Tithe A Modern Faerie Tale Page 0,74

own."

Her smile did not fade, did not change. It was a perfect smile—perfect curve of lips, perfect balance between joy and affection—it was so perfect that Kaye couldn't help getting lost in it, losing the thread of the conversation so that she was baffled when the Queen spoke again.

"And why do you come among us then, if not to come home?"

"I seek Nephamael. There is a young man with him that my companion would restore to Ironside."

Silarial shook her head. "He is not among my people any longer. When the Unseelie Queen died and the solitary fey went free…" Here she paused, looking at Roiben. Something about her face was unsettled. "He seized her throne and has set himself up as King upon it."

Kaye's neck snapped up. Wide-eyed, without thinking, she spoke. "Nephamael's the King of the Unseelie Court?" She bit her lip, but the Queen turned her gaze on her indulgently.

"Who have you brought to us?"

"Her name is Kaye. She is a changeling." He looked distracted.

The queen's auburn eyebrows rose. "You are aiding her in the recovery of the mortal boy Nephamael has spirited off?"

"I am," Roiben said.

"And what is the price of your service, Roiben who belongs only to himself?" Her hand came up and idly toyed with an amulet around her neck.

Kaye could not bear to look at the perfection of her face. Instead she looked at the

Queen's necklace. The stone was milky-pale and strung on a long chain. It seemed very familiar.

A rosy stain tinted Roiben's cheeks. Could he really be blushing? "There is no price."

Kaye did remember that necklace—Nephamael had worn one just like it. He had had it around his neck the night he'd come to take her for the Tithe.

The Queen leaned forward, almost conspiratorially, as though Kaye was long forgotten. "Once you told me that you would do anything to prove your love for me. Would you still?"

His blush grew deeper, if anything, but when he spoke, his voice was steely. "I would not."

What did that mean, Kaye wondered. It meant something, surely, something that had nothing to do with love and everything to do with the dead Queen. That was what this conversation was about, she realized. His Queen had treated him like a toy she had grown tired of and traded him, not caring whether his new owner would be careless with him, not even caring that his new owner might break him. Clearly, she had plans that included needing her toy back.

"And what if I told you that you had already proven it to my satisfaction? Come, tarry a time with us. There is honey wine and crisp, red apples. Sit by my side again."

Kaye bit her own lip, hard. The pain helped her accept that he was not hers, would never be hers. And if it was much too late to pretend that didn't hurt, she could at least shove it down so deeply inside her that he would never know.

Roiben stared at Silarial with a mixture of longing and scorn. "You must forgive me," Roiben said, "but the smell of apples makes me want to retch."

The Queen looked shocked, then angry. Roiben seemed to watch those emotions flit across her face impassively.

"Then you had best make haste," the Queen said.

Roiben nodded and bowed. Kaye almost forgot to.

When they were a few paces away, the white-haired woman caught Roiben's arm, pulling him to face her, laughing.

"Roiben!" It was the woman who had gasped before. Her hair was to her knees, some of it swept up into heavy braids on her head. She wore the costume of one of the Queen's handmaidens.

"I was worried about you," she said, again, the smile wobbling on her face. "The things I had heard—"

"All true, no doubt," Roiben said, a touch lightly. He ran his fingers through the girl's hair, and Kaye shivered sympathetically, knowing how those long fingers felt. "Your hair is so long."

"I haven't cut it since you left." The woman turned to Kaye. "I heard my brother barely introduce you to the Queen. My question is—is Roiben trying to protect us from you or you from us?"

Kaye laughed, surprised.

"Ethine," Roiben said, nodding to one and then the other, "Kaye."

The woman's tinkling laughter was like breaking glass. "You've discarded your courtly airs."

"So I have been told," Roiben said.

Ethine reached up among the branches of the apple tree and broke off a single flower.

"All that matters is that you are now home," she said, tucking the flower behind his ear. Kaye noticed