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creak, the gates swung open and a satyr in a herald’s uniform padded through, beckoning to us urgently. “Well, here we go, ice-boy. Try to keep it together in front of the queen.”

Chapter Four
Ill Met by Moonlight, Proud Titania
    We walked through the gate into the flowering tunnel of thorns on the other side. I breathed in deeply and sighed, loving the potent, fragrant smells of the forest. Beside me, Ash did not look as enamored. His posture was stiff, tense. I guess I couldn’t blame the guy, walking into the heart of enemy territory, surrounded by Summer fey, unable to use his magic or his weapon. I might’ve felt bad for him, if the whole thing wasn’t so darn amusing.
    The tunnel ended in a curtain of vines. Dark shapes and a haunting, eerie tune filled the air on the other side. The melody pulled at my stomach, a sad, sweet sound, before I shook it off. Looking at Ash, and the pale determination on his face, I gave him a savage grin.
    â€œNo turning back now, ice-boy,” I muttered, and swept through the curtain into the room beyond.
    Oberon and Titania’s throne room was a massive clearing with cathedral-size trees creating a vaulted ceiling overhead. Thick moss carpeted the floor, and briars hemmed in the edges of the clearing. A waterfall trickled into a crystal pool, where will-o-the-wisps and piskie lights danced, bobbing through the clearing like drunken stars. Summer gentry, in their ridiculously fancy outfits, sat or stood around a pair of thrones in the middle of the clearing, one empty, but the other quite occupied.
    Oberon wasn’t here, of course, but Queen Titania sat on her throne with the smug, lazy grace of a cat overseeing a flock of mice.
    Everyone says the Summer Queen is stunning, beautiful, absolutely captivating. Yeah, I guess she is, but so is a volcanic eruption, and probably less volatile. Working in the Seelie Court is certainly interesting at times, to say the least. The Summer rulers have caused floods and wildfires in the mortal world with their arguments, and Titania once threatened to sink an entire village into the mud because of a misunderstanding over a missing hairpin. Fortunately Oberon can usually calm her rages and temper tantrums…when he decides to involve himself, that is. Many times, he turns a blind eye to his wife’s activities—until they affect him, of course.
    None of the nobles in the clearing seemed to notice us as we came in, their attention riveted to Titania, or something at the foot of her throne. Ash took in the room in one smooth, practiced glance, and his eyes suddenly widened. I followed his gaze, and my heart sank.
    The music we’d heard in the tunnel, the slow, lilting melody that was haunting and dark and beautiful, wasn’t played by any of Titania’s harp girls or servants or faery musicians. The melody had been strange at first, because it was of a kind not normally heard in the faery courts. It wasn’t a harp, or a flute or any of the strange magical instruments found only in our world.
    It was a violin. Being played by a mortal girl no older than eight, her small body tight as she sawed and ripped at the strings. She wore a simple black dress, and her long, mahogany hair was the same color as the instrument in her arms. Her eyes were closed as she played for her inhuman audience, her thin body swaying back and forth, ignorant of the queen’s dainty white hand resting atop her skull.
    And I knew. Leanansidhe’s prized possession, and Titania’s newest plaything, wasn’t the instrument in the girl’s tiny, skillful fingers.
    It was the girl herself. This was our “violin.”
    Well, things just got a lot more complicated.
    The song came to an end, and the girl’s eyes opened, dark and serious and a tad bemused, as if she wasn’t quite sure if this was a dream or not. The gentry tittered, clapping their hands and breathing small sighs of admiration, while