When Lyssa stil said nothing, Rhoswen reached out and curled a hand in her hair, twining an ebony lock around her fingers, her nails sliding along Lyssa's col ar bone. The gesture was threatening and feral. Jacob shifted, and Cayden shifted with him, only instead of the expected jab of the sword, he felt the male's hand on his arm, a firm but not bruising grip.

“'Tis a catfight at this point. Let them show their claws.”

Cayden spoke in a bare murmur, too soft to be heard by the otherwise occupied queens. Perhaps the captain was also trying to find a solution here that didn't involve bringing the room down around their ears.

Rhoswen leaned in, her lips brushing Lyssa's ear.

“Remember what I told you, half-breed. The combined magical ability in this room subjugates you to my will , whatever that will is.” Lyssa turned her head so there were only inches between their intent faces. “You were sure your power alone was up to that chal enge a moment ago. I'll be happy to test your theory against greater numbers.”

“Your Majesty.” Jacob knew he was stepping fully into the zone of his lady's displeasure by speaking out of turn this time, but he did it anyway, with another glance at Cayden. As the guard captain released him, Jacob dropped back down to one knee. “I will service you however you need. I only require my lady's permission, because I refuse no order from her lips.” Lifting his gaze, he met Rhoswen's. “Anything I do for you will be because she commands it.”

They kept putting the queen into positions where she had to save face. He knew Lyssa was as aware of that as he was, but he wondered why his lady was playing such a precarious game, straddling the line between courtesy and royal umbrage, offering no deference to the Fae queen at all before her subjects.

I can detect the presence of Fae somewhat the way I do vampires, Jacob. Keldwyn, Rhoswen and her guardsmen are the only real beings in this room.

That was a disturbing revelation, given how much power it must take to make the courtiers corporeal, moving and responding as such, like when Cayden was bowled into their ranks. However, it explained a great deal about Rhoswen's mercurial behavior. She wasn't performing for an audience at all, but motives of her own.

“As you said, he has his uses.” The Fae queen spoke again, responding to Jacob's courteous chal enge. “Though I expect at times you have an equal desire to turn him into a frog.”

“There are various punishments I have concocted for him,” Lyssa said tonelessly. “While creative, that has not been one of them.”

“Queen Rhoswen.” Keldwyn spoke. Jacob had almost forgotten he was present. The Fae Lord stepped forward, sketching a bow to her.

“Notice it's not ‘my lady' or ‘your majesty,'” Rhoswen remarked acidly. “He does everything within the bounds of courtesy and etiquette, though his hatred of me rol s off in waves.”

“You did bind his child in a prison for over two decades,” Lyssa observed.

“She is not his child. She's the child of the woman he loved. And children are like acorns, scattered over the ground. Some will root and grow, some will be eaten, and some will simply rot, fal en into corners where they are forgotten. Until they become trees, they are not important.”

“Yet without them, there are no trees,” Keldwyn said. He met her gaze. “My queen, there is a way you can resolve the fate of Lady Lyssa and her consort without a battle of will s. The Quest Gauntlet.” He turned toward Lyssa, his tone polite. “In our world, three quests must be met to determine if a subject is worthy to have his or her opinion bear weight in an unresolved matter, even if that matter is with the royal court. How they comport themselves for those quests, the queen's decision and discretion concerning them, settles the issue. The queen has used this method before—”

“For ful -blooded Fae who live in our world.”

“Your Majesty, the Quest Gauntlet is well proven in its fairness toward High Court or lesser Fae. As our queen, you are guided by the magical energies that pervade our world to set the tasks. If you do that as ably as you have always done it in the past, justly testing the mettle of others, then you may resolve many of your concerns in this matter as well.” The queen's gaze sparked with true malevolence.

But the exchange told Jacob something else important. There were rules here, and the queen was not disposed to ignore them.

“I would suggest,” Keldwyn continued in the pregnant silence, “that, despite my duplicity, their successful ability to arrive here after freeing Catriona would qualify as the first quest. Under the old ways.”

“So sure of that, are you?” The queen's voice was acid.

“If you agree,” he said, keeping his tone deferential, “then whatever two additional quests that are set might need to be arranged in accordance with the missive I've brought from the Seelie Court.

Since Lady Lyssa's coming has aligned with the annual Samhain Hunt, the Seelie king requires her attendance. He would very much like to meet the daughter of Lord Reghan.”

