"How'd they get that?"
"How d'ya think? I mailed it to them."
The hawk came flying, swift as an arrow, down the center of the street and then straight at Will's face. He flinched away as it snapped out its wings at the last possible instant and, swerving, creased his cheek with the tip of one flight feather. Something fell into Will's hands. A cell phone. It rang.
"Some friends and I are going clubbing," Alcyone said. "Wait where you are and I'll pick you up."
Will stepped back into the shadowed doorway of a defunct art deco bank building and waited. Not much later, a white stretch limo, longer than life and pale as death, glided up to him. A footman leaped out to open the door.
"Hop in," Alcyone said.
Will did, and the car drove off. He and Alcyone kissed long and hard. "I don't think it would be a good idea for me to be seen in public with you," he said, hoping inwardly that she would suggest they retire to someplace private instead. "My face is known now."
"Tish. I have an invisibility potion." Alcyone led him deeper into the stretch, past masses of orchids and a small waterfall, and flipped down a vanity table. She donned disposable plastic gloves and opened a jar. "Take off your shirt and I'll rub it on you."
16
Moonlight Sonata
Fifteen minutes later, when Will looked in the mirror, a brown-skinned fey stared back at him. Alcyone brushed a pigment into his hair that turned it cobalt blue. "There! Now anybody who looks at you will see a rented escort and give you not a second glance."
"Where are we going?"
"Out." Alcyone gestured just so and a silver bell tinkled. A haint servitor appeared with a bundle of clothes. "Change into these."
Ignoring the haint, who stood unobtrusively ready for any further commands, Will wriggled out of his jeans and into a pair of tight pants. He was coming to realize that a great deal of being high-elven was having a perfect disregard for what one's inferiors—which was to say, almost everybody saw or thought. The shoes fit perfectly and the socks as well; Alcyone hadn't bothered to provide underwear, so he did without. She handed him a white silken sark and when he had donned it, undid the top three buttons and then leaned back to admire her handiwork. "You clean up good."
"You should see me in morning clothes."
Alcyone handed Will's old clothes to the haint who, upon her saying "Take these away and burn them." vanished as silently as he had come.
"I can't help but notice," Will said, "that you're wearing that which your brother called the greatest treasure of House L'Inconnu." He touched the plain moonsilver ring and smiled. "Ask me if I love you."
"No." She drew her hand away.
"Then tell me that you love me."
Alcyone fixed him with those astounding eyes. "I would do anything for you, Will. For you, I'd do things that would make an ogress blush." Will's heart soared. Nevertheless, he persisted. "But do you love me?" She looked away. "I... dare not say."
"It's a simple enough thing. Three words and no witnesses to hold you to them."
"Tie me up and whip me if you like. Fist me, piss on me, dress me up as a milkmaid if you must. Ask me anything except that." "Why?"
"Because I'm a fucking aristocrat, is why!" The limo came to a stop. "We have to put in an appearance at a party first. It's a fund-raiser for the Fata Bloduewedd's reelection campaign, but I'm sure you'll enjoy it anyway."
Two dwarves, one red and one black, fought grimly on the balcony. Their bodies were slick with sweat and their knives gleamed in the floodlights. Their feet kicked up puffs of the sawdust that had been strewn on the flagstones to soak up blood. They were both naked.
Alcyone's friends watched from the roof garden, drinks in hand. They were as tall and glittery up close as their kind always appeared on TV. The males stood with a hand in their slacks pockets jingling coins. The females looked elaborarely bored.
"'Lo, Allie. What's the news?" asked the one Alcyone had identified as the war strategist Lord Venganza. The others were the Lords Jaegerwulf and Lascaux, and the Fatas Caldogatto, Misericordia, and Elspeth, all highly placed in offices that mattered.
"You must have heard that the West moved. Pestilence, doom, and universal destruction are imminent. So what else is new? Its been nothing but paperwork for me ever since. And you?"
"There was a minor rebellion in Ys, easily crushed. The War continues and shows every intention of continuing forever. Who's your friend?"
"His name is Tenali Raman." The group's glances traveled briefly over Will and were gone forever, just as Alcyone had foretold. "I'm showing him the sights."
"Nobody cares about the sights anymore." Fata Elspeth pouted. "I've been at this party almost fifteen minutes and nobody's said anything about my tits!"
"If I start praising your breasts, we'll be here all day, 'Speth," Lord Lascaux said.
Fata Elspeth smiled appreciatively. On the balcony below, one of the dwarves grunted as he took a blade in his side, to light applause.
"Heads up, our next lady-mayor approacheth," Lord Jaegerwulf murmured. There was a crackling in the air, and a whiff of ozone. An elf lady strode toward them, wrapped in an aura of darkness, as if she were a storm cloud. "Time to tug forelocks," she said.
"Tell me I didn't forget Fata Bloduewedd's envelope." Fata Misericordia dug frantically in her purse. "Oh, gods, I did. No, here it is."
"Wait here, Tenali," Alcyone said. "We have some entirely voluntary and completely legal contributions to make in a venue in no way related to the apparatus of state, for which we will expect no return whatsoever either in terms of influence or of access. This will only take a few minutes."
Will watched them go, feeling awkward and out of place. Then he went to look for the shrimp bowl. In his experience, these functions always had an enormous bowl of iced shrimp somewhere.
A woman dressed too emphatically high-elven to actually be high-elven stopped him with one outstretched leg. She wore high heeled boots and black leather pants. Her red vinyl jacket was zipped low to reveal a bustier with eye-popping decolletage. It was exactly the kind of self-mocking, faux trashy look that Will would have been drawn to (despising himself for it, but drawn nevertheless), had he not been here with Alcyone. "Hello," she said. "I'm Fata Jayne."
"I'm nobody in particular. Have you seen the shrimp bowl?" "No. Why don't we go back to my place and look for it?" "Urn... If I'm not mistaken, we just met. Let's not rush things." "That's exactly what I'm looking for. Somebody who knows how to take it nice and slow."
"Look. I don't know why you're behaving in this extraordinary fashion, but I'm here with somebody. So whatever it is you want, it's not going to happen."
"But you do like me? I mean, you are attracted to girls?" "Actually, no. I'm not," Will lied. "So why don't you go away?" "Okay, let me give this one last try." fata Jayne leaned close and lightly sang the retrain from The Ballad of Oberon's Arse in his ear.
"Ok, she pegged him high And she pegged him low She pegged him where the sun don't go, She made him do things that a fella don't do... If they could play thus... Why not me and you?
"Try something new, mon petit serin. Expand your horizons." Smilingly, she sucked on one red-nailed fingertip and then touched it to his cheek. Instantly, he was hard as a rock. His face flushed and he could scarce breathe, so great was his physical desire.
Through gritted teeth, Will said. "Your penny-ante aphrodisiac magicks notwithstanding. I despise your offer. Yet as I am a gentleman and out of courtesy for your gender, I shall simply bow and withdraw."
Lightly, the fata said, "No? Ah, well, then I must find somebody else. But fear not, cheri, I shall always remember you as the One Who Got Away."
A minute later Alcyone swept by with her friends in tow. "Let's go," she said. And as they left, "I saw you talking with that trashy little man eater. Did the hit on you?"