I was beginning to see where the Merchant got it from. “With Douglas?”
The Queen of Winter nodded.
“They weren’t his to give.”
“That is a matter of perspective.”
Faery bargains were a mystery to me. It’d probably have been safer to learn more about them but seriously fuck that noise. “Okay, but either way aren’t they yours now, and so can’t you give them back if you want to?”
“I do not want to.”
“Well, if you want peace with Safernoc.” I shrugged in a “whaddya gonna do” kind of a way.
The light shifted and the vision shifted with it. “I do not want peace with Safernoc,” said the King of Shadows.
“Is this a divided-against-yourself thing? Because that’s going to make negotiations messy.”
He shook his head. “I want peace with the Deepwild.”
Ah. That made a difference.
“All you need to do,” he continued, “is remain neutral in my battle with the wolves of Safernoc Hall. They have not been your mother’s creatures in centuries and you have no claim on them now.”
I had no idea what my mother had to do with any of this, but I thought it was best not to say so. “And what do I get in return?”
“The vampire.”
I wasn’t falling for that one. “Which vampire. There are two.”
He smiled. I wasn’t sure if he’d been trying to trap me with that one, or if he just appreciated the attention to detail. After all, that was supposed to be where the devils were. “The Prince of Wands. He will come for you when he is done with your allies. You defied him and he does not like to be defied.”
“Yeah, kinda knew that already. I’ve got a plan.” I didn’t, but I liked to think that keep running and hope it all works out mostly okay was a reasonable substitute for one.
“He is old.” The King of Shadows walked in a half-circle around me, drawing closer and stepping back into the light. “I am older,” said the Queen of Winter. “He knows power but does not know it so well as he believes.”
I turned to face her. She was all up in my grill at this point and I wasn’t happy about that but I also wasn’t backing down. Her breath on my face was like the wind off the north sea. “I think I’m beginning to get what’s happening here.”
“Enlighten me.” Her tone was frost on a windowpane, ice cracking beneath your feet.
Odds were I’d get one chance to pivot this, because I had a crappy hand and my best option here was to hope she was bluffing as hard as I was. “You’re a primordial being of ice and darkness and were making dark pacts with unsuspecting mortals before Sebastian Douglas was even born. But your kind have weakened over the years and his have grown stronger. You’ve backed away into the dark forests while he’s spent centuries gathering power and knowledge and secrets.” I took a deep breath. Not that I probably needed to because, y’know, dreaming, but the instinct was hard to break. “If I had to make a guess—and it is just a guess, I won’t pretend it’s not—neither of you is quite sure who has the upper hand here, and because you’re both complete arseholes neither of you like not knowing. You’re both expecting a showdown when the wolves are dealt with, and you’re both hoping you can screw the other before they screw you.”
She stepped back, shadows falling across her. “An interesting suggestion,” said the King of Shadows. “But no mortal gets the better of me.”
“Sebastian Douglas isn’t mortal.”
“There was a time before him, there will be a time after. He is mortal enough.”
I gave him my most I call bullshit look. “You know I’ve killed one of your lot too, right?” That might have been the wrong thing to say, but fuck it felt good to say it. I mean, yeah, I’d had the advantage of a now-shattered magic sword and an ancient warrior-vampire backing me up, but I knew first hand that the King-Queen wasn’t indestructible.
“Which is why I’ve come to bargain with you. You have power. I ask only that you turn that power away from me and towards one who will do you far more harm in future.”
When he put it like that, it did sound reasonable. “And all you ask in return is that I sell out my friends.”
“If you believe the wolves are your friends, you are a greater fool than I could possibly have imagined.”