“They remember the Old Kings,” Uncle Mike answered. “They remember what Zee can do—they fear him themselves. And Goreu is powerful enough that the battles he fought to become a Gray Lord looked . . . like a political animal wiggling his way into power.” He smiled. “And most of them would have been afraid to share those wristlets with the daughter of the Dragon Under the Hill.”

“All right,” I said, and looked to Adam.

“You know that we would sign a nonaggression pact,” he said. “So why the story hour?”

“Because nothing is that simple,” agreed Goreu. “The humans might believe that your killing of the troll was enough to make us sign such an agreement. But those of Faery know better. It would be a loss of face—and might spell the downfall of the Gray Lords. The individuals are strong—but there are those, like your Zee and Uncle Mike”—he nodded to Uncle Mike, who grinned and drank his cider—“who hide what they are. If we appear too weak, we shall be brought down—and chaos will rule. That would not be good for anyone. So.” He stood up. “Two things. First, a show of force, something to demonstrate that it is no weakness of the fae that makes us sign a treaty. Beauclaire should be ready for his demonstration.”

I felt a slow, rolling anxiety. Beauclaire had once, not long ago, told me that he could create hurricanes and tidal waves. That he could drown cities. The Columbia was a mile wide and sixty feet deep.

12

We followed Uncle Mike and Goreu through the double doors marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. I’d expected a kitchen, but there was only a stairway that led up or down. We took the up. Uncle Mike’s shouldn’t have had an up. From the outside, it was clearly a single-story building. Apparently, that was an illusion or this was a different kind of stairway. We climbed more than one floor. I started counting on the third-floor landing, and I counted seven more. I don’t know that there is a ten-story building in the Tri-Cities—maybe the new hospital building in Richland.

Goreu said, opening the door at the top of the stairs, “We wanted you to have a good view.”

It was windy, but warm enough, as we stepped out onto a flat roof, the kind of roof I’d have expected Uncle Mike’s to have, with battered machines happily humming away, keeping the tavern a steady temperature, and a knee-high barricade to keep people from walking off the edge. Just the right height for a tripping hazard, I thought. Someone stood on the edge of the roof, looking out over the river.