“Please help us. High Lord!” was the best Fillip could manage, his own voice a whisper.
“Yes, please!” echoed Sot.
“It’s all right,” Ben lied.
Nightshade laughed softly. She was just as Ben remembered her — tall and sharp-featured, her skin as pale and smooth as marble, her hair jet black, save for a single streak of white down its center, her lean, angular frame cloaked all in black. She was beautiful in her way, ageless in appearance, a creature who had somehow come to terms with her mortality. Yet her face failed to reflect the emotions that would have made her complete. Her eyes were depthless and empty. They looked ready to swallow him.
Well, I asked for this, he thought.
Nightshade’s laughter died away then, and there was the barest hint of uncertainty in her eyes. She came forward a step, peering at him. “What is this?” she asked softly. “You are not the same…” She trailed off, confused. “But you must be; the gnomes have named you High Lord… Here, let me see your face in the light.”
She reached out. Ben was powerless to resist. Fingers as cold as icicles fastened on his chin and tilted his head to the moonlight. She held him there a moment, muttering. “You are different — yet the same, too. What has been done to you, play-King? Or is this some new game you seek to play with me? Are you not Holiday?” Ben could feel Fillip and Sot shivering against his body, tiny hands digging into him. “Ah, there is magic at work here,” Nightshade whispered harshly, fingers releasing his face with a twist. “Whose magic is it? Tell me, now — quickly!”
Ben fought back an urge to scream, fought to keep his voice steady. “Meeks. He’s come back. He’s made himself King and changed me into… this.”
“Meeks?” The green eyes narrowed. “That pathetic charlatan? How has he found magic enough to accomplish this?” Her mouth twisted with disdain. “He lacks the means to tie his own shoes! How could he manage to do this to you?”
Ben said nothing. He didn’t have an answer to give her.
There was a long moment of silence as the witch studied him. Finally, she said, “Where is the medallion? Let me see it!”
When he didn’t immediately respond, she made a quick motion with her fingers. Despite his resolve, he found himself withdrawing the tarnished emblem from his tunic for her inspection. She stared at it a moment, then stared again at his face, then slowly smiled the smile of a predator eyeing dinner.
“So,” she whispered.
That was all she said. It was enough. Ben knew instantly that she had figured out what had been done to him. He knew that she understood the nature of the magic that had changed him. Her realization of it was infuriating to him. It was worse than being held like this. He wanted to scream. He had to know what she had learned, and there was no way in the world that she was going to tell him.
“You are pathetic, play-King,” she went on, her voice still soft but insinuating now as well. “You have always been lucky, but never smart. Your luck has run out. I am almost tempted to leave you as you are. Almost. But I cannot forget what you did to me. I want to be the one to make you suffer for that! Are you surprised to see me again? I think perhaps you are. You thought me gone forever, I imagine — gone into the world of fairy to perish. How foolish of you.”
She knelt down before him so that her eyes were level with his. There was such hate that he flinched from it. “I flew into the mists, play-King — just as you commanded that I must, just as I was bidden. The Io Dust held me bound to your command, and I could not refuse. How I despised you then! But I could do nothing. So I flew into the mists — but I flew slowly, play-King, slowly! I fought to break the spell of the Io Dust as I flew; I fought with all the power that I could summon!”