CHAPTER4
This was a mistake.
Cathy clutched her frying pan so tightly, the imprint of the handle was probably going to be embedded in her palms for the rest of her life. Which, from the looks of things, might be measured in minutes.
She’d thought she’d known what to expect. Tamsin had told them all about her time in the fae realms, after all. Over glasses of wine, she’d painted a vivid picture of Maeve’s underground palace and her glittering, vicious court.
If anyone else had related such a wild tale, Cathy would have thought they’d made the whole thing up. But not solid, practical Tamsin. She could be relied on to tell a story straight, with no embellishment.
Now, it was obvious that, if anything, Tamsin had been downplaying her experience.
When Tamsin had said that she’d fallen through the stone circle into an underground hall, Cathy hadn’t imagined a chamber that could have swallowed an entire cathedral, spires and all. She hadn’t pictured white marble pillars so exquisitely carved that they looked like living trees, detailed down to the veins on every paper-thin leaf. An intricate opal and moonstone mosaic covered the vast floor, each tile no bigger than a fingernail.
But the beauty of the room was utterly eclipsed by the high sidhe court.
These men and women made Cuan look rough. Cathy had never realized how much the half-phouka’s mixed heritage had shaped his features, blurring the sharp, flawless angles of a true high sidhe into something more approachable.
Wherever she looked, glowing, jewel-toned eyes stared back at her. Intricate patterns gleamed on exposed biceps and shoulders, like tattoos made of light. No two high sidhe were alike, with skin tones from palest alabaster to polished ebony and hair in a riot of unnatural colors, but they were all beautiful… and they all had the same expression.
Her skin tried to crawl off her back. There was naked hunger in those cold, perfect faces. They looked at her like she was a mouse, and they were bored cats whose day had just become much more interesting.
Cathy moistened her dry mouth, trying desperately not to let her terror show on her face. At least they couldn’t affect her mind while she was holding cold iron. She could do this, for Kevin’s sake. Her baby needed her.
“All right,” she said, and was astonished at how calm her own voice sounded. “I’m here.”
“So you are.” Maeve’s throaty, amused voice purred, right in her ear. “I must confess, I’m surprised.”
Cathy very nearly wet herself. She whirled, pan upraised, and found the high sidhe standing behind her, just out of arm’s reach. Maeve glanced at the pan, her lips pursing in a little moue of distaste.
“Oh, now, really.” The high sidhe took a delicate step backward, as though retreating from some unpleasant odor. “I don’t think that’s necessary, do you?”
Cathy didn’t lower the pan. “Where is my son?”
“Humans.” Maeve let out the tiniest of sighs, like Cathy had managed to limbo under her lowest expectations. “Always so rude. After all the goodwill I have shown you, can you not try to ape decent manners? Why, I suppose you have not even brought me a gift to thank me for my generous hospitality.”
What would Tamsin do? Cathy wished that she was here, or any of her other friends. They were all so confident, so capable. Maeve wouldn’t have dared to mess with any of them.
She lifted the pan higher, doing her best to summon some of Tamsin’s take-no-prisoners attitude. “I’ll give you a gift upside the head if you don’t start talking. We made a bargain. Time for you to keep your end of it.”
“But of course.” Maeve adopted the grave expression of a doctor giving a terminal diagnosis. “Though I fear the fate that has befallen the dear boy is one of darkest tragedy. Perhaps you should sit down.”
Since Maeve didn’t actually offer a chair, Cathy didn’t have any choice to remain standing, no matter how much her knees wanted to buckle. He’s alive, she reminded herself fiercely. Maeve can’t lie, and she said he was alive. He has to be okay. Cuan swore that no fae would ever harm a child.
Of course, the fae folk weren’t the only inhabitants of this realm. From Cuan’s tales, she knew that there were other, even more dangerous creatures in the untamed wilds of the unseelie lands. Manticores and basilisks and griffins…
She swallowed hard. “Just tell me what took him.”
“The most terrible of monsters.” Maeve’s voice dropped to a hushed whisper, as though speaking too loudly might attract its attention. “The seelie.”
Cathy blinked at her. She’d been so braced for Maeve to tell her something awful had snatched Kevin, it took her brain a moment to process what the fae woman had said.
“The seelie?” she said blankly. “You mean your opposite number? The good elves?”
“Good?” Maeve drew herself up like an outraged cat. “You call them good?”
“Er, yes?” Cathy waved the frying pan, indicating the ring of weaponry surrounding her. A ripple went through the crowd, even the most heavily armored warriors flinching back from the iron. “I mean, you unseelie are the ones kidnapping kids and keeping women captive. Not to mention the fact that you literally feed on despair. You can’t be surprised that people see you as the bad guys.”
“We hunt your kind because we are predators, and you are prey.” For once, there was no malice in Maeve’s voice; just a simple, obvious statement of fact. “Do you call the wolf evil for pursuing the doe, or the fox for making merry in an unguarded henhouse? We do as we please, because we are strong and you are weak—but we do not see your flaws and conclude that you have no right to exist.”