Tell me, Mercedes, how is it that you managed to bring not only a fae, but a wolf with you when you were not to speak of this to them?" I gave her the short version.
"I taped our phone conversation." "I see." She looked like she'd swallowed a lemon, but didn't complain.
"So, Mercedes Thompson, you would cry bargain." She smiled coolly.
"You want to exchange the Silver Borne for your life?" Ariana gave me a sharp look, but I knew how to listen--and I knew about fairy bargains that left you ruing the day you made them, even before I'd read Phin's book.
If I wasn't really careful, I could bargain the book for my life--and end up wishing myself dead.
For instance, I could get out of here and be forced to leave Jesse and Gabriel behind.
"I don't know," I said, squirming under the weight of the fairy queen's gaze.
I bit the inside of my lip until it bled--and it hurt because human-shaped teeth aren't sharp enough to cut through skin easily.
"Samuel," I said, "a kiss for courage and clear-seeing, my love?" Samuel turned to me, startled--a kiss was probably the last thing that he'd been thinking of.
I stood on my tiptoes and damn near had to climb him to get to his mouth.
I clamped my open lips to his and tried to get as much blood into his mouth as I could.
After the barest instant he seemed to understand what I was doing.
He participated fully, licked my lip, and set me down gently.
I hoped the blood would work as it had in the bookstore, and that he saw what I did.
It was hard to say from Samuel's reaction, but I thought it had.
Maybe it wouldn't matter, but, outside of the gun in my shoulder holster and the one in the small of Jesse's back, Samuel was our best weapon against the fae.
Maybe he was better than the guns because he'd be a lot harder to stop.
It couldn't hurt to have him know what he was fighting.
"Very affecting," the queen said, sounding bored.
"Are you courageous and clear-sighted enough to give me the Silver Borne yet?" "That is not a bargain," I said, trying to keep her from seeing the blood on my mouth.
"It is an exchange.
I would consider such an exchange only if my comrades are allowed to leave.
It is having them leave here safely and soon that I'm interested in bargaining for." "A true bargain?" she said.
"Do you play an instrument?" The piano and I have a hate-hate relationship.
I didn't consider that playing, and I know my piano teacher hadn't either.
"No." "A different bargain, then.
You hold something of my choosing while it changes.
For each time it changes, I release one person." She snapped her finger, and the witch muttered to herself, and the fae nearest us--a short and fineboned creature with skin like a peach and pinkish green hair--burst into flame.
It wasn't glamour because the room didn't change.
They were real flames even though they didn't seem to hurt the fae.