I met her eyes. They brimmed with tears.

“I killed them, Meryl. With a single, searing thought, I killed three fairies, three druids, and three humans. They were mind-linked to others, and I killed them, too. I killed fourteen people in an instant with my mind, burned them to empty husks. I saved over two thousand people that day, but I did something I can’t ever take back.”

Meryl didn’t hesitate. She got up from the chair and curled in my lap. Wrapping her arms around me, she buried her face into the side of my neck. I felt tears on my cheeks, felt her tears on my neck.

I held her tightly against my chest. “For a few hours with Dylan last night, I really wanted it all back. But then what happened came back in a rush, and I didn’t know what to think. I thought of you. I don’t know exactly what happened to you that night at Forest Hills, Meryl. But when I saw you standing there, blazing with essence, I knew what you had to be going through. I knew and was horrified for you. Don’t think for one moment I don’t understand something of what you gave up that night.”

Her body shuddered against mine as she sobbed. We held each other, and I rocked her, wanting to hold her against everything, keep out everything out that might hurt her. She brought her face up, vibrant red blush against her white skin, tears clinging to her eyelashes.

I closed my eyes. Our lips met and parted, and she didn’t pull away, but held me tighter. Her hands gripped my head as we kissed, my arms encircling her as our mouths met, no more words, but a sharing of what we couldn’t express. I stood, lifting her in my arms as she wrapped her legs around me. Refusing to let go, I lowered us both onto the open futon, tangling into each other, kissing and kissing until it was no longer a kiss but a hunger, an urgent need for connection.

She began to glow, essence coiling off her slick skin and surrounding us both in an aura of white light. My skin burned with electric intensity. The thing in my head shifted, a firm pressure against the back of my eyes, not pain, not pleasure. My body shields activated, but they didn’t repel Meryl. They reacted to her essence and what I was feeling, trying, but not quite merging. I heard a high whining sound and it was me and it was Meryl and it was the power of our joining. The light filled my vision, urging me on, urging both of us, deep rasping breaths as we surrendered to the rush of emotion.

We sprawled away from each other. Chests heaving, we stared at the ceiling. My jeans were twisted around my ankles, and my sodden shirt had ridden up to my chest. Meryl lay with her boots planted on the bed, her skirt flipped up onto her naked torso.

“This isn’t how I pictured it,” I said.

She laughed. “Me either.”

I laughed, too, like I hadn’t in a long time. I rolled toward her and traced a spiral in the moisture of her cleavage.

She trailed her fingers through the thick stubble on my head. Neither of us spoke for the longest time, spooned together and lost in thought.

Meryl cleared her throat. “You never said why you left New York.”

“I couldn’t bear to hurt Dylan after saving him like that.”

She rolled her head toward me. “Why would you hurt him?”

I looked into her eyes. “When I bonded my essence to him, I felt what he felt. I didn’t realize Dylan was in love with me.”

She propped herself on one elbow and leaned her face over mine, her crazy orange hair tickling my cheeks as she gave me a lopsided smile. “Gods, you’re freakin’ clueless sometimes.”

I kissed her again.

After some clothing adjustments, Meryl and I dozed off a couple of times. The final time I woke up, I was alone. No note. She didn’t return the messages I left on her cell. The lack of response was making me anxious.

I hadn’t expected what had happened with her to happen. Sure, I wanted it. Her. But when Meryl wasn’t dismissing my attempts at seduction, she was laughing at them. I was beginning to think her lack of interest was more than teasing. And yet, last night, when it was the farthest thing from my mind, when I felt so alone on the sidewalk in front of my building, she was the first person I thought of, and she responded. Never in my life had I had sex with someone out of grief. I didn’t know what to think about it. It didn’t give me pleasure or pain. Release. It felt like release, but from what I couldn’t quite figure.

Maybe she was upset with me. Maybe she thought the whole evening had been a ploy to get her into bed finally or that I had taken advantage of her at an emotionally vulnerable moment. Maybe I was a bad lay, and she was in shell shock. I threw the last one in to amuse myself. I hoped.

Beyond all the anxiety of what the sex meant in terms of our relationship, I needed to talk to her about my dream again. It had changed. I still saw the stone and the rippling waves, but the two red and black figures at the end appeared to tangle and merge as they fought. In the dream, they were too distant to recognize any features that would identify them as real people. I couldn’t tell if they were related to the stone or the ripples or even each other.

The next day, the door buzzer jolted me out of my chair like an electric shock. Unannounced visitors to my apartment were rare. I didn’t live in a drop-in part of town. No one I knew who would visit me lived in the Weird, except maybe my brother Callin. He wasn’t likely to ring my bell without calling. Given that, my anxiety spiked whenever someone knocked on my door. I was supposed to be living in a secure building, which was kind of a joke since my neighbors were art students and dwarves with crazy schedules. When the door buzzer went off, at least that meant the front door was closed for a change. I pressed the intercom button. “Yes?”

The old speaker crackled with a male voice. “Connor macGrey, Her Highness, Ceridwen, Queen, requests your presence.”

When someone uses the “mac” in my name, it’s a sign they don’t know me at all. “When?”

“Now, sir.”

I leaned on my shoulder against the wall. The hearing wasn’t going to go away. The Seelie Court could drag it out for as along as they wanted, or at least until they were sure that I-or any druid-posed no threat to its power. The fact that Maeve had sent an underQueen to investigate showed how seriously she took the matter. A lesser queen to be sure, but still a queen. I pressed the intercom. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

My sweatpants and T-shirt were not much of a royal audience outfit. I swapped into black jeans and threw a black button-down shirt on and my usual boots, the ones that have one occupied knife sheath each. It wasn’t formal, but I’d be damned if I was going to make myself any more presentable than that on such short notice.

The liveried driver waited outside my building. He opened the rear door of a limo for me.

“I prefer to ride up front,” I said.

He inclined his head and closed the door. “As you prefer then, sir.”

Even though I was basically telling him I was giving up the privilege of being pampered, he walked with me to the opposite side of the car to hold the passenger door for me. He guided the limo back to Old Northern and turned toward the channel bridge. A police squad car sat at the end of the bridge. The lone officer waved as we passed him.

Boston hates limos. The old streets are short and narrow and don’t afford much turning space. People still want their luxuries, though. Two days ago, I had been in a black town car with Dylan. Now, I was in my second limo in as many nights. One could argue I was moving up. I knew better, though. Even when the ride is free, there’s a price to be paid. Besides, I didn’t think Carmine’s pimp limo counted as moving up.

We didn’t travel far but pulled up to the Boston Harbor Hotel. If I’d thrown a rock out the window of my study, I’d have hit the place. Before I could get out, another liveried brownie opened the rear door on the driver’s side. I couldn’t help smiling at the confused look on her face when she saw the empty backseat. I thanked the driver and let myself out.