“But for you,” Maeve said.

“Her knight,” Lily said, “her champion.”

“She might not be quite so guarded,” Maeve said, her eyes shining fever-bright. “You have power enough to smite her, if you strike when she is unprepared.”

“What?” I blurted.

“What we ask you is not fair,” Lily said. “We know tha . . .” She glanced at Maeve. “Well. I know that. But we have no other options.”

“Uh, yes, you do,” I said. “What about Titania? The Queen of Summer is an equal opposite, isn’t she? Mab’s mirror?”

The two Ladies exchanged a guarded look.

“Out with it,” I said. “We’re way past word games here.”

Lily nodded. “She . . . refuses to act. I do not know why.”

“Because she’s terrified she’ll be infected, too, obviously,” Maeve snapped.

“Guys,” I said. “I have seen what Mab is. Even if I catch her off guard, I don’t have the kind of clout it takes to drop someone in her league.”

Lily blinked at me several times. “But . . . but you do. You have Winter.”

“Which is meaningful because . . . ?”

“Because she is Winter,” Maeve said. “The Winter within you is Mab and she is it. The one thing you can never protect yourself against is yourself. You of all people should know this, wizard.”

I shuddered. I did.

“The Winter Knight is a useful weapon,” Maeve said. “But it has ever been one with two edges. Mab stands no mightier than any of the Sidhe against your hand, Sir Knight.”

I narrowed my eyes at Maeve. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Why in the hell should I think you’re trying to help me? Since when have you cared about the mortal world, Maeve?”

Her smile widened. “Since I realized that should my mother fall, I will have a very large and very exclusive chair to sit upon back at Arctis Tor, wizard. Do not think for a moment that I do it from the kindness of my heart. I want the throne.”

Now, that was a scary thought. Mab was a force of nature, sure, but she also acted a lot like one. She rarely took things personally, she didn’t play favorites, and she was generally speaking equally dangerous to everyone. Maeve, though. That bitch was just not right. The thought of her with Mab’s mantle of power was something terrifying to anyone with half a brain—especially the guy who would be her personal champion.

“I don’t dig the idea of serving you, Maeve,” I said.

At that, the lazy sex-kitten look came back into her eyes. “I haven’t yet begun to persuade you, wizard. But be assured that I would never, ever throw away a tool so useful as you would be, should you succeed.”

“Even if it might slice into you next?” I asked.

Maeve laughed. “Oh, I am going to love playing games with you, Sir Knight. But first things first. You have no choice but to act. If you do not, millions of your fellow mortals will perish. In the end, you will act to protect them. That is what you are.”

“Lady Maeve has a point,” Lily said, with evident reluctance. “There is very little time. I understand your trepidation about the consequences of Mab’s . . . passing . . . but we have little choice. She is simply too dangerous to be allowed to continue.”

I made a low growling sound. “This is insane.”

“Fun,” Maeve said, her nose wrinkling, “isn’t it?”

I eyed both of them. “What are you holding back from me?”

Lily twitched again, and looked displeased at the question. “No one must realize that you know of the contagion,” she said. “You cannot know which of your allies or associates it has already taken. If you demonstrate awareness, anyone infected will either remove you or infect you.”

“Anything else?” I asked her.

“I will speak to Fix,” Lily said. “Otherwise, no.”

I nodded at her. Then I eyed Maeve. “What about you? Holding anything back?”

“I want to take you to my bower, wizard,” Maeve said, and licked her lips. “I want to do things to you that give you such pleasure your brain bleeds.”

“Uh,” I said.

Her foxlike smile sharpened. “Also,” she said, “my people are about to attempt to kill you.”

Lily’s eyes snapped toward Maeve, widening.

“I promised him nothing,” Maeve said with a sniff. “And there are appearances to keep up, after all. I am certain my mother has eyes watching his every move. He can hardly meet peaceably with me without making her suspicious.”

“Ah,” Lily said, nodding. “Oh, dear.”

Maeve leaned toward me, taking a confidential tone. “They don’t know of the contagion either, wizard. So their attempts will be quite sincere. I advise you to resist. Strenuously.”

Seven figures stepped around a corner of the garden on the far side of the bridge and began striding purposefully toward our little gathering. Sidhe. The Redcap strode along in the center.

“Hell’s bells,” I snarled, taking an involuntary step back. “Right here? Now? You could have given me a couple of minutes to get clear, dammit.”

“And what fun would that be?” Maeve asked, pushing out her lower lip in a pout. “I am who I am, too. I love violence. I love treachery. I love your pain—and the best part, the part I love most, is that I am doing it for your own good.” Her eyes gleamed white all the way around her irises. “This is me being one of the good guys.”

“I’m so sorry, Harry,” Lily said. “I didn’t want this. I think you should go. . . .” She turned aside to Maeve. “So that the Winter Lady can introduce me to her vassals. This is the first time we’ve met.”

Maeve blinked, and her expression darkened into a scowl. “Oh. Oh, you prissy bint.”

Lily said, with utmost sincerity, “I regret that this inconveniences your enjoyment, Lady, but protocol is quite clear.”

Maeve stomped one foot on the bridge, scowled at me, and then seized Lily by the wrist. She started dragging the Summer Lady toward her oncoming entourage.

Lily gave me a quick wink, the expression as pleasant as the warmth from a cup of hot chocolate, and I started backing off. Once I was off the bridge, I turned and began to run. There was no telling how long Lily’s tactic would stall the Redcap and his buddies, and I wanted to be in the truck and gone before introductions were made.

That plan was going pretty well, right up until I passed a huge wall of thick evergreen plants of some kind. Then something small and blurry shot out of the brush about half a step ahead of me. I got a flash impression of Captain Hook in his miniature armor, trailing some kind of heavy cord, and then my feet were tangled in it and down I went.

I tried to be cool and roll into the fall and come back up on my feet, but that works a lot better when you don’t have one of your legs abruptly jerked out from beneath you. So mostly I hit the ground in a clumsy sprawl, then slid several feet forward on the damp concrete with my weight on my chest and my cheek.

Ow.

I got back onto my feet, moving as fast as I could. I didn’t feel like getting stabbed with more of those steel nails, and my eyes went up to the open sky, scanning quickly for any incoming hostile Little Folk as I got moving again.