Barinthus would throw off enough magic to set off every ward they had. If we timed it right they would get in at the same time. I trusted Doyle to time it right.
Rhys rang the doorbell. They had put me between the two of them. I'd been given my orders to not show myself until Rhys said differently. I couldn't see anything but that the door opened.
Rhys's matter-of-fact voice was my first hint that ... "The barrel of a gun isn't a very friendly way to start a visit."
"Where is the princess?"
"Wave to the man, Merry."
I waved above his wide shoulders.
"Fine, come inside, but if you try any magic your friend will be dead before you can get to him. Bittersweet is with him now."
I didn't like the sound of that, but I followed Rhys back through the door. The moment I passed it the wards flared along my skin so powerfully magic that they took my breath for a moment. I'd never felt anything like it, not even in faerie itself.
Barinthus came through last and did what we'd planned. He flared his magic like throwing wide a cloak to make certain you tripped the alarm. But it wasn't noise that these alarms made, it was magic.
Rhys kept me behind him, shielded by his body. "You've got your wards set too sensitive for Barinthus. Easy, he was Mannan Mac Lir. That's a lot of magic to get inside these wards."
If Barinthus hadn't been so bloody spectacular in physical appearance it might not have worked, but it was hard to stare up at a seven-foot-tall man with hair every shade of blue of the world's oceans and elliptical pupils in his blue eyes like some deep-sea creature and not understand just how much magic was standing in front of you.
Bittersweet came whirring down from the balcony that looked out over the huge open living room. It was one of the biggest great rooms I'd ever seen. I saw her past Rhys's shoulder as he and Barinthus tried to talk Steve Patterson into lowering the gun.
She had a bloody knife in her hand almost as big as she was, and just from the look on her face I knew she was Bitter, and not Sweet. We were about to meet her Hyde face-to-face.
"She's coming at our backs, Rhys," I said quietly.
"I'm worried about the gun," he said between smiling lips as he tried to calm Patterson down.
I turned to face her, and yelled out, "I'm here to help you be able to make love to Steve." It was the only thing I could think of that might get through the bloodlust I saw on her face.
It did make her hover in the air on her furiously beating wings. Blood dripped heavily and thickly off the tip of the improbably long knife. It had to have a wooden or ceramic handle around all that metal or she wouldn't have been able to hold it.
"They're here to help us, Bitter. They'll help you be big enough for everything we want."
She blinked again as if she heard him but couldn't understand. I wondered if we were too late for reason. Had her mental illness eaten her to the point where bloodlust was more important to her than love?
"Bittersweet," he said, "please, honey, can you hear me?" I wasn't the only one worried about her.
"Bittersweet," I said, "do you want to be with Steve?"
Her tiny face screwed up with concentration and then finally she nodded.
"Good," I said. "I'm here to help you be with Steve the way you want to be with him."
Her face was emptying out or filling up. The rage was leaking away, but more personality was coming into her eyes, her face. The knife fell from her hands to clang on the floor and spatter blood so that some droplets hit my skirt. I did my best not to flinch. It wasn't the blood; it was the thought of it being Julian's.
Bittersweet looked at her hands and the fallen knife and wailed. That was the only word for it. It was one of the worst sounds I'd ever heard come from someone. It held despair and torment and utter hopelessness. If the Christian Hell exists, then people should make that sound there.
"Steve, Steve, what did I do now? What did you let me do? I told you not to let me hurt him."
"Bittersweet, is that you?"
"For now," she said, and she looked at me. There was weariness in her face. "You can't make