Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson #5)(67)
Author: Patricia Briggs

I gave her the short version. "I taped our phone conversation."

"I see." She looked like she’d swallowed a lemon, but didn’t complain. "So, Mercedes Thompson, you would cry bargain." She smiled coolly. "You want to exchange the Silver Borne for your life?"

Ariana gave me a sharp look, but I knew how to listen – and I knew about fairy bargains that left you ruing the day you made them, even before I’d read Phin’s book. If I wasn’t really careful, I could bargain the book for my life – and end up wishing myself dead. For instance, I could get out of here and be forced to leave Jesse and Gabriel behind.

"I don’t know," I said, squirming under the weight of the fairy queen’s gaze. I bit the inside of my lip until it bled – and it hurt because human-shaped teeth aren’t sharp enough to cut through skin easily.

"Samuel," I said, "a kiss for courage and clear-seeing, my love?"

Samuel turned to me, startled – a kiss was probably the last thing that he’d been thinking of. I stood on my tiptoes and damn near had to climb him to get to his mouth. I clamped my open lips to his and tried to get as much blood into his mouth as I could. After the barest instant he seemed to understand what I was doing. He participated fully, licked my lip, and set me down gently.

I hoped the blood would work as it had in the bookstore, and that he saw what I did. It was hard to say from Samuel’s reaction, but I thought it had. Maybe it wouldn’t matter, but, outside of the gun in my shoulder holster and the one in the small of Jesse’s back, Samuel was our best weapon against the fae. Maybe he was better than the guns because he’d be a lot harder to stop. It couldn’t hurt to have him know what he was fighting.

"Very affecting," the queen said, sounding bored. "Are you courageous and clear-sighted enough to give me the Silver Borne yet?"

"That is not a bargain," I said, trying to keep her from seeing the blood on my mouth. "It is an exchange. I would consider such an exchange only if my comrades are allowed to leave. It is having them leave here safely and soon that I’m interested in bargaining for."

"A true bargain?" she said. "Do you play an instrument?"

The piano and I have a hate-hate relationship. I didn’t consider that playing, and I know my piano teacher hadn’t either. "No."

"A different bargain, then. You hold something of my choosing while it changes. For each time it changes, I release one person."

She snapped her finger, and the witch muttered to herself, and the fae nearest us – a short and fine-boned creature with skin like a peach and pinkish green hair – burst into flame. It wasn’t glamour because the room didn’t change. They were real flames even though they didn’t seem to hurt the fae.

"She can’t hold flame, without dying," said Ariana. She hadn’t looked at Samuel or me since I kissed him. I don’t know if she suspected something was up – or if she thought we were lovers. "And that breaks the heart of the bargain. It must be something that is possible – however unlikely – for the challenger to accomplish."

"Fine," said the queen. "If you are so particular, Silver, you may be the challenger." She laughed, and the roots in the ceiling writhed as the sound of bells echoed in the room. "Of course I knew who you were, dear Silver – how could you think otherwise? Are there so many of us who chose to live so disfigured by the fangs of hounds and wolves? No. Only Silver. So you may take this bargain, and the alternative is that I will kill this almost-mortal woman who is not so human as your Phin or the boy. Half-blood is not human enough to be saved by the guesting laws of the Elphame."

Ariana didn’t seem to hear the queen’s taunts. Instead, she said clearly and slowly, "I take hold of this fae, who will change – the first shape of fire counts as one. After that, for every time he changes, one of my comrades will go free. He will change five more times, three minutes each form, and if I succeed, all shall leave. If I don’t, one leaves for each shape I hold."

As she was talking, Ariana set Phin down next to Gabriel. Even under the queen’s thrall, Gabriel put a hand on Phin’s shoulder to steady him.

"Four times," said the queen. "Five shapes. I will not let go of Mercedes Thompson, who holds the Silver Borne."

"It’s all right," I told Ariana. "I’m a survivor. Ask anyone. I can deal with the queen about the book when all of you are safe."

"Six forms," said Ariana. "One for each. It is in the rules. ‘The bargain requested, all prisoners invested in the outcome tested.’ "

The poetry didn’t flow well, but I suppose that it didn’t need to be very good poetry to record the rules of a fairy queen.

The queen’s eyes fluttered in irritation. I had a hard time not looking away – or blinking too fast myself.

"Agreed," she snarled. "But Mercedes is the last to be freed and your grandson first."

Samuel said, "Phin, Jesse, Gabriel, Ariana, me, and Mercedes, then."

"Phin, Ariana, then the rest followed at the end by Mercedes," counteroffered the queen.

I saw what she was doing. By putting Ariana and Phin at the beginning, she thought she was reducing Ariana’s motivation even as the bargain became harder and harder to keep.

Samuel shook his head. "Phin, Jesse, Gabriel, Ariana, me, and Mercedes."

"I am getting bored," said the queen. "Agreed. The bargain is struck."

Ariana gave Samuel a narrow-eyed look – I think it was because he put her before him. But I agreed with him. Get the helpless ones out first, then those who could best protect themselves. That meant Ariana before Samuel.

"The bargain is accepted," agreed Ariana, and she stepped forward, embracing the flaming fae. As soon as she touched him, her hair burst into flame as did her clothing, and what was not burnable dropped to the ground, including the stone Zee had given her to hold. Its steady light was almost unnoticeable against the flames as the rest of Ariana smoldered a moment before lighting up as well.

"She holds earth, air, fire, and water," Samuel told me. If I hadn’t known him as well as I did, I might have thought he was disinterested. "It is what made her able to do great magic after most of Underhill was out of reach. Magic fire will do her no harm."

The queen was speaking to the witch. After she was finished talking, the witch stood up, a steel knife in her hand. She gathered up her chains and moved to the farthest extent, which left her just able to reach the forest lord. She plunged the knife into the tree-like creature, and it bellowed, shook, and bled amber fluid onto the knife. The floor moved under my feet and the ceiling roots contracted and wiggled.