She looked at me. “My father didn’t know him well. Goreu didn’t take an active role among the fae until after my father died. Much of what I know of him comes from the research Thomas did for this trip.” She smiled, as if at some memory. “The vampires follow fae politics for entertainment. Thomas gathered a lot more information about current politics than the Gray Lords would be comfortable with if they knew.” She tapped a finger on the dash. “So Goreu. King Arthur wasn’t a king, really, and the stories of the knights of the round table are only very loosely factual. But Arthur was a hero, and Goreu rode with him. He killed a giant. The troll you killed was but a rabbit to the wolf that a giant would have been.” She paused. “But that was a long time ago. Goreu has done nothing important since except for his selection into the Council of the Gray Lords. I wouldn’t have thought one of Arthur’s men would have stooped to the foulness of those slave bracelets.” She hummed a little; it was on key and pretty. “I also wouldn’t have thought a Gray Lord would have been so easily defeated.”

“Nemane.” Her name seemed to hang in the air longer than sound should have. Suddenly it was very dark in the car, the dash lights only a candle in the night.

“The Carrion Crow,” Margaret said slowly, and for the first time I smelled fear rising from her skin. “One of the three fae who could be Morrigan, the goddess of battle. She is smart and very old. And very, very clever. My father respected her—and feared her. The only one of the fae he truly feared. She is capable of playing a very long game. She is patient.” Margaret swallowed. “And bloodthirsty.”

Maybe if we hadn’t been in a dark car, driving through the dark, her words wouldn’t have been so . . . frightening. Like how a story told by firelight has more power than one told in the light of day. But I hadn’t been afraid of her back in the hotel. Neuth, yes, but not Nemane.

I could just be affected by Margaret’s fear, but it felt like more than that. Maybe it was just that we spoke of someone who was a Power and had been a Power for longer than I could imagine, and we spoke of her in the loneliness of the night.

“Okay,” I said. “Now that you’ve scared us both . . .” I had the sudden conviction that Adam and I were in way over our heads. We had just met with five of the Gray Lords—but those weren’t the only Gray Lords on that reservation.

“When I saw her sitting there . . .” Margaret said. “I was very grateful for Thomas at my back.”

There was still one we hadn’t spoken of.