“The seelie want to wipe out humans?” This was news to Cathy. She didn’t know that much about the seelie, but she’d thought that they were less malicious than the unseelie—though admittedly, that was hardly a high bar to clear. “I thought they just wanted to keep us out of the fae realm.”
“The seelie seek to close all traffic between our worlds, yes,” Maeve replied, in the patient tones of someone trying to explain to a toddler why we don’t stick our fingers up our nose. “But only because they do not have the numbers to take your realm for their own. That is why they retreat, barricading the portals behind them—out of fear of your swarming fecundity, and your bitter iron. But they have not forgotten that once we were the undisputed masters of your kind. They but bide their time, waiting for the day when they will one day be strong enough to reclaim what was once theirs.”
“But if they hate humans so much, why would they take Kevin?”
“Why does the hunter carry the orphaned wolf cub into his house and give it a place at his hearth, when his own arrow slew its mother?” Maeve lifted one milk-white shoulder in a shrug. “Because the cub is young enough to be tamed, and made useful. They took my precious boy to turn him against me. In their hands, he will be nothing but a living weapon, armed with cold iron and taught to hate.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Cathy said firmly. “I’m going to get him back, and you’re going to help me. You gave me your word, remember?”
“Why yes.” Maeve’s crimson smile widened. “So I did.”
Cathy had half-expected the high sidhe to triumphantly declare some loophole that she herself had missed—but instead, Maeve clapped her hands.
“My beloved court!” she addressed the gathered fae. “Saddle your steeds and unfurl the banners. Let all make ready to ride!”
A cheer went up, echoing from the vaulted ceiling. The crowd split up, fae streaming away in every direction. A loud, excited babble filled the great hall as high sidhe barked orders at scurrying servants or began heated conversations with each other. From the snatches Cathy could overhear (“But I intend to wear periwinkle armor!”), it mainly sounded like arguments over fashion choices.
“Seneschal!” Maeve snapped her fingers, summoning a short, wizened man with long, rabbit-like ears. “Prepare my mount. The onyx harness I think, with the silver trim. And have my silk-wyrm riding habit laid out, along with the unicorn-hide cloak, and my best ruby crown. If any seelie are patrolling the border, we must ensure that they will be utterly cowed by my splendor. Oh, and I suppose the human will need a steed. Find her something suitable.”
The servant bowed. “At once, my lady.”
Cathy was left blinking in the middle of the swirl of activity, still holding her frying pan. She lowered it a fraction. “Wait, you really are helping me?”
“But of course.” Maeve smiled at her with all the sincerity of a politician. “With every means at my disposal. I shall take you to the border. I shall wave you off with a glad heart. And I shall return to my own court, and wait for news of your inevitable fate. I may be bound by my own promise not to harm you, but the same is not true of the seelie. They shall make an end of you. Then I shall raid their lands and take my dear boy back, secure in the knowledge that you will never trouble me again.”
“But you can’t lie.” Cathy’s palms were sweating on the handle of the pan. “You swore that I could rescue Kevin.”
“Oh, you can.” Maeve shrugged in unconcern. “The seelie are bound by the same rules as myself. If you can somehow follow your son’s trail, and if you can manage to cross the seelie lands undetected by any of their patrols, and if you can find a way to present yourself to the relevant court, and if you can break the enchantments on him so that he recognizes you as his mother… then they would be obliged to give him to you. And indeed, if you do all those things and then return here, I shall keep my word and return you both to your own world.”
Maeve dropped her voice. Her crimson eyes glittered, cold and triumphant.
“But we both know you will not,” she whispered. “You will be gone, and I will win. For I have already set my own plans in motion. Your son will be rescued from the seelie, never fear. But not by you. And when I next hold him in my arms, he will be mine forever.”