She leaned toward me, her eyes all but glowing with intensity and her teeth showing in a sudden, carnivorous smile. “Indeed. And such a treacherous gift it was, child. Oh, but if that deceitful creature had survived you, such a vengeance I would have wreaked that the world would have spoken of it in whispers for a thousand years.”

I squinted at her. “But… I killed Bianca before you could balance the scales.”

“Indeed, simple boy. Why else, think you, that I gifted you with the most potent powers of faerie to protect you and your companions when we battled Bianca’s ultimate progenitors?”

“I thought you did it because Mab ordered you to.”

“Tsk. In all of Winter, I am second in power only to Mab—which she has allowed because I have incurred with it proportionate obligation to her. She is my dearest enemy, but even I do not owe Mab so much. I helped you as much as I did, sweet child, because I owed you for collecting a portion of my due justice from Bianca,” the Leanansidhe said. Her eyes grew wider, wilder. “The rest I took from the little whore’s masters. Though I admit, I hadn’t expected the collection to be quite so thorough.”

Memories flashed in my head. Susan. An obsidian knife. I felt sick.

I’ll get over it, I told myself. Eventually. It hadn’t been much more than a day from my point of view. I was probably still in shock or trauma or something—if ghosts could get that, I mean.

I looked up and realized that Lea was staring at me, at my memories, with undisguised glee. She let out a contented sigh and said, “You do not settle things by half measures, do you, my godson?”

I could get mad at her for being callous about calling those memories to my mind, or I could revile her for taking such joy in so much destruction and pain, but there wasn’t a point in doing so. My godmother was what she was—a being of violence, deceit, and the thirst for power. She wasn’t human. Her attitudes and reactions could not fairly be called inhumane.

Besides. I had gotten to know Lea’s sovereign, Queen Mab, in a fashion so hideously intimate that I could not possibly describe it. And believe me. If Lea had been the high priestess of murder, bloodlust, scheming, and manipulation, then Mab was the goddess my godmother worshipped.

Come to think of it, that was probably an apt description of their relationship.

Six of one, a half dozen of another. My godmother wasn’t going to change. There was no sense in holding what she was against her. So I just gave her a tired, whimsical smile instead.

“Saves time,” I told her. “Do it thoroughly once, and you don’t have to fool around with it again later.”

She dropped back her head and let out a deep-throated laugh. Then she tilted her head and looked at me. “You didn’t realize what would happen to mortal kind when you struck down the Red King and his brood. Did you?”