He ran his fingers over the metal. "That's simply not true. She's lying."
"The sidhe don't lie, Ambassador, you know that. That's a human habit."
Stevens's fingers were practically rubbing a hole through the watchband. "The Unseelie are capable of every evil. Their very faces show them for what they are."
It was Nelson who said, "Their faces are beautiful."
"You are fooled by their magic," Stevens said. "The king gave me the power to see through their deceptions." His voice was rising with each word.
"The watch," I said.
"So this," Shelby gestured at me, "beauty is illusion?"
"Yes," Stevens said.
"No," I said.
"Liar," he screamed, shoving his chair back so that it rolled on its wheels. He started walking past Biggs and Farmer, toward me.
Doyle and Frost moved like two halves of a whole. They simply stood in front of him, blocking his way. There was no magic to it, except the force of their physicality. Stevens stumbled back from them as if he'd been struck. His face contorted in terror, and he cried out, "No, no!"
Some of the lawyers were standing now. Cortez said, "What are they doing to him?"
Veducci managed to yell above Stevens's screams. "I can't see anything."
"We are doing nothing to him," Doyle said, his deep voice cutting under the higher-pitched voices like water undercutting a cliff face.
"The hell you aren't," Shelby yelled, adding to the noise of Stevens's screams and those of the others.