Silver's Bane. Anne Kelleher

completely.” Vinaver took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “We’ve not much time, so listen carefully, Delphinea, and I will tell you what I can. Mortals are highly susceptible and suggestible but you must not underestimate the effect they shall have upon you. A fresh mortal intoxicates like nothing else—”

      “What in the name of Herne do you mean by a fresh mortal?” asked Dougal. “And do you mind not referring to my people as if we were a race of animals that happen to walk and talk?”

      But Vinaver ignored the interruption. “Like nothing you can even imagine. For some it’s the way they smell, or taste, for others, the way they look. Whatever it is, and however it strikes you, beware of it. Keep your wits about you, for mortals are perverse, and when you expect them to do one thing, they will do the opposite. Don’t try to understand it, but seek to use it, if needs must. Keep close to the trixie, and don’t let him from your sight. Keep him tethered to you if you sleep. Water is one sure way back to Faerie, the other is through the trees of a deep forest. For the trees of Faerie and Shadow are linked. Some even say they are the same.” She shut her eyes and took another audible breath. “Listen as you pass below them. Listen and see if you hear them talking.” Her eyes fluttered open. “They will help you. I have no doubt.”

      “Why are you so sure?” asked Delphinea. “Is it only the way I look? There are visions that come to me in my sleep—”

      “What do you see?”

      “I see Finuviel. I hear his name.”

      Vinaver reached out once more and touched Delphinea’s cheek with a shaking hand. “I understand why you’ve come. Bring my son and the Caul back to Faerie. You were meant to find them. I’m sure of it.” She closed her eyes.

      Delphinea hesitated, wondering if Vinaver truly knew, or if she only wanted to know, and she wondered how much Vinaver really did know, and how much she actually did. But before she could speak, Dougal stopped her with a hand on her arm. “I’ve a word of advice. Don’t go directly to Cadwyr of Allovale. Go instead to his uncle Donnor, the Duke of Gar. He’s the only one with any influence over Cadwyr. Donnor’s an honorable man, whereas Cadwyr’s like a blade too well oiled. He shines pretty, but he turns too easily in your hand. Find the Duke of Gar, and tell him—” He paused, then shrugged. “I suppose under the circumstances it doesn’t much matter what anyone thinks. Tell Donnor that Dougal of Killcairn sent you, and if possible, ask him to get word to my daughter—my girl, Nessa—back in Killcairn. Tell her I’m alive. All right?”

      As Delphinea nodded, Leonine stuck her head around the door. “I think, my lady, that you must leave now, if you’re to leave at all. The company from the palace is within the courtyard, and the commander is demanding to be let in.”

      “Go, child,” said Vinaver. “And, khouri-kan, remember that I know the secret of your unMaking. Betray me, and I might forget it.”

      Petri hissed and bowed and rubbed his hands, and Leonine led Delphinea toward to the door. As she stepped out into the hall, she turned back to Vinaver. “My lady?”

      Vinaver’s pain-dulled eyes flickered muddy green in the gloom. “Yes, child?”

      “Talking to the trees—understanding the trees—isn’t that a gift reserved for the Queen of the sidhe?”

      Vinaver smiled then, but her face was sad. “Child, don’t you understand? You are the next Queen of Faerie. That is, if Faerie survives at all.”

      There was the faintest smell of rot in the air. Like the warm tap of a random spring raindrop, the odor drifted, now here, now there, never so much that one was ever quite sure what one smelled. But it was enough to make one pause, turn one’s head, wrinkle one’s nose and sniff again. It had first been detected after Samhain, and it was becoming noticeable enough that a fashion for wearing perfumed lace face masks was spreading rapidly throughout the ladies of the Court.

      And it was noticeable enough that Timias had been forced to listen, a prisoner in his chambers, to Her Majesty’s Master of the House, Lord Rimbaud, and her Chatelaine, Lady Evardine, while they lamented the situation for nearly a full turn of the glass, before a summons from Alemandine’s Consort, Hudibras, interrupted their torrent of complaint. Now Timias tightened his grip on his oak staff, and pressed his mouth into a thin line as he hurried through the palace of the Faerie Queen as quickly as his aged legs would allow. A small puff of stink through the lemon-scented air was enough to make him furrow his already wrinkled brow as he scurried through the arching marble corridors, hung with tapestries and mosaics so intricately and perfectly executed, some were known to move. He passed the image of a stag brought down by a huntsman’s bow, the great antlered head lifted in eternal agony, and something made Timias pause, transfixed, before it. The crimson blood flowing from the stag’s side shone with a curious rippling gleam, as if the blood that flowed from the wound was real.

      Timias stepped closer, narrowing his eyes. As another trace of putrid odor filled his nostrils, he reached out and touched the gleaming rivulet. For a moment his finger registered the cold pressure of the stone as wetness and he started back, peering closely at his finger, half expecting to see a smear of blood. But his fingertip was clear, without a hint of moisture. Of course there wasn’t any blood, he told himself, there was no blood. How could there be blood? It was only a picture. There was no blood. It was but a trick of his overwrought senses, a consequence of his agonized mind. He had enough to occupy a dozen councilors. His discovery with Delphinea of the missing Caul led to the disclosure of the plot against the Queen, and allowed him to once again assert his position and authority as the oldest of all the Council. The stupid girl had not waited long enough to allow him to thank her properly before she’d run off. The first thing he’d done had been to order the arrests of every one of the Queen’s councilors in residence at the Court. This meant that, while the immediate threat was contained until he could determine who was to be trusted, he alone remained to steer Alemandine through the task of holding her realm together both under the strain engendered by her pregnancy and the inevitable attack by the Goblin King. But the calamity of the missing Caul, coupled with the revelation of Vinaver’s treachery, made what would have been a heavy burden especially weighty. A lesser sidhe, one without so many years and experience as his, would surely not be equal to the task. He touched the wall again, just to make sure. “No blood,” he whispered aloud. “No blood.” He realized he was still muttering as he stalked through the halls to Alemandine’s chambers.

      There was certainly enough to mutter about. Vinaver, that foul abomination, had seized the opportunity afforded by his absence in the Shadowlands to hatch some horrific plot against her sister, Alemandine, the details of which he did not yet understand. It was her cronies on the Council he’d had arrested, all of them—all of them save Vinaver herself, who’d prudently retired to her Forest House. Well, he’d not let that stop him. The very hour he’d discovered Lady Delphinea gone missing, he’d sent a company of the Queen’s Guard out to drag both her and Vinaver back to the palace. He’d find out what had happened to the missing Caul and then turn his attention to the defense of Faerie. The calculated way in which Vinaver had so coldly plotted against her sister when the pregnant Queen was at her most vulnerable intrigued him and made him admire her in a way he refused to contemplate.

      He’d already decided that it had been a mistake to allow Finuviel to take over Artimour’s command, and the sooner Artimour was restored to his proper place, and Finuviel recalled, the easier they could all rest. After all, it was only logical to assume that Finuviel was an integral part of Vinaver’s scheme to make herself Queen in her sister’s stead, and so the sooner Artimour resumed command, the better. After all, Artimour would be so pathetically grateful to have his place back, Timias knew he’d be able to trust him. And maybe not just trust him, thought Timias as he considered new and different roles for Artimour to play. He was always something of a misfit around the Court. He couldn’t have been happy about the revocation of his command. He’d owe tremendous loyalty to the person—or group of persons—who restored it.

      It was time to recall Artimour, decided Timias, time to assure the dear boy of their continued support and offer apologies for the terrible mistake they’d made in replacing him with Finuviel, the