The second brownie rushed to my side. “I’m sorry, Druid macGrey. The driver should have let you sit in back.”

She hurried to keep pace with me into the lobby. “I insisted on the front. Are you my escort?”

“Yes, sir. This way, sir.” Two more liveried servants flanked an elevator. I stepped inside with my anxious escort, and she pressed the floor panel for the Presidential Suite, the best rooms in the place. Despite its name, more royalty than democratically elected officials stayed in the suite.

The elevator escort turned me over to yet another servant in the suite’s foyer. He was in what might be called uniform casual since he didn’t have a cap or epaulets. If I’d been dealing with anyone else but a royal member of the Seelie Court, I’d have suspected someone was trying to either impress or intimidate me. But I knew the Seelie Court. They took this level of servitude for granted and didn’t care what I thought.

The house servant bowed and left me in the living room. I supposed the room made some people feel at home, but it looked nothing like my place. The room was decorated in soft shades of blue and beige, with vaguely Asian accents. It had three sofas in a space larger than my entire apartment. The lamps had been lowered to let the harbor lights twinkle in the windows. Quiet music played, a traditional harp-and-flute melody that I assumed was meant to be soothing.

Ceridwen stepped into the room, stopping in front of the windows to face me with a soft expression that grew into a small smile. She wore casual clothing, a flowing tunic in rust with loose pants. She had gathered her hair in a loose knot at the middle of her back. “I’m glad you came.”

I strolled to the center of the room, still taking in the surroundings. “I wasn’t sure I had a choice.”

She laughed, not loud but too long, as she turned to the wet bar and filled two small glasses with whiskey. She handed one to me, held hers up, and we tapped.

“Sláinte,” she said.

“And yours,” I responded.

We sipped. She didn’t say anything but stood with a slight glimmer of the whiskey on her deep maroon lips before gesturing to the sofas. “Let’s sit.”

She draped herself along the end of a couch, pulling her bare feet up off the floor and toying with her glass. “We seem to have gotten off to a bad start.”

I leaned back into one of the other sofas. “Are we at the start of something?”

She smiled through another sip. “We offended… I offended you. I apologize.”

I chuckled. “You must really want something if you’re willing to apologize.”

Ceridwen stared at her glass, perhaps deciding how to respond. “I am here for the truth of what happened at Forest Hills. No one here has been cooperative.”

“Maybe you should try a little less emphasis on commanding presence and a little more on diplomacy.”

She laughed again, this time honestly. “Yes, well, there is that. I’m not used to having my motives questioned. At Tara, the knowledge that I desire an answer is sufficient to produce results.”

“This country has a problem with that attitude. We had a little revolution over it.”

She nodded, continuing to affect a bemused smile. “Yes. I noticed you said ‘we.’ You consider yourself a citizen here?”

I leaned my elbows on my knees, rolling the glass between my palms. “I’ve never sworn fealty to Maeve, if that’s what you’re asking. Have you?”

She slid from the couch and retrieved the decanter. She topped off my glass before sitting again. “Of course. All the underKings and — Queens did after Convergence. It was necessary.”

I eyed her over my glass. “Necessary, but not sincere?”

She pursed her lips in amusement. “Oh, I don’t think you know me well enough to dare that question. The events of Forest Hills were felt at Tara. There was a dimming of essence. Do you really not remember anything else from Forest Hills?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“What if I said I don’t believe you?”

I shrugged. “What if I said I don’t care?”

The appearance of amusement finally slipped from her. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with, Connor macGrey. A druid with no abilities means nothing to the players involved.”

I smiled broadly to annoy her. “And yet here is a queen of Faerie serving me drinks.”

She gave me a measured look, then turned on her bemused smile again. “So it would seem.”

She rose from the couch and went to the windows. The music played as she stared off to the harbor. One of the ways I can distinguish the difference between the fey and human normals is by the strength of their body essence. The fey have a more pronounced aura around them and, as Ceridwen stood looking out the window, I felt her withdraw hers into herself as much as she could. “Call the spear.”

I stood. “Why?”

She didn’t face me, but her eyes shifted to my reflection in the glass. “I want to see if you were able to take it from me because you were in a place of concentrated power. It’s at the Guildhouse now. If it responds to your call from there, it’s bonded to you.”

I debated whether she was leading me into a trap. I couldn’t see how it would be any more of a risk than walking into her suite. She didn’t need the spear if she were going to overpower me. I lifted my hand. “Ithbar.”

I felt the coolness of activated essence, and the spear appeared, cold and slick in my hand. The faint odor of ozone tickled my nostrils.

Ceridwen did not turn but lowered her chin. She held a hand out. “Ithbar.”

The spear shivered out of my hand and into hers. I clenched my stomach as she turned and planted the butt of the spear on the ground. “We are not pleased by this. The spear is ours, Connor macGrey. It would be foolish of you to forget that.”

“If you own it, tell it to ignore me,” I said.

“This spear is key to the defense of Tara, Grey. Maeve is under threat; perhaps the entire Seelie Court is. If you interfere with our security, you could doom yourself as well.”

“What threat?” I asked.

She compressed her lips, annoyance flaring in her eyes. “Bergin Vize. That is all you need to know. That should be enough to tell you the danger of Maeve’s situation. I am appealing to your honor as a druid of our people. You must tell me how to control the Taint.”

I wondered if the mere mention of Vize’s name was expected to throw me into a panicked rage. Maybe a few weeks earlier it might have worked, but at the moment, Ceridwen’s motives were too suspect for me to buy into it. “That’s a pretty clumsy attempt to get me to cooperate. I’ve already told you everything I know. I know nothing more about the Taint and even less about the spear. You brought the spear into this, not me. I have no idea why it bonded to me, but obviously you don’t have the control over it you thought you did. Don’t blame me, and don’t threaten me.”

Her eyes went cold, the fathomless cold of an ancient fey. “We make a better ally than enemy.”

As unsettling as her stare was, I wouldn’t let it cow me. “So do I, Ceridwen.”

I sensed her essence surge, but she held it within instead of releasing it on me. It ebbed away. It probably had occurred to her that a dead body in such a nice hotel would wreck the carpet.

A faint bitterness crept into her face. “You wouldn’t last long at Court.”

I gave her my back and walked toward the foyer. “Maybe Court wouldn’t last long around me.”

I let myself out. The liveried servant startled when I appeared at the elevator. He must have been expecting a sending to tell him we had finished. The elevator opened on the same anxious woman who had ridden up with me. “Sir,” she said.

We didn’t speak until we hit the lobby. I held my hand up and said, “Ithbar.” The spear materialized in my hand. I handed it to the brownie. “Please delivery this to Ceridwen. Tell her to be careful; the point can be sharp.”

I hated when royalty acted like royalty. It was why I never considered the diplomatic corps. Briallen might have felt comfortable playing their annoying games of privilege, but they made me want to hit the players. If I hadn’t gotten the point across to Ceridwen that she couldn’t intimidate me, she sure as hell would get it when her servant got back upstairs.