"I have been on my own for three years, a little over. I have taken nothing from anyone. I have been a woman on my own, free of obligation to anyone of the fey."

"Which means you can invoke virgin rights when you return to court."

I nodded. "Exactly." Virgin in the old Celtic ideal was a woman who stood on her own, owing nothing to anyone for a space of time. Three years was minimum for claiming it at court. To be virgin meant that I was outside any old feuds or grudges. I could not be forced to take sides on any issue, because I stood apart from all of it. It was a way of being in the court, without being of the court.

"Very good, Princess, very good. You know the law and how to use it for your benefit. You are wise as well as polite, a true marvel for an Unseelie royal."

"Being virgin allowed me to make hotel reservations without risking the queen's anger," I said.

"She was puzzled as to why you did not wish to stay at the court. After all, you want to return to us, do you not?"

I nodded. "Yes, but I also want some distance until I see just how safe I'm going to be at court."

"Few would risk the queen's anger," he said.

I looked at him, searching his eyes so I would catch whatever he thought of my next words. "Prince Cel would risk her anger, because she's never seriously punished him for anything he's ever done."

Doyle's eyes tightened when I mentioned Cel's name, but nothing more. If I hadn't been watching for it, I wouldn't have noticed any reaction at all.

"Cel is her only heir, Doyle; she won't kill him. He knows that."

Doyle gave me empty eyes. "What the queen does, or does not do, with her son and heir, is not for me to question."

"Don't give the party line, Doyle, not to me. We all know what Cel is."

"A powerful sidhe prince who has the ear of the queen, his mother," Doyle said, and the tone in his voice was a warning to match the words.

"He has only one hand of power, and his other abilities are not that great."

"He is the Prince of Old Blood, and I for one would not want him using that ability on me on the dueling ground. He could bring every bleeding wound I have had in over a thousand years of battles on me at once."

"I didn't say it wasn't a frightening ability, Doyle. But there are others with more powerful magic, sidhe that can bring true death with a touch. I've seen your flame eat over a sidhe, seen it eat them alive."

"And you killed the last two sidhe that challenged you to a duel, Princess Meredith."

"I cheated," I said.

"No, you did not. You merely used tactics that they were not prepared for. It is the mark of a good soldier to use the weapons available to him or her."

We looked at each other. "Does anyone but the queen know that I have the hand of flesh now?"

"Sholto knows, and his sluagh. It will not be a secret by the time we land."

"It may frighten any would-be challengers," I said.

"To be trapped forever as a shapeless ball of flesh, never to die, never to age, merely to continue; oh, yes, Princess, I think they will be afraid. After Griffin… left you, many became your enemy, because they thought you powerless. They will all be remembering the insults they heaped upon you. They'll be wondering if you have come back holding a grudge."

"I'm invoking virgin rights—that means that I have a clean slate, and so do they. If I acknowledge an old vendetta, then I lose my status as a virgin, and I'll be sucked right back into the middle of all this crap." I shook my head. "No, I'll leave them alone if they leave me alone."

"You are wise beyond your years, Princess."

"I'm thirty-three, Doyle, that's not a child by human years."

He laughed, a small dark chuckle that made me think of what he'd looked like last night with half his clothes gone. I tried to keep the thought out of my face, and I must have succeeded, because his own expression didn't change. "I remember when Rome was merely a wide spot in the road, Princess. Thirty-three years is a child to me."

I let what I was thinking into my eyes. "I don't remember you treating me like a child last night."

He looked away, not meeting my eyes. "That was a mistake."

"If you say so." I looked out the window, watching the clouds. Doyle was determined to pretend that last night never happened. I was tired of trying to talk about it, when he so obviously didn't want to discuss it.

The flight attendant came back. This time she knelt, skirt tight across her thighs. She smiled up at Doyle, magazines spread in a fan across one arm. "Would you like something to read?" She laid her free hand on his leg, slid her hand along the inside of his thigh.

Her hand was an inch from his groin when Doyle grabbed her wrist and moved her hand. "Madam, please."

She knelt closer to him, one hand on either of his knees, the magazines partially hiding what she was doing. She leaned in so that her breasts pressed against his legs. "Please," she whispered. "Please, it's been so long since I was with one of you."

That got my attention. "How long has it been?" I asked.

She blinked as if she couldn't quite concentrate on me with Doyle sitting so close. "Six weeks."

"Who was it?"

She shook her head. "I can keep a secret, just don't deny me." She looked up at Doyle. "Please, please."

She was elf-struck. If a sidhe has sex with a human and doesn't try to tone down the magic, they can turn the human into a sort of addict. Humans that are elf-struck can actually wither and die from want of the touch of sidhe flesh.

I leaned close to Doyle's ear, close enough that my lips brushed the edges of his earrings. I had a horrible urge to lick one of the earrings, but I didn't. It was just one of those wicked urges you get occasionally. I whispered, "Take her name and phone number. We'll need to report her to the Bureau of Human and Fey Affairs." Doyle did what I asked.

The flight attendant had tears of gratitude shining in her eyes when Doyle took her name, number, and address. She actually kissed his hand and might have done more if the male flight attendant hadn't ushered her away.

"It's illegal to have sex with humans without protecting their minds," I said.

"Yes, it is," Doyle said.

"It would be interesting to know who her sidhe lover was."

"Lovers, I think," Doyle said.

"I wonder if she always flies the L. A. to St. Louis run?"

Doyle looked at me. "She might know who'd been flying back and forth to Los Angeles often enough to set up the cult that's worshiping them."

"One man doesn't constitute a cult," I said.

"You told me the woman mentioned a handful of others, some of them with ear implants, or perhaps even sidhe themselves."

"That's still not a cult—it's a wizard with followers, a sidhe-worshiping coven at best."

"Or a cult at worst. We have no idea how many people were involved, Princess, and the man who could have answered the question is dead."

"Funny how the police didn't mind me leaving the state with a murder investigation hanging over my head."

"I would not at all be surprised if your aunt, our queen, made some phone calls. She can be quite charming when she wants to be."

"And when that fails, she's scary as hell," I said.

He nodded. "That, too."

The male flight attendant took care of first class for the rest of the flight. The woman never came near us again, until we were getting off the plane. Then she took Doyle's hand, and said, voice urgent, "You will call me, won't you?"

Doyle kissed her hand. "Oh, yes, I will call, and you will answer every question that I put to you honestly, won't you?"

She nodded, tears trailing down her face. "Anything you want."

I had to drag Doyle away from her. I whispered, "I'd take a chaperone with me when you go to question her."

"I had not intended going alone," he said. He looked at me, our faces very close because we were whispering. "I learned very recently that I am not unaccessible to sexual advances." His look was very frank, open, the look I'd wanted on the plane. "I will have to be more careful in the future." With that he raised up, so that he was too tall for whispering, and began to walk down the narrow hallway toward the airport proper. I followed him.

We left the noise of engines behind and walked toward the sound of people.