her right eye.
“Try to move, try to use magic, do anything but answer my questions and I will drive this piece of iron through your eye and the brain behind it. You only have one chance. Offer the slightest threat and I will grant your most secret desire—I’ll end you. I already have a nice fire burning and ready for the task. Do you understand?”
She tried to speak, but her throat hadn’t recovered enough yet. She nodded instead.
“Your plan was clever,” he admitted, filling the silence. “No matter how things turned out, you stood to profit, but that’s always the case, isn’t it?”
She gurgled again, then smiled, showing blood-stained teeth.
“If Elthas got his way, you would be free of the Cath Bawlg, not to mention reducing the debt that kept you in his service.”
Aislinn nodded, then managed to utter two words in a rasping voice. “And Selene.”
A fresh surge of anger shot through him, but Will controlled it. “And you would get a new immortal disciple.”
“But you won,” said his grandmother. “I thought you might.”
“Don’t even pretend to care,” snarled Will. “This turn of events is even more to your advantage. With Elthas dead, you no longer have a master controlling you. As the smartest and most powerful magic user in Faerie you can easily consolidate your mastery over your people, if you haven’t already. You’re more dangerous than he ever was.”
“Unless you slay me,” she suggested.
“The third possibility, and the one you probably desire the most, though the very nature of your existence won’t even allow you to say it,” Will said angrily.
As if to confirm his statement, Aislinn said nothing at all. She merely stared back at him with uncaring eyes.
“The one thing I don’t understand is how you managed to do it. The accord forbids your people from harming humankind. Elthas shouldn’t have been able to make a deal with Madrok. He shouldn’t have been able to command you to help him with it. None of it should have been possible.”
“The accord has been voided,” she replied.
“How?”
His grandmother smiled. “You did it, when you changed my daughter.”
Will’s eyes narrowed. “I saved her. That wouldn’t void the agreement.”
“She became free, yet she was still a party to the accord,” said Aislinn. “Which she then proceeded to break.”
“But she didn’t,” insisted Will.
“She attacked you and ignored her debt, and if that wasn’t enough, she has killed several humans while she was experimenting with her newfound freedom.”
Will’s brows rose in surprise. He hadn’t known that. “Still, the accord was broken by one of your people. Humanity shouldn’t be suffering for it.”
“The fae can’t lie or cheat,” she responded. “So, there were no penalties written into the accord. Once it was broken, it was done. Elthas saw his opportunity, and I encouraged him, as a good wife should.” The gleam in her eye was pure malice.
Seeing her helpless, weak, and broken, did nothing to arouse his sympathy. His grandmother would be dangerous for as long as she lived, and he would never be completely safe until he killed her. But she was also useful, and if he put her out of her misery, he would not only be giving her what she secretly wanted, but he would also be exposing humanity to a new threat with such a broad scope that he couldn’t begin to quantify the risk.
A new accord was needed, and the only person with the authority to make it was currently in his power.
“We need a new agreement between your people and mine,” said Will.
Despite her pitiful position, Aislinn’s faint smile was both ominous and chilling. “Then we must bargain. What terms do you seek?”
A small shudder went up his spine. Will knew he wouldn’t wrangle a winning deal from her. Even the greatest scholar of law would despair trying to come out ahead in any negotiation with the fae, much less Aislinn herself—and he was a far cry from being any sort of scholar of law. A mistake now could lead to consequences that might haunt him, or even worse, humanity, for generations to come.
Two options came to mind to avoid a complete disaster. One was to reinstate the old accord, with a couple of choice additions, while the other was to establish a temporary truce until he could consult experts and garner advice. He worried that a simple truce might allow her to do things he couldn’t foresee, though. His grandmother’s cunning was legendary.
“I want to reinstate the old accord with the same terms, and a