Swallowing Darkness   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

"He has used sidhe magic to hide that he is more a monster than any a' the rest."

"What do you mean, 'the rest'?" I asked.

She motioned to Doyle. "The Darkness kills withou' mercy. His mother was a hell hound, his father a phouka who bedded the bitch when in dog form. You could ha' puppies inside ya. They act as if the high lords are perfect, but they are jus' as deformed as we are. They can just hide it behind their magic better than us lesser folk."

I looked at the woman who had helped raise me as if she were a stranger, because in a way she was. I'd known that she resented the courts — most of the lesser fey did — but I had not known that she had this prejudice inside her.

"Do you have a special grudge against Doyle too?" I asked.

"When ya came to me, Merry, you had Galen with ya, and Barinthus. Them I ha' nothin' agin', but I didnae dream you would go to the Darkness. Ya feared him as a child."

"I remember," I said.

"Do ya not understand, girl, that if the queen had had your father killed, who she would ha' sent to do the deed?"

Ah. "Doyle did not kill my father."

"How do ya know, Merry? Did he tell ya he did nae?"

"Doyle would not have acted without the queen's express orders, and Andais is not a good enough actress. She did not order my father, Andais's brother's, death. I saw her anger over it. It was real."

"She didnae love Essus."

"Maybe she loves only her son, but her brother meant something to her, and she did not like that he died at someone's hand. Maybe it was anger that she had not done the ordering of it. I do not know, but I do know that Andais did not order the deed done, and that Doyle would not have acted without that order."

"But he would ha' done it, if ordered. You do believe that," Gran said.

"Of course," I said, and my voice was as calm as hers was growing strident.

"He would ha' killed your father at the queen's orders. He would ha' killed you."

"He was the Queen's Darkness. I know that, Gran."

"How can ya sleep with him, then? Knowing the blood that must be on his hands."

I tried to think how to say it so she would understand. Her reaction had caught me completely off guard. I didn't like that, and not just for the normal reasons that a granddaughter might not like her grandmother hating her husband-to-be. I didn't like that she had been able to hide this level of hatred from me all these years. It made me wonder what else I'd missed, what else she'd hidden.

"I could say simply that I love him, Gran, but the look on your face says that won't do. He is my Darkness now. He would kill at my orders now. He is one of the greatest warriors to ever walk the courts, and he is mine now. He is my strong right hand, my killing blow, my general. In all the courts I could not have taken a king who would have made me stronger than Doyle."

Emotions chased across her face so quickly that I couldn't follow them all. Finally, she said, "So ya took 'im to your bed because it was good politics?"

"I took him to my bed because the Queen of Air and Darkness ordered him to my bed. I never dreamed that I could part her Darkness from her side."

"How do ya know that he is nae still her creature?"

"Gran," Galen said, "are you feeling all right?"

"Ne'r better. I just want Merry to see the truth."

"And what is the truth?" Galen asked, and his voice held a tone. I studied his face, but his eyes were all for Gran. It made me study her, too. Her eyes were a little wide, her lips parted, her pulse rate up. Was it just anger, or was it something else?

"They cannae be trusted, ana of them."

"Who, Gran?" Galen asked. "Who cannot be trusted?"

"The queen's men, girl." She addressed me now. "Ya grew up knowin' the truth of that. She must see the truth." The last was whispered, and she had lost her accent. She was upset: the accent wouldn't lessen, not on its own.

"Did you see anyone from either court when you went to her home?" Doyle asked.

Galen actually thought about it before saying, "No, I didn't see anyone." He put too much emphasis on "see."

"What's wrong with her?" I asked softly.

"There be nothin' wrong with me, girl," Gran said, but her eyes were a little too wild, as if the spell, for it was a spell, was growing stronger.

"Gran, you and I were buddies once," Rhys said, moving up so that Doyle could move back out of her sight.

She frowned at him, as if she were having trouble recognizing him. "Aye, you ne'r did me or mine harm. You kept to yourself in the old days, and you were on the side of gold and dreams. You were allied to us once, white knight." She grabbed his arm. "How can you be with them now?"

The accent was gone; the voice was almost not hers at all. "What's happening to her?" I asked. I reached out, and she reached for me, but Galen and Rhys stepped in the way, nearly knocking each other over in their haste.

"What is it?" I asked, and this time my voice rose. I could hear the monitors getting excited again. If I didn't calm down, we'd have doctors and nurses in here. We didn't need humans in the middle of what looked to be a magical attack. I tried to calm down, while my grandmother tried to push past Rhys and Galen. She was trying to persuade them, as well as me, that we were on the side of evil.

Doyle's voice cut through mine, "There's something in her hair, a thread, or another hair. It glows."

"I see it," Rhys said.

"I don't," Galen said.

I couldn't see around the two of them. I had only glimpses of Gran's long brown arms trying to reach past them, almost frantically.

The door opened, and Dr. Mason and two nurses came in. "What the hell is going on in here?" she asked. And this time she sounded truly pissed.

I guess I couldn't blame her, but I also couldn't think of a way to explain. Was being pregnant making me slow to think, or was I still in shock?

"Everyone out. I mean it this time!" Dr. Mason had to shout to be heard over Gran's progressively more piercing words.

Then the glass of water on the bedside table levitated, slowly, up into the air. It hovered there about eight inches above the table-top. The bendable straw in it moved a little bit from the upward movement, but the cup was steady. Gran was really good at levitating, like all brownies. She'd served me tea in china cups like this since I was very small.

The lamp beside the cup also began to rise. Then the water pitcher bobbled upward. The lamp got to the end of its cord, and moved gently in the air like a boat moored to a dock. It was all very gentle, so why was my heart rate skyrocketing, and my pulse choking me? Because brownies don't lose control of their powers. Ever. But bogarts do. What's a bogart? A brownie gone bad.