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“Aha, Lord Rogue, so you capitulate at last. Our next battle—next several battles, I should hope—will be at sea. How do you propose to vanquish the enemy?”
“As expeditiously as possible.” A flash of cobalt blue as Rogue glanced at me. “I have other interests to pursue.”
“Lady Strawberry here is suggesting sea monsters, but I find that so trite. So last season—don’t you agree?”
A sunset-orange page set a shallow bowl of tiny fish in front of me. Still swimming. I looked to see if Rogue was really going to eat it and found Falcon’s beady yellow gaze on me. He grinned, baring sharply pointed teeth. Nobody else had received the dish. Under the tablecloth, Rogue placed a hand on my thigh in subtle warning. The last time we’d feasted side by side like this, he’d warned me not to refuse my host’s food.
But a bowl of fish?
I wondered if it would be bad manners to convert them into rice. Or chicken nuggets. Surely puking up my host’s food would be more insulting than not eating it.
A paw patted my other thigh and I looked down in to Darling’s hopeful green gaze. I scooted my chair back enough for him to leap onto my lap and scratched between his ears.
“So thoughtful, Lord Falcon, to provide for my Familiar. He’s been just craving fish.”
Someone at the table giggled, and I figured more than one person had heard about Darling’s exploits—imagined or otherwise—with the mermaids. Darling delicately perched on the table and lapped at the swimming soup eagerly. Rogue patted my leg. Hopefully in approval.
He set to arguing the pros and cons of sea monsters, sliding his own plate of the usual feast food of pastries and fruit between us, so I could share. In big groups, with lots of people chattering, the translation telepathy tended to fail me. The words became a wash of nonsensical sound and I received a kaleidoscope of images, most of them not correctly sequenced. Rogue’s hand stayed hot on my upper thigh, distracting even through the full skirt of my dress.
I confess I tuned a lot of it out. Now that I knew how to screen thoughts better, I filtered most of the white noise and focused mainly on Rogue and Falcon.
That was when I caught Rogue saying “kill the rest of their mortal troops easily enough. With no humans to fight for them, they’ll be crippled.”
I swallowed hard on the crumbly pastry I’d been chewing. Once I would have blurted out my opinion. Once I had done that very thing and—though I wasn’t superstitious—the lapse had in some ways precipitated this entire adventure. I’d learned some difficult, painful lessons since then, and one was definitely about keeping my mouth shut.
I was already sick to death of the practice.
There was no way I’d stand by and let them sacrifice my kind just because it was easy for them to do. The fae nobles had all the power, and the humans—and, to be fair, pretty much all the lesser fae—were merely disposable game pieces. The humans had no one with any ability on their side.
Except for me. The human ace in the hole. I’d gone to great lengths to find ways to perform magical feats that won the battles without causing death and destruction. It didn’t matter that the human folk didn’t ask for it or appreciate it. Call it genetic loyalty.
“Can I speak to you alone?” I asked it of Rogue as softly as I could.
He regarded me with cool surprise and a glint of clear warning. “You would insult our host?”
Okay, no. I considered telling him mind to mind, but he’d told me long ago that sort of communication was more easily overheard than verbal. I needed some kind of code. But with the translation telepathy in effect, everyone would likely hear what I intended to say regardless of the words I chose.
I ground my teeth in frustration. Nothing for it but the direct route then. “I cannot stand by and allow the humans to be harmed.”
“It doesn’t concern you.” Rogue started to turn back to the conversation, but I put my hand over his. The blue-black feral anger in him stirred and I stroked his skin. We really didn’t need for the Dog to put in an appearance.
“It does.” I kept my voice as quiet as I could, but he had to know I wouldn’t budge on this. “Our objectives are the same, remember.”
“Surely you don’t claim those animals as kin, Lady Sorceress.” Navy Man looked astonished and more than a little disgusted. “Though it would be anticlimactic to simply sink the rest of the ships. The naval battle would be overfartoo soon.”
“Perhaps I could provide sea monsters,” Lady Strawberry suggested, as if she’d never said it before, “to eat the sailors once the ships sink?”
“The Lady Gwynn has always displayed rather lowbrow tastes,” Falcon nearly purred. “Should we be concerned about your loyalty, Sorceress? Or are we safe from you, now that Lord Rogue holds your leash?”
They all leered at me and Puck waggled his eyebrows. Darling stalked off down the center of the table, knocking goblets over with a swishing tail.
“The humans are not her people.” Rogue appeared to be answering Falcon’s question, but the words were directed at me. “She left her people behind, as a snake sheds its skin. Look at her face—even now the fae lines are showing.”
I pulled my hand away, but he captured it, holding on fiercely, while the others murmured speculation among themselves.
“It’s on the left side. Silver-white, faint, barely catching the light, but there—on your temple. You are not what you were.”
The cold razor claw in me shifted, whispered, answering to the swirl in him.
