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THE STONE PATH MET THE MAIN AVENUE, WHICH WAS WIDE ENOUGH FOR a cart and horse or a small car, if cars had been allohich they were not Once upon a ti torches, then lanterns, to light the avenue Modern fire laws frowned on all-night torches, so now the poles that rested every eighteen feet or so held will-o’-the-wisps One of the craftsfolk had fashioned wooden and glass cages for the lights The lights were palest blue, ghostly white, a yellow so pale it was alreen leeched to a dilow of the yellow lights It was like walking through pools of colored phantoht to the next

When Jefferson had invited the fey into this country, he’d also offered them land of their choice They’d chosen thewinter nights about what lived in the mounds before we cas that lived inside the land were chased away or destroyed, butThere was a feel to the place as you walked down the avenue with the great hulking est mound in the city proper was at the end of the avenue I went to Washington, D C, during college, and when I ca how forcibly theon the plaza surrounded by thosedown the center and only street, I had the sense of great titon was now, a center of culture and power, and now it lay quiet, cleansed of its original inhabitants The huht the mounds were empty when they offered them up to us, just bones and soic had still been there, deep and sluht and then e over of that alien ether against a common foe

Of course, the very last time had been World War II Hitler had at first embraced the fey of Europe He’d wanted to add theenetic mix of his master race Then he’dourselves there is a class structure as rigid and unbreakable as it is foolish; the Seelie Court especially looks down on those who do not look like blood HitlerBut it was like a faht and beat each other bloody, but let anyone turn on one of theainst the coathered to trap and destroy the lesser fey His fey allies didn’t desert hi Humans would have felt the need to distance thee of heart, or maybe that was an American ideal It certainly wasn’t a fey ideal The allies found Hitler and all the wizards hanging up by their feet in his underground bunker They never found his mistress, Eva Braun Every once in a while the tabloids say that Hitler’s grandson has been found

None of my direct relatives were involved in Hitler’s death, so I don’t know for sure, but I suspect strongly that sootten two silver stars in the war He’d been a spy I never re particularly proud of the medals, mainly because my father never seemed to care about them But when he died, he left them to me in their satin-lined box I’d carried the with the rest of my childhood treasures: colored bird feathers, rocks that sparkled in the sun, the tiny plastic ballerinas that had graced my sixth-birthday cake, a dried bit of lavender, a toy cat with fake jewel eyes, and two silver stars given to my dead father Now the medals were back in their satin box in a drawer in my dresser The rest of hts are far away, Meredith," Doyle said

I was still walking at his side, hands on his arm, but for a moment only my body had been there It startled me to realize how far away I’d been

"I’ to me?" I shook my head

"What were you thinking about so very hard?" he asked The lights played over his face, painting colored shadows against his black skin It was alhts like carved and polished wood I was touching his arm, so I could feel the warmth, the muscles underneath, the softness of his skin His skin felt like anyone’s skin, but light didn’t reflect off skin, not like that

"I was thinking about my father," I said

"What of hi feathers brushed his neck,with the spill of black hair that was only partially trapped down the back of the cloak I realized that except for the small knot that captured the front pieces of his hair, the rest of his hair was spilling out underneath the cloak, loose

"I was thinking about hisbut turned his face full toa step He looked be of that now?"

I shook uess The ton, D C All that energy and purpose It must have been like that here once"

Doyle looked up at the mounds "And now it is quiet, almost deserted"

I smiled "I know better than that There’s hundreds, thousands under our feet"

"But yet the comparison of the two cities saddens you Why?"

I looked up at hi in a pool of yellow light, but there were pinpricks of every color of will-o’-the-wisp in his eyes, swirling like a tiny cloud of colored fireflies Except the colors in his eyes were rich and pure, not ghostly, and there were reds and purples and colors that shone nowhere near us

I closed my eyes, suddenly dizzy and nauseated I answered with ton lory days passed this place by long before we arrived" I opened my eyes and looked up at him His eyes were just black lory days are passed and us being here in this place is proof of that"

"Would you prefer that we be out a with theer fey, just another minority"

"Am I just a part of the minority, Doyle?"

A look passed over his face, soht that I couldn’t read I’d never been around a man whose face reflected so many emotions, and yet been able to read so few of them "You are Meredith, Princess of Flesh, and as sidhe as I areat co from you, Doyle I kno much store you set by your oath"

His head cocked to one side, studying me The movement pulled some of his hair farther out of his cloak to fold under but not fall free as he straightened his neck "I have felt your power, Princess, I cannot deny it"

"I’ve never seen your hair when it wasn’t braided or tied in a club I’ve never seen it

loose," I said

"Do you like it?"

I hadn’t expected him to ask my opinion I’d never heard hi

"I think so, but I’d need to see the hair without the cloak to be sure"

"Easily done," he said, and undid the cloak at his neck He let the cloak slide off his shoulders, spilling it over one ar what looked like a leather-and-h if it had been hts played over the muscles in his body as if he were indeed carved of sos encased in leather The pants clung to him and spilled into black boots that came up over his knees where the loose tops of the leather were held in place by straps with small silver buckles The buckles were echoed in the straps that covered his upper body The silver glittered against the blackness of hi in the wind, tangling in long strands around his ankles and calves The wind sent the feathers that edged his face across his ," I said, trying for flippant and failing

The wind rushed past us, flinging rass in the near field, and beyond that I could hear the cornstalks whispering to each other The wind blen the avenue, channeled between the er hands It was an echo of that welcoreeted ht

"Do you like my hair unbound, Princess?"

"What?" I said