"Dammit," I muttered, trying to keep my voice down. "We had a deal."

"I agreed not to punish you for refusing me, wizard. I agreed not to punish or harass you by proxy." Mab smiled. "I did that just for spite."

I growled. "That isn't going to make it more likely that I take this case."

"You will take it, emissary," Mab said, her voice confident. "Expect to meet your counterpart this evening."

"What counterpart?"

"As you are Winter's emissary in this matter, Summer, too, has sought out one to represent her interests."

"I got plans tonight," I growled. "And I haven't taken the case."

Mab tilted her dark glasses down, cat eyes on mine. "Wizard. Do you know the story of the Fox and Scorpion?"

I shook my head, looking away.

"Fox and Scorpion came to a brook," Mab murmured, her voice low, sweet. "Wide was the water. Scorpion asked Fox for a ride on his back. Fox said, 'Scorpion, will you not sting me?' Scorpion said, 'If I did, it would mean the death of us both.' Fox agreed, and Scorpion climbed onto his back. Fox swam, but halfway over, Scorpion struck with his deadly sting. Fox gasped, 'Fool, you have doomed us both. Why?' 'I am a scorpion,' said Scorpion. 'It is my nature.' "

"That's the story?" I said. "Don't quit your day job."

Mab laughed, velvet ice, and it sent another shiver through me. "You will accept this case, wizard. It is what you are. It is your nature." Then she turned and walked down the hall, aloof, reserved, cold. I glowered after her for a minute before I shut the door.

Maybe I'd been shut away in my lab too long, but Spenser never mentions that the Faerie Queen has a great ass.

So I notice these things. So sue me.

Chapter Four

I leaned against my door with my eyes closed, trying to think. I was scared. Not in that half-pleasant adrenaline-charged way, but quietly scared. Wait-on-the-results-of-medical-tests scared. It's a rational sort of fear that puts a lawn chair down in the front of your thoughts and brings a cooler of drinks along with it.

I was working for the queen of wicked faeries-well, Queen of Winter, of the Unseelie faeries, at any rate. The Unseelie weren't universally vicious and evil, any more than the Seelie, the Summer fae, were all kind and wise. They were much like the season for which they had been named-cold, beautiful, pitiless, and entirely without remorse. Only a fool would willingly associate with them.

Not that Mab had given me much of a choice, but technically speaking there had been one. I could have turned her down flat and accepted whatever came.

I chewed on my lip. Given the kind of business I was in, I hadn't felt the need to spend too much time hunting for a good retirement plan. Wizards can live a long, long time, but most of the ones that do tend to be the kind that stick at home in their study. Not many tossed their gauntlets into as many faces as I had.