Black Night

“I know that. He wouldn’t be able to stand in the foyer otherwise,” I replied.

I swung the door open. “Can’t you ever show up during regular visiting hours?”

“Feeling better, I see,” J.B. said. “Well enough to burn down about forty acres of outland forest and kill two of my mother’s favorite pets.”

I rolled my eyes and turned around, indicating that he should follow. J.B. slammed the front door shut behind him.

“How many times do I have to say that those pets of hers were trying to eat me?”

“That’s what they’re there for,” J.B. said.

“Well, was I supposed to let them do their job?” I opened my front door and waved him inside ahead of me.

He turned on me, his face full of anger. “Of course not. But why the hell were you there in the first place? I thought that you were going tomorrow as part of an official envoy. You have no idea how bad this looks. The queen was ready to demand your head as compensation from Lucifer and call off the negotiations entirely. I’ve spent the last several hours trying to convince her not to do so and to let the negotiations proceed as planned.”

“Well, thanks for that,” I said grudgingly. “But how did she find out so quickly? Those faeries that we saw in the forest said it was a day’s walk from where we were.”

J.B. looked at me pityingly. “It was a day’s walk. But they have magic, you know. They were at the queen’s court a few minutes after they left you.”

“Those little bastards,” I said, and then I latched onto something that J.B. had said. “Yeah, wait a minute. They LEFT me. Us. Me and Beezle and Nathaniel. As soon as the spider showed up, they took off without a by-yourleave. So I didn’t see any reason why I should chase them down again.”

J.B. looked interested. “The guards abandoned you?”

I nodded. “Ran right through the woods without waiting to see if we were following.”

He ran his hands through his hair. “All right, we might be able to work with that. It was a breach of conduct for them to leave you to danger. But what were you doing there in the first place?”

I explained about Antares, the bomb, Beezle’s kidnapping and the invisible portal in the alley.

“I’m sure that my mother doesn’t know anything about an invisible portal,” he said, frowning. “I wonder who put it there. And why.”

“That’s just what we’ve been trying to figure out,” I said. “And I’m thinking it must have something to do with Gabriel’s disappearance.”

“Why would anyone take Gabriel through a portal to the queen’s lands?” J.B. asked.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I keep feeling like I’m missing something. There are all these disparate factions floating around causing problems. Any one of them could have taken Gabriel.”

“I still think it was the wolves,” said Beezle.

“I still think you have wolf prejudice,” I replied.

“Why are you defending the wolves?” J.B. asked. “It’s not like you have a relationship with them.”

“Well, I do now, sort of. They said that I was a friend to them and vice versa. Plus, I don’t know—I’ve always kind of liked the wolves. They’re straightforward. They don’t play games like the courts of the vampires or the fallen. With the wolves, what you see is what you get.”

“That doesn’t mean that they weren’t involved in Gabriel’s disappearance,” J.B. said. “Don’t kid yourself. They have an agenda, too. They’re trying to negotiate with Amarantha right now for some ancient lands of theirs that currently belong to her, and they don’t want the faerie court to strike any new deal with Lucifer’s kingdom.”

“Why not?”

“The wolves have a long-standing argument with Lucifer. They don’t want Lucifer to gain any leverage with Amarantha that might affect their land claim.”

“Is there anyone not negotiating with Amarantha right now?” I said, annoyed. “Just how many players are in the pond here?”

“She just signed a new treaty with the vampires regarding right-of-way access, so they’re out of the picture right now,” J.B. said. “Other than that, pretty much everyone is in and out of the court for one reason or another.”

I blew out a breath. “Just why the hell did Lucifer think that I could handle this?”

Beezle and J.B. looked at each other.

“Yes, I know, that’s what you two know-it-alls tried to tell me yesterday. I’ll figure it out. J.B., go home and get some sleep. If you keep doing that to your hair, it’s going to fall out.”

“I’m overwhelmed by your gratitude. ‘Thanks, J.B., for making sure that your mom didn’t send her assassins to remove all my limbs one by one.’”

I kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks, J.B. Now, come back tomorrow morning around ten so you can escort me to the court. Surely she won’t chop off my head on sight if her son is part of my entourage.”

“Don’t count on it,” he said, and disappeared out the front door.

“Can I sleep in my nest?” Beezle asked.

“No,” I said. “You can set something up on my dresser.”

“Your dresser is hard,” he complained.

“So get a pillow,” I replied. “You’re the one who’s always going on about how cold it is outside.”