Then he steps up and delivers a sucker punch in the kidney to the fairy who’s got a hold of Joe. When the fairy drops Joe’s arm, Jack grabs him in a neck hold that brings the fairy to his knees and keeps him there.

“Get the little ones,” he tells me, as Mother Crone’s two treekin start for Joe.

I grab each of them by the nape of the neck and hold them at arm’s length with their legs dangling. They struggle in my grip, but they’re not going anywhere.

“I figure we’ve got ten, maybe fifteen seconds before all hell breaks loose,” Jack tells Joe, “so you might want to speed up your conversation there.”

“This isn’t helping anything,” Mother Crone starts.

Joe cuts her off. “You don’t understand. We don’t play by your rules. We don’t go around pretending to be human and tying up our lives with all this pretentious crap about courts and procedures and diplomatic conventions. Mess with us, and all you do is bring hurt down on yourself. Now, tell me what you know.”

But we don’t get the ten or fifteen seconds Jack thought we might. I don’t know if Mother Crone was going to go all martyr on us, or break down and talk, but right about then the door bangs open and we’re looking at a half-dozen guards, bows in hand, arrows nocked and aimed at us.

Jack lifts his captive and holds the fairy in front of himself like a shield. I do the same with the squirming treekin I’ve got in either hand. Joe grabs Mother Crone’s arm, and slips around her, twisting her arm behind her back to put her between himself and the guards.

“You better hope you kill me with your first shot,” Jack tells the guards, “because you’re not getting a second.”

“What is the meaning of this?” a regal voice demands from behind the guards.

They never shift their aim, they never look away from us, but the guards move slightly aside so that the owner of that voice can step into the room. I’m guessing this is Tatiana. She might be standing there in jeans and a blouse, tawny hair pulled back in a casual ponytail, but she’s got the air of someone who doesn’t just expect her every command to be obeyed. She can’t even see how it could ever be otherwise.

Behind her I can see the hall filling with more guards.

I figure we’ve got seconds to shift into the between. I consider which guards I’ll throw the treekin at. That’s saying Joe doesn’t want to stay and fight. I give him a glance and see that those eyes of his are just filled right up with a crazy, feral light and realize we’re not going anywhere.