Ill Met by Moonlight by Sarah A. Hoyt

on Quicksilver. Her bloodless lips opened. “Milord.” She shaped the word as though it hurt her.
    He bowed. Ariel here? Ariel coming to knock at the door to his apartments? What was she playing at? Never before had she shown such daring, nor such determination. Was this Pyrite’s doing?
    “I would speak with you,” she said. Color came and went on her cheeks, like the waxing and waning of the moon, now bright-colored, now white and blank.
    He waved an impatient hand. “Then speak.”
    She gave a fearful glance toward his valet, then shook her head.
    “Malachite, you may go. You are dismissed,” Quicksilver said.
    But before the servant could bow his dark head and turn to go, Ariel stopped him. “No. I do not wish to speak here. Not . . . not here. Would you come with me, milord, for a walk in the forest . . . in the forest outside?”
    “Outside” meant the world of men, and Quicksilver weighed the matter carefully. What did Ariel have to tell him that couldn’t be said in the palace? And did she know that, were it the most innocent of love declarations and her whole intent to avoid the wagging tongues of courtiers, yet they would be suspected of treason and not left alone for long after this?
    He pressed his lips tight, bringing the weight of his displeasure on her. “Milady, you cannot mean you have such a secret that it can’t be freely spoken here, in the palace, within hearing of all well-meaning subjects of my good brother.” Let her hear that and take heed. If Malachite had been driven to discontent by Quicksilver’s temper, then this chit of a girl could condemn herself, and Quicksilver with her, by her incautious words.
    But she only shook her head again, and a smile came and went on her lips that only served to make them look yet more colorless and sickly. “It is not treason I intend, milord, unless it were treason to myself and that modesty a maid ought to keep.”
    Oh, she was good, Quicksilver thought. She not only had understood his warning, but she spoke as if she meant it. Malachite, head averted from such an unmaidenly declaration, blushed.
    Quicksilver sighed with false reluctance. “You know, my lady, that I am too young and have not my brother’s license to commit myself to matrimony, and that—”
    “Oh, I would just speak to you!” Ariel yelled. Her hands fretted at the lace of her skirt, grabbing it in twin handfuls, then letting it go, marked with wrinkles that her ineffective hands could not smooth. She stamped her foot, her small white slipper slapping the floor with force. “I want to speak to you, of your feelings and your intentions.”
    Malachite looked as if he’d like to hide. A human, kidnapped in infancy and brought up in the fairy world, he nevertheless seemed to have an odd idea of propriety and never fully to accept the freedom-loving ways of most elven ladies.
    “Very well,” Quicksilver said, seeming cold and distant, though he admired Ariel more than ever. What a performance the maiden could put on. What an amazing performance. It made her look more beautiful than ever in his eyes and he found himself wondering whether the dark rings around her eyes were his doing, or the marks of her job as seeress. “Very well. Malachite, see to my room. Alter the brocade doublet as I’ve told you and have my bath ready for when I return tonight. I might be late. I have an excursion planned.”
    “Milord,” Malachite said, and bowed primly. Only his half closed, averted eyes, betrayed what he was thinking: that Quicksilver’s “excursion” would be to Ariel’s bed, and he disapproved.
    Quicksilver gave his arm to Ariel and together they walked out of the palace and through a magic portal to the world of men outside.
    Away from the palace, he turned to her. “Ariel. How well you dissembled in there. I must compliment you on your performance.” He grinned at her.
    She stepped back, eyes rounded in shock. “Milord?” she said. And, in the wake of that, she