Ill Met by Moonlight by Sarah A. Hoyt Page B

hung over his head like an ax balanced on a fool’s hand. “Milady, I’m waiting. Talk or be gone.”
    Ariel drew breath once more. “The mortal. You . . . You . . . kissed the mortal. You let him see you in your other form.” She paused and opened her hands, palm out, on her skirt, as though those hands would go on talking where she could not.
    So, that was it. A simple kiss had upset her. His familiarity with the mortal had galled her. He stepped beside Ariel, and wound his arm through hers. Hers felt smaller, so much frailer than the muscular arm of the peasant boy. She held herself stiffly, away from Quicksilver, refusing to budge at his cajoling pull.
    He sighed. “Milady Ariel, the boy is only an instrument for what I truly seek. And what I truly seek is vengeance, as vengeance I should seek, for the foul deed against my parents.” His voice fell to grave accents, as he spoke. “And if the crime came through a mortal, then through a mortal can it be remedied.” He tugged at her again, gently, and she started walking beside him.
    “But you let him—You—”
    “I must convince him to kill the murderer.” Quicksilver pulled Ariel along amid the tall, rustling trees. She looked small and frail enough to wring his heart. He remembered what it was like to feel small; he knew very well what it was like to be powerless. Yet, this passion of Lady Ariel’s for him must be discouraged, for his good and hers. Nevertheless he needed friends. He must proceed carefully. “I must convince that mortal to do my vengeance and must keep him confused enough that he won’t look beyond the pretty scenery I am drawing for the harsh truth beyond.”
    Ariel opened and closed her mouth. Color came and went in waves on her face, now tingeing her high cheekbones pink, now leaving them harsh and waxy-dreary. “If he—milord—If you do try vengeance, you will both die. And Nan will be left without a husband . . . and I will be . . . Nan and I . . .”
    She wailed too loudly.
    Quicksilver looked toward the lighted palace behind them, and wondered if such a lament might not be heard by the guards, even through the veil between the realms. He fancied the rustling along the forest floor had changed, from the random slithering of forest creatures to the purposeful movements of Sylvanus’s spies.
    Forcing a laugh, he covered Ariel’s mouth with his hand. “Hush, milady, hush. I have no intention of dying,” he said. “The mortal, now . . . Who knows what mortals do and why? Their lives are cheap and they whelp three to a season, like blind kittens behind a barn, and they die the same way, blind and foolish, for no reason at all, in a war they don’t understand, or in a tavern brawl, to a dagger wielded by one they thought a friend. If he dies, nothing much is lost.” Quicksilver spoke in an urgent, eager tone, but barely loud enough to be called a whisper. He felt Ariel’s warm lips move against his palm, and lowered his hand slightly.
    “You do not care, then, if he dies?” Ariel asked. She whispered too, but in such a rush that it gave her words the feeling of a long-suppressed scream. “If the boy dies? The boy Will? Nan’s boy? But you seemed—Oh, you seemed to care for him. I know it is rare, almost impossible, for one of us to truly love a mortal. Even when we do, our love is not enough to satisfy them. Their love, as ephemeral as they are, is the sturdier brew. And yet there are legends of elves who love mortals and, in thus stooping toward their inferiors, become like gods in their intensity. And you seemed, you seemed to care for him. But you don’t? You truly don’t? You’re that cold, then, milord, that cold that you’d send him to his death?”
    “It is all a play, my dear, nothing but a play. The play’s the thing, but the thing we play at is not always that which we are.” He grinned at her. Color had returned to her face, tinting her cheeks and lips a deep pink and making her look