Demonreach bowed its head, barely, a gesture of acknowledgment, not cooperation or compliance.
Once she had seen that, something seemed to ease out of Mab. It was hard to say what gave me that impression, yet I had the same sense of relief I would have felt upon seeing someone remove his hand from the grip of a firearm.
Mab turned back to me and eyed me up and down. She quirked one eyebrow, very slightly, somehow conveying layers of disapproval toward multiple aspects of my appearance, conduct, and situation, and said, “Finally.”
“There’s been a lot on my mind,” I replied.
“It seems unlikely that your cares will lighten,” Queen Mab replied. “Improve your mind.”
I was going to say something smart-ass, but said mind noted that maybe I could wait until my bacon was entirely out of the fire before I did. I decided to pay attention to my mind and bowed my head in Mab’s direction instead. I felt like I’d gotten a little smarter already. Baby steps.
Then Mab turned to Maeve.
The Winter Lady faced the Queen of Air and Darkness with cold fury in her eyes and a smile on her lips. “So,” Maeve said. “You come in black. You come as a judge. But then, you always did that with me. But it’s just a game.”
“How a game?” Mab asked.
“You have already judged. Passed sentence. And dispatched your executioner.”
“You have duties. You have neglected them. What did you expect?”
“From you?” Maeve said bitterly. “Nothing.”
“Nothing is precisely what I have done,” Mab said. “For too long. Yet to lose you presents a danger of its own. I would prefer it if you allowed me to assist you to return to your duties.”
“I’m sure you would,” Maeve sneered. “I’m sure you would enjoy torturing me to the brink of sanity to make me a good little automaton again.”
Mab’s reply was a second slower coming than it should have been. “No, Maeve.”
Maeve ground her teeth. “No one controls Maeve.”
Frost formed on Mab’s soot black lashes. “Oh, child.”
The words had weight to them, and finality—like the lid to a coffin.
“I will never be your good little hunting falcon again,” Maeve continued. “I will never bow my knee to anyone again, especially not to a jealous hag who envies everything she sees in me.”
“Envy?” Mab asked.
Maeve cut loose with another one of those lithium-laced laughs. “Envy! The great and mighty Mab, envious of her little girl. Because I have something you will never have, Mother.”
“And what is that?” Mab asked.
“Choice,” Maeve snarled.
“Stop,” Mab snapped—but not in time.
Maeve bent her elbow to point her little gun casually across her body and, without looking, put a bullet into Lily’s left temple.
“No!” Fix blurted, suddenly struggling against the Sidhe holding him.
Lily froze into absolute stillness for a second, her beautiful face confused.
Then she fell like the petal of a dying flower.
“Lily!” Fix screamed, his face contorted with agony. He fought wildly, though he couldn’t escape, lunging toward Maeve, paying no attention whatsoever to his captors. For their part, Winter and Summer fae alike seemed stunned into near-paralysis, eyes locked onto Lily’s fallen form.
Mab stared at Lily for a long second, her eyes wide with an echo of the same shock. “What have you done?”
Maeve threw back her head and howled mocking, triumphant laughter, lifting her hands into the air.
“Did you think I did not know why you prepared Sarissa, hag?” she half sang. “You wrought her into a vessel of Faerie. Rejoice! Thy will is done!”
I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about for a second—but then I saw it.
Fire flickered to life over the late Summer Lady. It did not consume Lily. Rather, it gathered itself into green and gold light, a shape that vaguely mirrored Lily’s own, arms spread out as she lay prostrate upon the frost-covered earth. Then, with a gathering shriek, the fire suddenly condensed into a form, the shape of something that looked like an eagle or a large hawk. Blinding light spread over the hilltop, and the hawk suddenly flashed from Lily’s fallen form.
Directly into Sarissa.
Sarissa’s eyes widened in horror, and she lifted her arms in an instinctive defensive gesture. The hawk-shaped Summer fire, the mantle of the Summer Lady, plunged through Sarissa’s upraised arms and into her chest, at the heart. Her body arched into a bow. She let out a scream, and green and gold light shone from her opened mouth like a spotlight, throwing fresh, sharp shadows across the hilltop.
Then her scream faded into a weeping, gurgling moan, and she fell to the earth, body curling into a shuddering fetal position.
“Mantle passed.” Maeve tittered. “Nearest vessel filled. The seasons turn and turn and turn.”
Mab’s eyes were wide as she stared at Maeve.
“Oh, oh!” Maeve said, her body twisting into a spontaneous little dance of pure glee. “You never saw that coming, did you, Mother? It never even occurred to you, did it?” Her own eyes widened in lunatic intensity. “And how will you slay me now? Whither would my mantle go? Where is the nearest vessel now? Some hapless mortal, perhaps, ignorant of its true nature? The instrument of some foe of yours, in alliance with me, ready to steal away the mantle and leave you vulnerable?” Maeve giggled. “I can play chess too, Mother. Better now than ever you could. And I am now less a liability to you alive than dead.”
“You do not understand what you have done,” Mab said quietly.
“I know exactly what I have done,” Maeve snarled. “I have beaten you. This was never about the sleepers, or this accursed isle, or the lives of mortal insects. This was about beating you, you hidebound hag. About using your own games against you. Kill me now, and you risk destroying the balance of Winter and Summer forever, throwing all into chaos.”
Sarissa lay on the ground, moaning.
“And it was about taking her away from you,” Maeve gloated. “How many mortal caterwauls or sporting events will the Winter Queen attend with the Summer Lady? And every time you think of her, you remember her, you will know that I took her from you.”
Mab’s black eyes went to Sarissa for a moment.
“The blame for this lies with me,” Mab said quietly. “I cared too much.”
I realized something then, in that moment when Mab spoke. She wasn’t reacting as she should have been. Cold rage, seething anger, megalomaniacal outrage—any of those would have been something I would have considered utterly within her character. But there was none of that in her voice or face.
Just . . . regret. And resolution.
Mab knew something—something Maeve didn’t.
“Remember that when this world is in ashes, Mother,” Maeve said, “for you cannot risk my death this night, and I will not lift a finger to aid you in the Night to come. Without the Winter Lady’s power, your downfall is simply a matter of time—and not much of that. After this night, you will not see me again.”
“Yes,” Mab said, though to which statement was unclear.
“I have choice, Mother, while you will be destroyed in your shackles,” Maeve said. “You will die, and I will have freedom. At last.”
“To fulfill one’s purpose is not to be a slave, my daughter,” Mab said. “And you are not free, child, any more than a knife is free because it leaves its sheath and is thrust into a corpse.”
“Choice is power,” Maeve spat in reply. “Shall I make more choices this night, to demonstrate?”