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around me for them but my hands found nothing but cool marble floor in my general vicinity. Slow and cautious I sat up, and the room did a lurching spin around me until it righted itself.
    "Glasses," I demanded of no one in particular. One of those multicolored blobs in my field of vision had to be a person.
    "Here," Lex said. My glasses were set into my outstretched hand and I put them on. He knelt at my side, and I glared at him. The hall had emptied out, leaving only the three Council members in front of me. Glancing behind me I saw both Portia and Tybalt, their faces grim, and that scared the hell out of me. Then I remembered why I'd been hit with the unholy huge whammy that knocked me out in the first place. I swore a vicious curse and leapt to my feet, rounding on my father who stood silently several feet away with the man in the charcoal suit standing behind him like a shadow. My hand went for the hilt of my sword, and I looked down in surprise when I didn't find it there. Before I could do anything further Lex grabbed my arms and dragged me backwards.
    "Calm down," he warned.
    "Lemme go!"
    "Catherine, no," Portia snapped as she appeared in front of me. The fact that she actually used my first name gave me a moment of pause--Portia'd never done that in the entire time I've known her. I took a deep breath and unclenched my fists.
    "Murderer!" I spat at him instead.
    "I am not responsible for what happened to your mother," he replied calmly. It was the first time I'd heard my father's voice in eighteen years. Amazing how much he sounded the same.
    "Don't give me that bullshit. You let your vamp buddies tear her apart like a pinata, you bastard."
    The assembled faeries gasped at the language. Faeries don't swear, or at least they don't approve of the use of "oaths and curses" as they call them. I was too furious to care, and the angrier I am the more horrifying my language becomes. Lex gave my arms a squeeze in silent warning to control myself, but I continued to ignore him.
    The memory was still so raw and painful, as though it had happened yesterday instead of over a decade ago. I could still see her broken body on the floor of our living room, her eyes wide and terrified, frozen forever, and still smell the awful stench of blood and death and worse. Fury burned inside me, and the floor beneath my feet trembled with it. There were no streetlights to attack here with my excess power, and that power was looking for somewhere else to escape.
    "Lord and Lady, I will make you pay for what you've done." My voice was deadly calm, and as the words left my throat something around me seemed to pop. I knew what I'd done--I'd sworn a vow in a faerie mound, a kinslaying vow no less--and invoked my gods at the same time. I was far too angry to care.
    The faeries, however, did care.
    "ENOUGH!" The word boomed through the room like a crack of thunder. I felt everyone around me step away as I turned and gave my full attention to the speaker. I knew who she was, even though I'd never met her in person before: Cecelia of the Silver Crescent, a truly stunning sight to behold. A frost fairy like my cousins, she looked as though she had been created from silver and moonlight, with iridescent hair falling almost to the floor and wings that glowed with their own light. Large blue eyes stared at me, disapproving, and I had the good sense to feel guilty under her gaze.
    "I think you have interrupted these proceedings quite enough, Mistress Morrow," Cecelia scolded, and I blushed redder than a genetically modified tomato. I would've said I was sorry, but I was certain that opening my mouth would get me zotted into unconsciousness again, and I wasn't sure I'd live through another blast. The faerie folded her silvery hands in her lap and leaned back into her seat, appearing relaxed and unaffected by the fact that I'd been ready to stab the face off my father's head just a few short moments ago.
    "Both of you have come here to petition for the open