"Trust me, Meredith."

I took his free hand in mine, fingers sliding around his. My hand was lost in his. "I do trust you, Barinthus."

He held my hand delicately as if afraid I would break. "Meredith, little Meredith." His face softened as he spoke. "You were always a mixture of directness, coyness, and tenderness."

"I'm not as tender as I used to be, Barinthus."

He nodded. "The world does tend to beat such things out of you, unfortunately." He brought my hand to his lips and laid a gentle kiss against my fingers. His lips brushed the ring and sent a tingling wave through both of us.

He looked solemn again, face closing down, as he dropped my hand. "What, Barinthus? What?" I grabbed his arm.

He shook his head. "It has been a very long time since that ring has come to life in such a manner."

"What does the ring have to do with anything?" I asked.

"It had become just another piece of metal, and now it lives again."

"And?" I asked.

He looked past me to Galen. "Let's get her to the room. The queen does not like to be kept waiting."

Galen took the key from me and unlocked the door. He checked the room for spells and hidden dangers while Barinthus and I waited in the hall.

"Tell me what it means that the ring reacts to you and Galen, but not my grandmother."

He sighed. "The queen once used the ring to choose her consorts."

I raised eyebrows at him. "Which means, what?"

"It reacts to men that the ring deems worthy of you."

I stared up at him, searching that handsome, exotic face. "What does that mean, worthy of me?"

"The queen is the only one who knows the complete powers of the ring. I know only that it has been centuries since the ring has been alive on her hand. That it lives for you is both good and dangerous. The queen might be jealous that the ring is yours now."

"She gave it to me—why would she be jealous?"

"Because she is the Queen of Air and Darkness." He said it as if that explained it all. In a way it did, in a way did not. Like so much about our queen, it was a paradox.

Galen came to the door. "All clear."

Barinthus walked past him, forcing Galen to step back out of the way of the big man and the suitcase. "What's his problem?" Galen asked.

"The ring, I think." I stepped into the room. It was a typical box room done in shades of blue.

Barinthus had put the suitcase on one of the dark blue bedspreads. "Please make haste, Meredith. Galen and I still have to dress for dinner."

I looked at him standing in the blue-on-blue room. He matched the decor. If the room had been green, Galen would have matched. You could color code your bodyguards to your room. I laughed.

"What?" Barinthus asked.

I motioned at him. "You match the room."

He looked around as if he'd just noticed the blue print wallpaper, the dark blue bedspreads, the powder blue carpet. "So I do. Now, please, get dressed." He unzipped the suitcase to emphasize the request, though it had the taste of an order, no matter how it was worded.

"Is there a deadline I'm not aware of?" I asked.

Galen sat down on the other bed. "I agree with the big guy on this one. The queen's planning a welcome home event for you, and she won't like waiting for us to get dressed, and if we're not dressed in the outfits she had made for us, she'll be angry with us."

"Are the two of you going to be in trouble?" I asked.

"Not if you hurry," Galen said.

I went into the bathroom with the carry-on bag. I'd packed my outfit for tonight in the bag just in case the suitcase went missing. I didn't want to have to do emergency shopping for an outfit that would meet with my aunt's approval for court fashion. Slacks were not appropriate dinner wear for women. Sexist, but true. Dinner was formal attire, always. If you didn't want to dress up, you could eat in your room.

I slipped into black satin and lace panties. The bra was underwire, firm hold with lace. The hose were black and thigh high. The old human saying about wearing clean underwear in case you get hit by a bus applied to the Unseelie Court, sort of. Here you wore nice underwear because the queen might see it. Though truthfully I liked knowing that everything I wore was pretty, even the things that touched my skin where no one else would see.

I darkened the eye shadow and mascara to shades of grey and white. I applied enough eyeliner that my eyes stood out in shocking relief, like emeralds and gold set in ebony. I chose a shade of lipstick that was a dark, dark wine burgundy.

I had two Spyderco folding knives. I flipped one of them open. It was a six-inch blade, long, slender, gleaming silver, but it was steel—their military model. Steel or iron was what you needed against my relatives. The other knife was much smaller—a Delica. Each knife had a clip-on so you just slipped them over your clothing. I checked both knives for ease of release, then closed them, and put them on. The Delica fit down the center of the bra on the underwire. I slipped a black garter over my left leg, not to hold up the hose—they didn't need it—but to hold the military blade.

I slipped the dress out of the garment bag. The dress was a deep rich burgundy. It had just enough strap to hide the bra. The bodice was satin, tight and fitted; the rest of the dress was a softer, more natural-looking cloth, falling in a soft, clinging line to the floor. The matching jacket was made of the same soft burgundy cloth except for the satin lapels.

I had an ankle holster complete with a Beretta Tomcat, their newest.32 auto pistol. The thing weighed nearly a pound. There were guns out there that were smaller, but if I had to shoot someone tonight, I wanted more than a. 22 backing me up. The real trouble with ankle holsters is that they make you walk funny. There is a tendency to drag the foot that the holster's on, to widen your step in an odd little movement. The added problem was I was wearing hose, and the chances of not snagging them on the holster as I walked were pretty much nil. But it was the only place I could think to hide a gun that wasn't obvious just by glancing at me. I'd sacrifice the hose to keep the gun.

I walked back and forth in the burgundy high heels. They were only two-inch heels. The better to move quickly in, and with a skirt this long most people wouldn't be noticing how high, or how low, my heels were. I'd had the shop where I bought the dress hem it for the shoes. At five foot even, you don't buy off-the-rack formals, wear two-inch heels, and not have to hem the dress.

I added the jewelry last. The necklace was antique metal darkened until it was almost black, with only hidden glimpses of the true silver color. The stones were garnets. I purposefully hadn't cleaned the metal so that it would keep that dark color. I thought the stain set the garnets off nicely.

I'd gone to the trouble of curling under the ends of my hair so that it brushed my shoulders. It gleamed a red so dark it was the color of the garnets. The burgundy dress brought out a matching burgundy sheen in my hair.

My aunt might let me keep my weapons or she might not. I probably wouldn't be challenged to a duel my first night back with a special request from the queen herself for my presence, but… it was always better to be armed. There are things at the court that aren't royal and don't fight duels. They are the things that have always been of the Host—the monsters of our race, our kind—and they do not reason as we do. Sometimes, for no reason that anyone can explain, one of the monsters will attack. People can die before it can be stopped.

So why keep such unstable horrors around? Because the only rule that has always been in the Unseelie Court is that all are welcome. No one, nothing, may be turned away. We are the dark dumping ground of nightmares too wicked, too twisted, for the light of the Seelie Court. So it is, so it has always been, so it will always be. Though being accepted into the court doesn't mean you're accepted as one of the sidhe. Sholto and I both could attest to that.

I looked in the mirror one more time, added a touch more lip pencil, and that was it. I put the lip pencil in the small beaded purse that matched the dress. What did the queen want of me? Why had she insisted I come home? Why now? I let out a long breath, watching the satin across my chest rise and fall. Everything about me gleamed: my skin, my eyes, my hair, the deep gleam of the garnets at my throat. I looked lovely. Even I could admit that. The only thing that said I was not pure sidhe was my height. I was just too short to be one of them.

I added a small brush to the lipstick in my small purse, then had to decide whether I was going to take more makeup to use to freshen up throughout the evening or a small sleek canister of mace. I chose the mace. If you have a choice between extra makeup or extra weapons, always take the weapons. Just the fact that you're debating between those two choices proves that you're going to need the weapons more.