The Others 10 - She's No Faerie Princess by Christine Warren

Author:Christine Warren [Warren, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780312347765
Published: 2006-10-31T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Fiona laughed when she saw it.

The gift had probably been meant to hang in front of a large window where light could shine through the myriad panes of colored glass and cast bright, vibrant pools of color around the room. Thank the stars the Others had been too smart for that. Instead, the two-by-three-foot piece hung inside a wooden cabinet in a small study on the second floor of Vircolac like some kind of guilty secret. The gilt frame around the monstrosity could easily have dated back to the days of the human king Louis XIV, but Fiona would have dated its origins to the Early Bad Taste period.

The edges of the glass disappeared into a rectangular wooden frame so ornately decorated, she almost expected it to tear the huge armoire down with its weight. Trailing vines twisted and clung, sprouting berries here and there like a hideous example of plant food gone wrong. Winged cherubs beamed maniacally down from each of the four corners, pudgy arms pulling back on intricately decorated bows. Their arrows pointed straight at anyone foolish enough to stand in front of the blinding gilded abomination. But worse than any of the sins of the frame was the image it surrounded.

Some evil artistic antigenius had used the same medium as the glorious rose window at Chartres to depict the stomach-churning image of Shakespearean fairies in midfrolic. Little winged creatures with faces like trolls and limbs like toothpicks gamboled around the edges of what looked like it was supposed to be a sylvan glade. A deformed and violently blue stream flowed across the foreground, and at the center of the scene a hideously blond fairy in a crown and a toga stood surrounded by the glowing nimbus usually reserved for human saints.

"Damn. One of you must have really pissed her off."

"Yeah, we figured that out." Tess guided Fiona until she stood right in the path of those little golden arrows about three feet from the surface of the blindingly bad artwork. "Actually, it reminds me that I wanted to ask you when Mab's birthday is. I have this lovely macramé toilet paper cover I think she'd just adore."

"There is a little charm she told us to use to make the glass active," Rafe said. He and the others stood against the inner wall of the study, well out of sight—or maybe firing range—of the magical device. "I didn't think you'd need it. You've probably done this sort of thing before, right?"

"I think I can figure it out."

Fiona took a deep breath, focused her attention on the glass, and gritted her teeth. Not because of any nerves about her ability to communicate through her aunt's gift to the Others, but because when Mab answered her call, she'd probably end up wishing she'd stopped along the way and picked up a full-body suit of Kevlar. Or maybe asbestos.

There had to be a museum in this city with a nice little set of steel-plate armor, right?

She twitched a little when Walker appeared just behind her and laid his large, warm hands on her shoulders.

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