“Sex,” Doyle said in a hoarse voice, “sex and magic.” He cleared his throat sharply and tried again. “The Goddess and Consort have blessed us all.”
“Shit,” Rhys said, “and we missed it.”
Galen’s voice came heavy with afterglow. He was flat on his back, and the front of his pants was stained dark. “It sort of hurt. I don’t like my sex that rough.”
I heard groans from the other side of the hallway, and I could turn my head now. Mistral’s men were all flat on their backs. Some were struggling to sit up. Adair tried to climb to his feet against the wall, and fell over with a metallic clatter. There was a black burn mark across the front of his armor. “Goddess save us,” someone said in a voice hoarse with pleasure.
“She just did.” Mistral moved slowly so he could raise up enough to gaze down at me. He smiled, and his eyes were the blue of spring skies with fluffy little clouds floating through. I’d never known there was a sky that peaceful inside his eyes.
Hawthorne sat up in his green plate mail, propping his back against the wall. He, too, had a black burn mark across his chest. “The next time you plan to call lightning, warn those of us wearing metal. Mother of Gods, that hurt.”
“And felt good,” another voice said.
Hawthorne dragged his helmet off, showing a pale face, and his dark green hair braided to fit under the helm. He nodded. “And felt good.” He looked at me, and for just a moment in the triple colors of his eyes—pink, green, and red—I saw a tree. A tree on a hill, and that tree was white with blossoms. He blinked and it was just the colors of his iris again.
I remembered the vision and how the lightning had cleared away the dead from the tree. Had we cleared away the old wood here? Had we done more than give them pleasure and pain? Time would tell. For now, we had a double homicide to solve. The police were on their way, and we hadn’t even started to question the witnesses.
I said a little prayer. “Goddess, can we slow down the magical revelations until after we solve the murders, or at least until we get presentable for the police?” I didn’t get an answer, not even that warm pulse that lets me know she’s listening, which I took for a no. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand that bringing the magic back to faerie was important, maybe more important than solving murders. But I did not want the human police to find us spread around the hallway like an orgy gone horribly wrong.
Someone moved at the far end of the hallway. The person who sat up was female, decidedly female even under the armor. She took off her helmet and gasped at the air. Her curly black hair was cut very short, which was different from last I’d seen her, but the face was still Biddy. She was one of Cel’s guards, half-human and half—Unseelie sidhe, even though she’d never been a fan of Cel. She’d once belonged to my father’s guard, and when Cel co-opted many of my father’s guards, she was trapped in the turnover. What was she doing here?
A shadow formed over her face and flowed down the bright silver of her armor. The shadow held a figure, a tiny figure. A baby like some dark ghost coiled in front of her.
The ring on my finger was suddenly warm against my hand, as if someone had breathed across the metal.
I gazed down the hallway, still trapped under Mistral’s body. Biddy sat at the turn of the hall that was farther than the hallway to the kitchen. I shouldn’t have been able to see her this clearly from this angle. But she stood out to my gaze as if she was outlined in something more real than the rest of the figures in the hallway.
Mistral whispered above me, “Do you see it?”
I whispered back, “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“A child,” he said.
“A baby,” I said.
“Go to her quickly, for the vision will not last. Somewhere in this hallway is her match. The father of that shadow child.”
“What is that in front of Biddy?” Galen asked. He’d raised up on his elbows.
Mistral raised himself off of me. “Go to her, Meredith, go to her before the magic of the ring fades.” He pulled me to my feet with his pants still undone. “Hurry.” The tone in his voice made me start down the hall, unsteady on my feet in the high heels. The sex had been too good for my legs to be steady. I stumbled and had to catch myself against the wall. Hands steadied me, and I looked down to find Hawthorne’s hands on my hips. “Are you all right, Princess?”
I nodded. “Yes.” I gazed down the hallway at that solid shadow in front of Biddy. I felt as if that phantom child was whispering to me. Whispering, “I’m here.” Other hands touched me as I stumbled and hurried. A handful of the others could see the shadow child. Their hands seemed to push and hurry me as much as catch me. The ring was like a warm weight on my hand, heavy with pressure. The pressure of a spell building, building to a great conclusion. I had to be touching Biddy before the spell burst. I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I was absolutely certain that the ring needed to be against her skin before the spell finished. Something would be lost if I failed.
Biddy had struggled to her feet, though her tri-grey eyes were a little unfocused, and she leaned heavily against the wall. I found my legs could move as the pressure built in the ring, like some warm living thing against my skin. I was running full out, and Biddy’s eyes were wide and frightened. She couldn’t see the spell, but she knew something was wrong.
I reached for her hand, and she reached automatically out to me. Her hand wrapped around mine just as the spell burst over us. It was as if the world held its breath, as if time and magic stopped, and there was a moment where Biddy and I stood outside of all of it. There was no sound, not even the hush of my own pulse. She stared at me, eyes huge with fear, or something I couldn’t feel. The spell wasn’t for me. I was merely the vessel for it. I had no idea what was happening to Biddy. I knew it didn’t hurt, and that it was good, but what she heard in that moment must have been for her ears alone. The Goddess spoke to her, and I held her hand, let the magic take her while I was in silence, because I simply didn’t need to know.
Sound came back with an audible pop. The change in pressure was real enough that we staggered when the magic released us. Our hands convulsed around each other as if the touch of flesh was all that kept us from falling. Her eyes were wide, her skin pale with shock. Biddy was tall, broad-shouldered, and wearing the remnants of her armor. Her gauntlets and her helmet, and other pieces lay scattered around her, as if she’d begun to shed the outer covering long before I reached her. She was dressed in bits of armor and the padding that even the sidhe must wear under such things. Her short hair was in disarray from the helmet and the magic that had put her against the wall. She was still lovely—nothing could take that away from her—but I’d seen her look better. Still, the way the men in the hallway looked at her, you’d have thought no woman had ever been more desirable than Biddy was in that moment.
Their faces held a soft wonderment, as if they saw something I did not. Some vision of female loveliness that left them speechless and immobile, literally stunned by what they saw or felt. The magic was not for me because if I’d been as besotted with Biddy as they all seemed to be, I couldn’t have looked down the long corridor until I came to the right man.
For a moment I thought it was Doyle, and the thought squeezed my heart tight, but it was simply that his face did not hold the stunned look of the rest. In fact, his face looked suspicious, as if he was trying to decipher what he was seeing, or smelling, for he scented the wind as I watched. Frost was immobile against the wall, but his face, too, did not hold the wonderment. He seemed angry, sullen; his usual self. Galen’s face was as lost as any of the other men’s. I realized that Mistral, too, was seeing whatever I was seeing, because he had started down the hall ahead of my gaze, as if he saw things, too. I wore the ring, but he had been part of the magic that had brought this to life.