Jacob was kneeling in the aisle between the retainers. At Keldwyn's words, the moving water became ice beneath his knees, so solid and clear that he found himself gazing down into the water foundation of the castle. More undines swam there, hazy outlines through the frosted surface. Mist shrouded the hal , and snow fel thickly, swirling like a mild blizzard, kissing the skin with prickling cold.

The tense moment proved Lyssa right. There were no retainers in the hal . The animated, colorful figures were gone, replaced by a far more sparse assembly of ice sculptures in various poses. Cloven-hooved satyrs, the elusive nixen with ropes of seaweed tangled hair, winged Fae. One of them, looking much like Catriona, balanced on one slender toe, turning slowly under the snow flakes like a music box dancer in a snow globe.

Despite that entrancing picture, his attention snapped from it as Rhoswen spoke three words, bul ets capable of cracking the thick ice beneath them, threatening death in hypothermic waters.

“How dare you.”

Keldwyn's gaze flickered. Cayden had lowered his sword, obviously no longer considering Jacob a threat. However, his jaw was tight as iron, suggesting he'd like to use the blade on the Fae Lord.

“I am merely delivering His Majesty's exact message,” Keldwyn said, unconcerned. “I am a liaison between both courts, Your Majesty, as you well know. I paid my respects to the Seelie king before I came here. He asked me my business in returning to our world. The interest is purely his, no influence of mine. You assume far greater things of this humble Fae than I am capable.”

“Oh, no doubt. One day, Keldwyn, you will cross the line, and the very laws you use will damn you.

And then you will pay for your presumption, for as long as it gives me pleasure to exact it.”

“Perhaps one day we will both see impossible dreams granted, Your Majesty.”

Jacob waited for things to go very bad. Lyssa's hand, resting on his shoulder, tightened perceptibly, suggesting his lady was braced for the same. But then Rhoswen gave a bitter laugh. She tossed her hair back, dispel ing a shower of snow flurries, and abruptly the room was no longer an ice garden. It was merely a hal of mirrors and fal ing water, reflecting each other in a never-ending cycle. Though Jacob didn't expect to see himself, he noted none of them reflected, so it was stil impossible to see who stood inside the hal . . . or if they were in such a place at all. Reality was hard to pin down here.

“Very well. The Quest Gauntlet it is. You are permitted to choose a champion, Lady Lyssa, or accept the quests yourself.”

“I'm her champion.”

“I accept.”

They spoke at once, though Lyssa gave Jacob a searing look. You have learned to speak out of turn far too often, Sir Vagabond.

I speak out of turn only for your protection, my lady. With respect, there's been great need of that of late.

“Well, that will make things interesting,” Rhoswen said, those blue eyes measuring. “One for each of you, I think. The first will be delivered to you on the night of the Hunt, but in deference to your busy social schedule, that one will be your champion's quest, not yours.”

Lyssa's jaw tightened. “He is my servant. He cannot accept a quest on my behalf if I wish to take it for myself.”

“The queen's discretion, remember? This is the way it must happen. As Kel said, the powers that guide me in the Quest Gauntlet know best.” Interestingly, there was no sarcasm attending that statement, and when she turned to Cayden, all traces of anger had once again vanished. She was as remote as any monarch dealing with matters of mundane consequence. “Provide them a suitable guest room. They may wander as they will in our world. Make sure they are brought to the Hunt site at the proper time.”

Cayden gave a short bow, though Jacob noticed as the queen turned away, he looked at Keldwyn. If ever there was an I'm-so-going-to-kick-your-ass look, it was on the captain's face. Keldwyn arched an anytime-you-feel-lucky-son brow. Definitely so many things happening here above their heads, and it was not an easy feeling. Jacob's intuition was going off like a blaring fire alarm. Just like a Vampire Council session, the more inside intel they had on what all the political maneuvering was about, the more likely they'd survive. They needed a way to get more information.

I agree. And my servant needs a lesson in obedience. It seems we can handle two birds with one net.

“Queen Rhoswen?”

The queen had been striding toward the base of her throne, suggesting that behind the four-way waterfal was an exit to another location in the castle.

Now she paused. In the beat of time before she turned her head toward Lyssa, Jacob wondered if she'd been wiping an expression from her face.

Frustration, rage? Weariness?

“Your Majesty, you spoke of a desire to lie with my servant. Was that a true desire?”

Rhoswen pivoted, a slow movement that drew the eye to the tempting shape of her delineated by the corset. It was only enhanced as she swept her fal of hair from the left shoulder, making the silver cloak she wore ripple. “It was.”