Cold Days (The Dresden Files 14)

"Right," I said. "You're just a young, single rehabilitative health professional."

"This decade," sneered Maeve. "What was it last time? Mathematics? You were going to describe the universe or some such? And before that, what was it? Environmental science? Did you save the Earth, Sarissa? And before that, an actress? You thought you could create art. Which soap opera was it again?"

"It doesn't matter," Sarissa said. She saw me staring at her and said, "It was before your time."

I blinked. "What?"

She looked embarrassed. "I told you I was older than I looked."

"Finally I realize who you remind me of." I sighed, looking back and forth between Sarissa and Maeve. "It must have been the scrubs that threw me off. Maeve is always dressed like a stripper, and she's always had the piercings and the club lighting and the crazy Rasta hair." I looked back and forth between the two. "Hell's bells, you're identical twins."

"Not identical twins," they both said at exactly the same time, in the exact same tone of outrage. They broke off to glare at each other.

"How does that work, exactly?" I asked. I was curious, but it was also an effort to buy time. I've yet to meet a megalomaniac who doesn't love talking about him- or herself, if you give them half a chance. Especially the nonmortal ones. To them, a few minutes of chat in several centuries of life is nothing, and they let things build up inside them for decades at a time. "You two . . . were born changelings, weren't you? What happened?"

"I Chose to be Sidhe," Maeve spat.

"And you Chose humanity?" I asked Sarissa.

Sarissa shrugged a shoulder and looked away.

"Hah," Maeve spat. "No. She never Chose at all. Just remained between worlds. Never making anything of herself, never committing to anything."

"Maeve," Sarissa said quietly. "Don't."

"Just floating along, pretty and empty and bored," Maeve went on in a sweet, poisonous tone. "Unnoticed. Unremarkable."

"Maeve," said Lily in a harsh voice, looking up from where she stood. The Summer Lady kept a hand extended toward Demonreach, and her face was covered in sweat, and she seemed to be leaning back against the hands of the Sidhe behind her to stay upright. "I can't hold the spirit alone all night. We have to talk about this before it gets any more out of control. Hurry, and let's finish this."

Maeve whirled toward Lily, stamping her foot on the ground. "This is my night! Do not rush me, you stupid cow!"

"Always so charming," Sarissa noted.

Maeve turned back to Sarissa, and her right arm, the one holding the gun, twitched several times. "Oh, keep it up, darling. See what happens."

"You aren't going to let me live anyway, Maeve," Sarissa said. "I'm not stupid."

"And I am not blind," Maeve spat back. "Do you think I did not know about all the time she has been spending with you? All the intimate talk, the activity together. Do you think I don't know what it means? She's doing with you what she always meant to do with you-using you as a spare. Preparing you as a vessel for the mantle. Preparing my replacement. As if I were a broken piece of a machine."

Sarissa looked pale and nodded slowly. "Maeve," she said, her voice very soft. "You're . . . you're sick. You've got to know that."

Maeve stopped, tilting her head, and her hair covered most of her face.

"Somewhere, you have to realize it. She wants to help you. She cares in her way, Maeve."

Maeve moved her left arm alone, pointing a finger straight at me. "Yes. I can see how much she cared."

"It isn't too late," Sarissa said. "You know how she lays her plans. She prepares for everything. But it doesn't have to happen that way. The Leanansidhe was sick and Mother helped her. But her power alone isn't enough to heal you. You have to want it, Maeve. You have to want to be healed."

Maeve quivered where she stood for a moment, like a slender tree placed under increasing strain.

"We need the Winter Lady now," Sarissa said. "We need you, Maeve. You're a vicious goddamned lunatic and we need you back."

Maeve asked in a very small voice, "Does she talk about me?"

Sarissa was silent. She swallowed.

Maeve said, her voice harsher, "Does she talk about me?"

Sarissa lifted her chin and shook her head. "She . . . won't say your name. But I know she fears for you. You know that she never lets things show. It's how she's always been."

Maeve shuddered.

Then she lifted her head and stared venomously at Sarissa. "I am strong, Sarissa. Stronger than I have ever been. Here, now, stronger than she is." Her lips quivered and twitched back from her teeth into a hideous mockery of a smile. "Why should I want to be healed of that?" She cut loose with one of her psychotic laughs again. "I am about to unmake every precious thing she ever valued more than her own blood, her own children. And where is she?" Maeve stuck her arms out and spun around in a pirouette. Her voice became pure vitriol. "Where? I have closed the circle of this place and she may not enter. Of course, these stupid primates sussed out a way through it, but she, the Queen of Air and Darkness, could not possibly stoop to such a thing. Not even if it costs her the lives of her daughter and the mortal world, too."

"Oh, Maeve," Sarissa said, her voice thick with compassion and something like resignation.

"Where is she, Sarissa?" Maeve demanded. There were tears on her cheeks, freezing into little white streaks, forming white frost on her eyelashes. "Where is her love? Where is her fury? Where is her anything?"

While that drama was going on, I thought furiously. I thought about the mighty spirit who was my ally, who was being held immobile and impotent. I thought about the abilities of all of my allies, and how they might change the current situation if they weren't all incapacitated. Molly was the only one at liberty, and she had worn herself out over the lake. She wouldn't have much left in her-if she appeared now, the fae would defeat her handily. She couldn't change this situation alone. Someone would have to set things into motion, give her some chaos to work with.

I just didn't have much chaos left in me. I was bone-tired, and we needed a game changer. The mantle of the Winter Knight represented a source of power, true, but Maeve had damned near talked me into joining her team when I'd let it have free rein. I wasn't going to help anyone if I let myself give in to my inner psycho-predator.