, "Let's get the princess inside where it's warmer."

Walters nodded and said, "Fine." But he looked at me, suspicion plain on his face. What had I done to earn that look? Oh, wait, kept more secrets from him than I'd shared, and endangered his men the last time. I hadn't meant the endangering part, but I had kept secrets from him. I was hiding a lot, and still asking them all to risk themselves for me and my men. Was that fair? No, not in the least. But if it would get us out safely, I'd endanger them all.

I admitted that to myself, but I didn't like myself very much for it.