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“Once,” Sholto said, “the nightflyers answered to the gods of the sky. We flew for them, and rode the lightning that they could call. Some say the nightflyers were created by a god of the sky and a goddess of the dead.”

Mistral looked at his hand, then across at the King of the sluagh. The look on Mistral’s face was one of pain. His eyes were the black of the sky before it shatters to earth. “I had forgotten,” he said, almost as if to himself. “I had made myself forget.”

Doyle said, “I did not know that you were…”

Mistral put a hand across his mouth. I think they were both startled. “Forgive me, Darkness, but do not say that name out loud. I am not that name anymore.” He took his hand from Doyle’s mouth.

“Your power calls to mine,” Sholto said. “Perhaps you are he again.”

Mistral shook his head. “I did terrible things back then. I had no mercy, and my queen, my love, had less mercy than I did. We were…We killed.” He shook his head. “It began in magic and love, but she fell in love with our creations in every sense of the word.”

“You are he, then,” Sholto said.

Mistral gave him a look of utter despair. “I would beg you to tell no one, King Sholto.”

“It’s not every night that a man meets his creator,” Sholto said. He was watching the other man with an edge of anger on his face, or maybe defiance.

“I am not that. The being who acted in such arrogance was punished for it, and is no more. Whatever I was once, the true Gods took it from me.”

“But our dark goddess,” Sholto said. “It is said that the gods tore her to pieces and fed her to us.”

Mistral nodded. “She would not give up control over you. She would not give you the independence to be your own people. She wanted to keep you as…pets and lovers.”

Perhaps I looked surprised, because he spoke to me. “Yes, Princess, I know well that there are many uses for all those parts. She who was once my love and I fashioned them for pleasure as well as terror.”

“You kept your secret well,” Doyle said.

“When the gods themselves humble you, Darkness, wouldn’t you hide yourself in shame?”

“But your magic calls to mine,” Sholto said.

“I never dreamed that the return of magic to faerie would waken that in me.” Mistral looked frightened.

“This is a legend so old my father never told it to me,” I said.

“It is part of our lost creation myths,” Doyle said, “before the Christians came and sanitized them.”

Mistral crawled off the bed. He was shaking his head. “I cannot afford to be near when Sholto glows.”

“Don’t you want to know what would happen?” Sholto asked.

“No,” Mistral said. “I don’t.”

“Leave him,” Doyle said. “Nothing we do with Meredith is about force. We will not force Mistral now.”

Sholto looked at Doyle, and there was that moment of arrogance that was all sidhe, and no amount of tentacled extras could disguise where it came from. I watched the thought cross his face and travel all the way through his eyes that he wanted to try. He wanted to know what would happen if he and Mistral joined their magic.

“No,” I said, and touched Sholto’s face. I brought him down to meet my gaze.

That arrogant defiance stayed for a second, then he blinked and was simply arrogant. “As my queen wills it.”

I smiled at him because even I didn’t believe it. He would remember this moment, and he would not forget the feel of power. Sholto was a very nice guy for a king, but in the end all kings seek power; it is the nature of who they are, and this king would not forget that the “god” who created his race was awake again.

I did the only thing I could think of to break the terribly serious atmosphere. I looked down at Doyle and said, “All my good work is undone with this serious talk. I’ll have to start all over again.”

He smiled at me. “How could I forget that nothing dissuades you from your goal?”

I put into my eyes all that I felt for him. “When my goal is such as this, why would anything dissuade me?”

He came to me, with Sholto still wrapped loosely around me. But when he touched the other side of us, there was no jump of power. For Doyle, Sholto, and me, it was just flesh