Fire Touched (Mercy Thompson 9)

“Nemane.” Her name seemed to hang in the air longer than sound should have. Suddenly it was very dark in the car, the dash lights only a candle in the night.

“The Carrion Crow,” Margaret said slowly, and for the first time I smelled fear rising from her skin. “One of the three fae who could be Morrigan, the goddess of battle. She is smart and very old. And very, very clever. My father respected her—and feared her. The only one of the fae he truly feared. She is capable of playing a very long game. She is patient.” Margaret swallowed. “And bloodthirsty.”

Maybe if we hadn’t been in a dark car, driving through the dark, her words wouldn’t have been so . . . frightening. Like how a story told by firelight has more power than one told in the light of day. But I hadn’t been afraid of her back in the hotel. Neuth, yes, but not Nemane.

I could just be affected by Margaret’s fear, but it felt like more than that. Maybe it was just that we spoke of someone who was a Power and had been a Power for longer than I could imagine, and we spoke of her in the loneliness of the night.

“Okay,” I said. “Now that you’ve scared us both . . .” I had the sudden conviction that Adam and I were in way over our heads. We had just met with five of the Gray Lords—but those weren’t the only Gray Lords on that reservation.

“When I saw her sitting there . . .” Margaret said. “I was very grateful for Thomas at my back.”

There was still one we hadn’t spoken of.

“Beauclaire,” I said. I knew him best of the Gray Lords and liked what I knew.

She smiled and relaxed. “My father said that Lugh’s son likes to be underestimated. It helps him that so many of the fae remember his father, Lugh, and judge the son from that scale. Lugh . . . Lugh was everything they say he was. Sometimes the humans called him a god, and they weren’t far wrong.” She didn’t exactly stiffen, but she eyed me. “He was good, glorious, and kind—and your Dark Smith killed him.”

I knew that. Zee had killed him because Lugh had, like many very old creatures, started to become a monster. It was why Zee and Beauclaire did not deal well together—and another reason I’d been surprised when he helped Zee escape.

“Beauclaire and Nemane are allies,” she said. I’d picked that up from tonight’s meeting. “From what happened when Adam spoke, I think that those two have a use for you and your pack. Zee distracted Órlaith and Neuth. Goreu was still recovering from the slave bracelet. But Nemane and Beauclaire could have responded to Adam when he spoke. By not doing so, they gave legitimacy to Adam’s claim—unless they rule against it out loud, all of Faery must respect the borders of your territory. That tells me that Adam’s claim played right into whatever those two have planned.”

“Okay,” I said. Being part of any fae’s plans wasn’t a good thing. I’d have to warn Adam. And speaking of warning . . . “You should know that Edythe didn’t have any trouble seeing through your glamour.”

Margaret frowned. “Edythe?”

“There were two guards the Gray Lords brought with them,” I said. “She was the one that looked like a girl.”

“They weren’t guards,” she said. “The Gray Lords don’t use guards. They were servants, to be sent to fetch food or whatever else was required.” She frowned. “She saw through the glamour?”

I nodded.

“There are some who see truth,” Margaret said. “But it is a rare gift. It may be that gift was the reason they brought her to the meeting. Interesting that she didn’t speak when she saw who accompanied us.”

“I’m not a threat,” I said. “And I’m the only one she looked at.”

“Okay,” she said. She dusted her hands on her thighs and took a deep breath. “So tell me how you got an Alpha werewolf to treat you like a partner instead of a princess who needs protecting.”

I pursed my lips. “I can tell you that, but I don’t think it will be useful in your situation. By the time I’d met Adam, I’d spent my whole life proving myself, Margaret. I knew who I was and what I could do—and I didn’t let anyone make me less.”

“Damn it,” she said. “I hoped that you could give me some useful advice. I don’t know many women—have never known many women. And your situation seemed so similar.”

It hadn’t been, really. Not the beginning of Adam and me—but . . . “A couple of months ago, this volcano god—a great manitou—came after Adam’s ex-wife,” I told her. “We defeated him, but in the process, I was badly injured. Our pack doctor told Adam I was going to die.”

“But you didn’t,” said Margaret.

I drew in a breath. “I was dying, no question. Only by the weirdest circumstances ever did I survive. Not quite dumb luck, but unexpected enough that it was worse really.” Coyote counted as weird circumstances—and he was unpredictable.

“It took a while for me to recover completely. Adam, who has been very, very good about not indulging his wolf’s need to be overprotective, has had to deal with his perceived failure to protect me. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night to listen to me breathe.” I didn’t tell her about the nightmares, or the times when he pulled me close to him to listen to my heart, and his skin was damp with the sweat of fear. Or that sometimes, in the darkness of our room, he cried. Those moments weren’t for public consumption. “But Thomas didn’t fail to keep you safe, so the situation isn’t completely analogous.”