Page 66 of Fortune's Blade

“Well, tell them that!” he said crabbily. “Instead of staying there and learning some damned manners so they don’t embarrass themselves, getting fitted for some nice clothes, and just freaking relaxing for a while, what do you think they did? Go on, guess. What do you think those bastards have been up to?”

“Going into Faerie?” I asked, because obviously.

“Going into Faerie!” he agreed, slapping the table. “In the middle of a war! And do you want to know why?”

I looked from him to the pile of colorful boxes scattered about the bedroom. They looked strange, lying there on a medieval looking plank floor, with the hand saw marks still visible. An undyed sheepskin had been draped across the boards as a rug, to keep away the chill, and the whole was surrounded by a bunch of timber and stone walls, and old fashioned, four poster bed, and a metal banded chest for clothing.

Next to all that, the garishly cheerful modern boxes were . . . jolting.

“Something to do with snack cakes?” I guessed.

Ray shook his head. “Oh, no. Those were just the sweetener, the stuff I found out the fey liked ‘cause sugar is almost unknown here and honey is pricey. So, like I told you before, I used a few boxes to help seal deals, back when I worked for Cheung and he had me smuggling stuff in and outta here, right?”

I nodded some more.

“Well. My genius boys decided that living in the consul’s own house was the perfect cover for a little more smuggling. The court is crammed with vamps from all over the world right now cause of the war, and being away from home, they’re also away from their usual sources of supply for all kinds of things. That includes fey wine, which means they can’t get a buzz on unless they suck the blood of a human who is high as a kite, and the consul frowns on that seeing as how we need the Circle for the war right now—”

“Ray.”

“Right. Well, my guys overheard some people saying what they wouldn’t give for a little something-something from Faerie, only the war has interrupted the trade routes.”

“So they decided to arrange a supply.”

“Yes! Without telling me, ‘cause I was away on war business, or so they said.” He cocked his head at me. “You doing better?”

It was times like these that I wondered whether Ray understood what he was doing when he prattled on about random things, and knew that it helped. I’d had a succession of shocks in close order, and had been close to some kind of break down. But now . . ..

“Yes,” I told him. “Better.”

“Good. ‘Cause I got enough trouble with two assholes who can’t be left unsupervised for more than five goddamned minutes!”

I didn’t know why he was suddenly shouting as I was sitting right beside him. But then I saw the two vampires cowering in the doorway, looking as if they wished the floor would open up and swallow them whole. And in the dimness behind them—

“Oh,” I said, as an entire army of pixies descended onto the balcony, with five large, silver covered salvers. The lead pixie was back, her lavender eyes snapping, and clearly intending to make a point about her people’s hospitality.

I hadn’t thought I could eat anything else, with my stomach as jumbled up and confused as my mind. But the smells coming off all that food had my insides rumbling and my mouth watering and my eyes widening as I stared around at the floating feast. And a bunch of eager little faces determined to see me fail to finish the repast they had prepared, which they probably thought of as a meal for a hundred.

But that was a hundred pixies, not a hungry dhampir.

I looked up at Ray to find him smiling, a knowing glint in his eye. “Do the family proud,” he told me softly.

And I did.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ray bumped into the wall of the hugely oversized corridor we found ourselves in, before staggering off clutching his nose. Some spicy language followed, perhaps because it was not the first time he had done that, or even the fourth. His face was moving oddly under the hand I raised to the damaged area, with vampire healing abilities causing it to swell and then deflate in rapid succession.

“You said for me to drive,” I reminded him.

“Only because we weren’t getting anywhere with both of us doing it!” he hissed back. But he hissed quietly, because we were approaching the Great Hall. Of course, we had been approaching it for some time without actually reaching it, and that did not seem likely to change.

“Perhaps you should take over,” I offered, as the body we were sharing veered drunkenly toward the other wall.

It was a good distance away, as this part of the palace complex had been built originally by giants and looked it. The ceiling was so high that it disappeared into darkness, with the lanterns that somebody had placed considerably higher than my head failing to illuminate that far. And the width could have accommodated a whole chorus line.

“Or I could try again,” I offered, only to have Ray growl at me. And then send us staggering backward through a doorway because his eyes were still crossing.

It was not the door to the hall, fortunately, but to a small, dark room with a large, bright balcony. Like my bedroom, it looked as if it had wondered in from somewhere else, as I couldn’t imagine a giant squeezing in here. I guessed they had made accommodations for their smaller guests, who might feel somewhat uncomfortable in a bedroom the size of a football field, but this one gave the impression that it hadn’t been used for anything in a while.

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