Black Spring

As if he had heard my thoughts, the new High King of Faerie looked over at me and winked. I resisted the very strong urge to leap across the table and punch him in the face. His eyes twinkled merrily, which meant that he could certainly read the emotion on my face if not what I was thinking.

After the pasta was cleared, there seemed to be a lull in the gorging. Beezle was flat on his back on the table between Nathaniel and I, rubbing his belly and moaning.

“Nobody made you eat your plate and mine for every course,” I said without sympathy.

“I couldn’t let good food like that go to waste,” Beezle said. “But now I don’t think I have any room for dessert.”

“You probably don’t have any room for breakfast tomorrow, either,” I said.

Beezle lifted his head slightly to give me an incredulous look. “That’s crazy talk. I’ll be hungry again in a few hours. But that will be long after dessert, and there might not be leftovers.”

He glanced hopefully at Lucifer. The Morningstar did not confirm or deny the possibility of leftovers. He gave no indication that he had heard Beezle at all. Instead, he rose to his feet, a wineglass in his hand.

“I’d like to propose a toast,” he said, and all eyes in the room turned toward the table.

I tried to slouch down as low as possible in my chair but my protruding belly made it impossible to slide under the table, which was what I wanted to do.

“You look like a turtle,” Beezle whispered.

“To my loving bride-to-be, Evangeline, for her loyalty and devotion throughout many eons,” Lucifer said.

For a moment there appeared to be a legitimate light of affection in his always-calculating eyes. I remembered something I had thought once, a long time ago. Nobody had ever loved Lucifer except this one crazy girl. She had worshiped the ground he walked upon from the moment she first saw him, a shadow with eyes of starlight calling to her.

She loved him, and in his own way he loved her, too. That was why she was given this gift, this public declaration, that none of his other lovers or children of those lovers had received. That was why he valued me more than his closer kin. I was a child of the line of Evangeline.

Lucifer had continued talking while my mind drifted away. I came back to earth when Beezle nudged me.

“Hey, you’re supposed to be drinking to your grandmother’s health,” he said.

I noticed everyone else in the room doing just that, and figured they all had their faces in their own glasses and couldn’t see what I was not doing with mine. Lucifer noticed, though. He didn’t say anything, but he noticed. He noticed everything.

After Lucifer’s toast, Puck, not to be outdone by his brother, stood up and proposed a toast to the happy couple. I confess that I tuned it out entirely. I find toasts to be uncomfortable for everyone involved, and I didn’t like that all this public speaking kept all the guests’ eyes glued to our table.

Puck sat down finally, and then the dessert course was brought out. Beezle had sat up while Puck was entertaining the guests with his speech, and now he drew his dessert spoon toward him eagerly.

“I thought you didn’t have room for dessert,” I said as dishes of flan were set before us.

“All this talking gave me time to digest,” Beezle said.

I rubbed my eyes. All I wanted to do was to leave this room and go to sleep. Of course, the presence of the shifter in the mansion made sleeping a much more dangerous proposition than it ought to be.

Nathaniel and I would be able to protect the room with a spell similar to the one we used on my home before we left. We would have to do the same for Jude and Samiel. There was no way I was leaving them unprotected in this house.

Finally, dessert was over and everyone was dismissed for the evening, with the promise of much revelry the next day. Several guests gathered in clumps to talk and drink more of Lucifer’s wine. Others disappeared into the maze of the mansion, either to travel to outside accommodations or to head to guest rooms.

A bunch of people approached the table to thank Lucifer or pay fealty or whatever it was they wanted to do. I took advantage of Lucifer’s distraction to escape before I was introduced to anyone. Nathaniel put his arm around me and hurried me toward the side door. Samiel and Jude followed.

Beezle wanted to stay behind and finish off any flan on the tables that had been untouched, but Nathaniel nixed that idea with a sharp look. My gargoyle came along with a grumble.

We had nearly made it to the door when Michael stepped in front of us. His power was almost overwhelming up close, a tangible thing that filled the air around him. I had the same feeling I’d had before, that there was something familiar about him. Maybe it was because his power infused the line of Agents? That would make sense. He’d used his own grace to disguise Evangeline’s children, the original Agents, so many centuries before.

“I do not believe we have met,” he said. His voice, too, seemed to occupy all the empty space around it. “I am Michael.”