I frowned at him, but turned to look at the window with its gauzy white drapes moving ever so gently in the breeze. I shrugged, arms still held tight. "So?"
"You are a princess of the sidhe. Look with more than your eyes."
I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and tried not to respond to the heat in his words. Getting angry at Doyle never seemed to accomplish anything. I was a princess, but that didn't give me much clout; it never had.
I didn't so much call my magic, as drop the shields I had to put in place so that I wouldn't travel through my day seeing mystical sights. Human psychics and even witches usually have to work at seeing magic, other beings, other realities. I was a part of faerie, and that meant I spent a great deal of energy not seeing magic, not noticing the passing rush of other beings, other realities that had very little to do with my world, my purpose. But magic calls to magic, and without shields in place I could have drowned in the everyday rush of the supernatural that plays over the earth every day.
I dropped the shields and looked with that part of the brain that sees visions and allows you to see dreams. Strangely, it wasn't that big a change in perception, but suddenly I could see better in the dark, and I could see the glowing power of the wards on the window, the walls. And in all that glowing power I saw something through the white drapes. Something small pressed against the window. When I moved the drapes aside, nothing was on the window but the play of pale color from the wards. I looked to one side, using the edge of my sight, my peripheral vision, to look at the glass. There, a small handprint, smaller than the palm of my hand, was etched into the wards on the window. I tried to look closer at it, and it vanished from sight. I forced myself to look sideways at it again, but closer. The handprint was clawed and humanoid, but not human.
I let the drape fall shut, and spoke without turning around. "Something tried the wards while we slept."
"Yes," Doyle said.
"I didn't feel anything," Rhys said.
Nicca said, "Me, either."
Rhys sighed. "We have failed you, Princess. Doyle's right. We could have gotten you killed."
I turned and looked at them all, then I stared at Doyle. "When did you sense the testing of the wards?"
"I came in here to check on you."
I shook my head. "No, that's not what I asked. When did you sense that something had tested the wards?"
He faced me, bold. "I've told you, Princess, only I can keep you safe."
I shook my head again. "No good, Doyle. The sidhe never lie, not outright, and you've avoided answering my question twice. Answer me now. For the third time, when did you sense something had tested the wards?"
He looked half-uncomfortable, half-angry. "When I was whispering in your ear."
"You saw it through the drapes," I said.
"Yes." One clipped, angry word.
Rhys said, "You didn't know that anything tried to get in. You just came through because you heard Merry moving around."
Doyle didn't answer, but he didn't need to. The silence was answer enough.
"These wards are my doing, Doyle. I put them up when I moved in to this apartment, and I redo them periodically. It was my magic, my power, that kept this thing out. My power that burned it so that we have its... fingerprints."
"Your wards held because it was a small power," Doyle said. "Something large would still get through any ward you could put in place."
"Maybe, but the point is that you didn't know any more than we did. You were just as in the dark as we were."
"You're not infallible," Rhys said. "Nice to know."
"Is it?" Doyle said. "Is it really? Then think on this -- tonight none of us knew that some creature of faerie crept to this window and tried to get in. None of us sensed it. It may have been a small power, but it had big help to hide this completely."
I stared at him. "You think Cel's people risked his life tonight, by trying to take mine again."
"Princess, don't you understand the Unseelie Court by now? Cel was the Queen's darling, her only heir for centuries. Once she made you coheir with him, he fell out of favor. Whichever one