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snarled elflocks.
"I m here," she d mumbled, mad eyes wide.
Duncan didn t bother to ask how she d known he had sent for the other unseelie faelings of the city.
Fox s powers were odd and unpredictable at the best of times. He also didn t bother to point out that
she was a good eight hours early for the meeting.
Nor did he ask how she had slipped away any questions about her home served only to upset Fox into
incoherence. Most likely she left a changeling behind. If his guesses were true, and the family kept her
locked away with only a hired nurse for company, the substitution wasn t likely to be noticed for a very
long time. Possibly never.
Fox had spent the day hiding with him in the theater, her legs folded up in the ashes of the hearth as she
swayed back and forth, playing with her string and muttering to herself in a singsong voice. Bryan s
cheerful, "Hullo, Fox" had roused her momentarily as the day darkened to evening, but she had
immediately retreated from them again.
Bryan came in and leaned against the wing-backed chair that enfolded Duncan s thin body. "What are
you making, Fox?" he asked.
"I see her," Fox whispered, staring at the tangle of red, white, and black threads. "I see her in my little
web."
"Who?"
"The queen."
Duncan and Bryan exchanged uneasy looks. "Rhiannon?" Duncan asked.
Fox shook her head in annoyance. "No." She leaned closer, peering at something only she could see.
"Look out for the pretty boys. Run away!"
Duncan tried to think how to best pose his question. Fox could be frustratingly literal at times, or else give
an answer totally unrelated to any question. "Fox, can you describe this girl to me?"
Fox gave him a puzzled look. "You know what she looks like," she said reprovingly.
Intuitive dread gripped Duncan. "Mina?"
But Fox only looked confused. She had never met his newest student. "A young woman," Duncan tried
again, starting to feel desperate. "Probably wearing a man s shirt and pants. Hair cut short."
Fox nodded soberly. "That s her. She did something bad. Now they re going to make her stay in the
house with the pretty windows."
Duncan met Bryan s worried gaze. "The Seelie Court. They must have found her somehow." His hand
curled into a fist.
"Then we ve got to do something!" Bryan exclaimed.
For a moment, Duncan hesitated. Sense argued staying put, Bryan s thoughtless gallantry aside. Mina
was certainly not the first unseelie faeling to run afoul of the Court; all those who had gone before her had
been lost. The Court did not willingly give up its victims, and to go to her rescue would most likely end in
three deaths rather than simply one.
Aerin. What did he intend to do, he asked himself bitterly. Remain in safety while another young woman
died? Perhaps he would put a sketch of her up beside Aerin s portrait, make of the mantelpiece a shrine
to his cowardice.
"Mina is my student," he said aloud. "I have some responsibility to her. Fox, can you take us to the place
you saw?"
Fox s lower lip pouted out. "Hounds are there. I don t like Hounds."
"I know, my dear. I promise that you won t have to go near the Hounds, all right? Just show Bryan and
me where they ve taken Mina."
Fox thought about it for a moment, then nodded. Bryan ran to get his staff and coat, and Duncan made to
shift himself into his wheelchair.
Not again. They took Aerin, but I ll be damned before I let them have Mina as well.
~*~
Mina slowly became aware that she was lying on something cold and hard. A gritty surface dug into her
cheek, and her muscles were cramped. She tried to move, but the heavy drag of iron held her down.
Startled, she opened her eyes and discovered herself lying on the floor of a tiny cell. Iron manacles laced
together her wrists, ankles, and throat.
Where the hell am I? Her brain moved sluggishly, trying to sort back through memories that had been
reduced to a hazy fog. She had been walking through the market on her way to Duncan s. She d heard a
noise behind her and turned around. There had been strange men and Hounds...then things got confused.
Her heart went cold. Hounds. The servants of the seelie faelings who Duncan claimed wanted to kill
every unseelie faeling in Niune.
So why wasn t she dead?
Mina tried to sit up, making sure that all her parts worked the way they were supposed to. The iron
chains made a hellish amount of racket that must have gotten someone s attention, because the judas in
the heavy wooden door shot open at just that moment. Eyes blue as summer stared in at her.
"Hello?" Mina said uncertainly. "Where am I? Why am I here?"
The judas closed again. Mina s shoulders slumped, and she leaned back against the cold rock wall, then
tried to scramble up again as the door creaked slowly open. The chains entangled her legs, nearly making
her fall.
Two of the pale, bizarre men stepped in. Their faces, blank as snowdrifts, revealed nothing. They
grabbed her by each arm. She tried to struggle, but her bonds were too tight and they, too strong. They
dragged her from the cell and down a narrow hall into a large room of undecorated stone. Several other
guards waited there, all of them with the same bleached hair and eyes.
A man stood in the midst of the automaton guards, a bright splash of color among dreary white. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]