"But there is always sex among the goblins. Don't most goblins think that one sexual partner is much like another?"

Kurag shrugged. "All goblins are voracious lovers, Merry, but it is the addition of more tender meat to ours that has given rise to trullups. Those who cannot protect themselves, and have no other skills to offer. They are not craftsmen; they do not make anything, or sell anything. They have only one skill, so we allow them to trade that skill for what they need." He didn't look happy about it, as if it somehow offended him, offended his idea of how the world should run.

"We would have killed such weaklings, but once they found shelter with someone who was strong enough to keep them safe, we had to let it bide."

"There can't be many among you like this," I said.

"No, but almost all of them are sidhe-sided." He glanced off to the side of the mirror. "Though not all sidhe-sided are weak." He made a motion, and two men stepped into view of the mirror. At first glance I would have taken them for sidhe, Seelie sidhe. They were both tall, slender, with long yellow hair, and handsome the way that the sidhe sometimes are, with full, generous mouths and a line from brow to cheek to chin that reminded me of Frost. Their skin was that delicate gold the Seelie Court calls sun-kissed. It's rare among them, unheard of among us. But a second glance and you saw the eyes, too large for the face, oblong like Kitto's, and a solid color that gave no white to the eye, only a dark round of pupil lost in a sea of green for one, and red for the other. The green was the color of summer grass. The red was the color of holly berries in deep winter. They were bulkier than sidhe, too, as if they'd done more weight lifting, or the goblin genetics allowed them to simply carry a little more muscle mass.

"This is Holly and this is Ash. Twins left at our doorstep by some Seelie woman after the last great war. They are feared among us." For the King of the Goblins to say this in an introduction was the highest of praise for a goblin warrior —and something of a warning for us, I think.

The one with the red eyes glared at us. The one with the green had a much more neutral look to him, as if he was still deciding whether to hate us. His brother seemed to have already made up his mind.

"Greetings, Holly and Ash, one of the first among Kurag's warriors," I said.

The green-eyed one answered, "Greetings, Meredith, Princess of the Sidhe, wielder of the hand of flesh. I am Ash." His voice was pleasantly neutral. He gave a small bow as he spoke.

His brother turned to him and looked as if he'd strike him. "Do not bow to her. She is nothing to us. Not queen, not princess, nothing."

Kurag was out of his chair and nearly on top of Holly before he could react. Holly actually put his hand on the knife at his belt, then hesitated. If he drew the blade, then Kurag could take it as mortal insult, and the fight would be to the death. Once he drew the blade, it was Kurag's choice. I had a second to see the confusion on his face, then Kurag's hand was a blur, and the younger goblin was on the floor near the chair. Blood flashed in the light like an odd crimson jewel on his golden skin. The blood was almost the same color as his eyes.

"I am king here, Holly, and until you are goblin enough to say different, my word is law."

Holly smeared the blood from his chin onto his sleeve and spoke, still sitting on the ground. "We are not trullups. We have done nothing by our laws that enables you to send us to her bed, to anyone's bed. We need no protectors for our flesh." He coughed and spat blood on the floor. It was an insult among the goblins, wasting blood. He should have drunk it. "We have proven ourselves goblins first, and sidhe not at all, yet you would trade us away to this pale sidhe. We have done nothing to deserve this."

Kurag moved forward in a slow-motion stalk, as if every muscle fought against every other muscle. He wanted to tear Holly apart; it was plain on his face. We watched him try to master his rage.

Ash made a small movement. I wasn't sure what he'd done, but it attracted the eye. The knife at his belt was still sheathed, but he'd done something.

It was Doyle who called, "Kurag, this will be difficult enough without reluctant bed partners."

Kurag looked up at us. "They are too young, Darkness, they do not remember what we were. If Holly understood what we once were, what we could be again, he would go eagerly."

"Are most of your half-sidhes from the last great war?"

Kurag nodded. "Most of the old ones are dead. Sidhe-sides didn't last long among us until we made them trullups."

"We have never been trulls," Holly said.

Ash stood almost smiling at Kurag's back, but one of his hands was hidden against the side of his body. Creeda was behind the throne, and I caught the flash of a blade held in her many hands, but not the hands on the side facing Ash. Had he drawn a blade? Whatever he'd done, Creeda didn't like it. Truthfully, neither did I.

"Enough of this, Kurag," I said. "I will not force myself on anyone. If Holly does not want to be sidhe, then so be it."

"But I want to be sidhe," Ash said in that easy voice that matched the slight smile, and left his green eyes empty and pleasant. He was a born politician, was Ash. His smile widened, but was somehow sad. "My brother and I have never disagreed on anything until this. But I will be sidhe, and Holly will, too."

Creeda was almost close enough to be sure of what he held out of sight. He moved his hand into view. I saw Creeda tense. I felt Doyle and Rhys tense around me. Ash's hand was empty. But I would have bet almost anything that it hadn't been a second ago.

My voice was a little breathy as I asked, "Come and be sidhe then, Ash. Why drag your brother if he is unwilling?"

"Because I will it so," Ash said, and the pleasantness was replaced by an arrogance that you saw only on the face of a sidhe. Oh, yes, Ash was one of ours. He survived among the goblins, but he was ours.

Holly was on his feet now, keeping the big wooden chair halfway between Kurag and himself. He had his back to us, so I couldn't see his face, but I heard his voice, something close to fear or some other harsh emotion I couldn't name. "Brother, do not do this to us. We do not need the shining ones. We are goblin, and that is better."

Ash shook his head. "We have survived together, Holly, and we will continue to survive together. I have heard the tales of our storytellers. I have glimpsed what once we were, and you and I will bring those glory days back to the goblins." He walked toward his brother, walking around Creeda as if she weren't there. She hissed at him as he strode past. The blade in her hand flashed silver but she put it away, in a sheath that was lost to sight among her nest of arms.

He got to Holly and laid a hand on his shoulder. "I will stand by you in all things, even your anger at our king, but do not get us killed when we are about to go on to such glory as the goblins have not seen in more than two thousand years." Somewhere in that speech was his acknowledgment that he wouldn't have let Kurag kill Holly; that he would have backstabbed the king before he'd have allowed that.

Holly made a violent motion to point toward us, his arm flailing. He shot a glance our way that was venomous in its hatred. "They left us to die. How can you go to their beds?"

Ash grabbed his brother's arms, fingers digging in deeply enough that you could see it from a distance. He shook him, just a little. "These sidhe did nothing to us. None of them is mother or father to us."

"How can you be sure?"

"Look at them, Holly, look at them with something other than your hatred." He actually turned his brother around to face us, and the look on that one's face was such a mixture of pain and rage that it was hard to meet. "There is no golden skin and hair among them. They are Unseelie sidhe, and they did nothing to us."