We can't run them down," Gregorio said.
"Can we drive past them?" Doyle asked.
She got back on the radio. The answer: "We can try."
"Let us try," Doyle said.
Gregorio said, "Princess, permission to speak freely?"
I smiled. "I didn't think you needed my permission, but if you do, you have it."
"How stupid does this Cel think you are? No one would believe this shit."
"I don't think he believes the princess is stupid," Doyle said. "I believe that the prince is deluding himself."
"You mean he honestly expects her to go with him quietly, and us not to fight him?"
"I believe that is his plan," Doyle said.
"You'd have to be crazy to believe that," Gregorio said.
"You would," Doyle said.
The woman looked at all three of us. "Your faces have all gone blank. You're trying not to let me see what you're thinking, but your blank faces say it all. You think he's crazy, as in certifiable."
"I do not know what certifiable means," Doyle said.
"It means crazy enough to be committed to a hospital," Rhys said.
"He is a prince of faerie. Such personages are not committed to insane asylums," Doyle said.
"Then what do you do with them?" she asked.
"They tend to die," he said, and even in the darkened car I could see that hint of a smile again.
Gregorio didn't smile back. "We can't kill a prince of anything for you guys."
"I didn't call you in to do our killing for us," I said.
"Whydidyou call us in, Princess?"
"To get me the hell out of here, Gregorio. You saw the Seelie simply leave rather than try to fight you. I thought that no one would be willing to confront the American military."
"You thought wrong," she said.
"And for that, I am sorry."
The line of cars began to move to the far side of the road, scraping against tree limbs, but since the Humvee was supposed to be able to stand up to artillery fire, a few branches wouldn't faze it. The trick was, would Cel and Siobhan simply let us drive away? How crazy was he, and where was Queen Andais, and why wasn't she keeping a better leash on her son?
Chapter Thirty-Three
The humvee crawled along the edge of the road, the trees scraping the windows, sides, and roof. "The prince and his people must still be in the road," Rhys said, "or they'd be moving faster."
"Have Mistral tell us who else is with Cel besides the captain of the guard," Doyle said.
I conveyed the request to Gregorio. She looked like she would argue, but he gave her the full force of his gaze. His face must have been almost lost in the dimness of the night and the car, but something about what she saw made her pick up the radio and do what he asked.
The answer came back as a list of the people who had backed Cel for centuries. But the crowd wasn't as large as I'd thought. Important names were missing, which didn't mean that the missing Unseelie were on my side. It simply meant that they'd abandoned Cel. One important oversight was that Siobhan was almost the only guard he had left. We'd discovered that the guards, most of whom had begun their careers as my father's personal guard, had not been asked if they wished to serve Cel. They had been forced, and no oath of allegiance had been given by most of them. Which meant that their service, and their torment by Cel, were illegal by our laws.
To join the guard of our royalty, you had to choose, and bind yourself with oaths. That Cel had stolen their freedom without that was a grave abuse of authority.
Gregorio watched our faces as she relayed the names. If she'd thought she'd learn something from Doyle or Rhys, she'd been mistaken. I think I just looked tired.
"The Queen must have given his guard a choice," Doyle said.
"The choice they should have had from the beginning," Rhys said.
"Yes," he said.
"What do you mean 'a choice'?" Gregorio asked.
"Prince Cel took over the personal guard of Prince Essus, Princess Meredith's father, after his death. By our laws, the guard should have had a choice to either follow the new prince or leave the royal service, but Prince Cel gave them no choice. The princess found this out recently, and petitioned the queen to give the prince's guard that choice."
"So they all bailed on him?" Gregorio asked.
"So it would seem."
"Or maybe they're out in the woods waiting to ambush us," Rhys said.
"That too is very possible."
"Couldn't you sense if there were that many sidhe hiding in the woods?" I asked.
"Not inside this much metal and human-made technology."
"We're almost head-blind, Merry. It doesn't kill us to be inside this much metal, like some of the lesser fey, but it curtails our magic, a lot," Rhys said.
"If there are other guards hiding in the woods, would it explain why Cel isn't attacking?" I asked. I huddled in more tightly against Doyle. Rhys was gazing out the windows, trying to see what lay ahead.
"It might," Doyle said.
Gregorio took it upon herself to hit the radio again. "The prince has a lot more personal guards than those in the road. We might want to check the woods and see what's there."
A man's voice said, "Roger that."
"So it's either a trap," Rhys said, "or he's waiting for the truck with us in it. We're his targets, after all."
"He is most likely saving his attack for us," Doyle said, "but as we cannot work magic inside the trucks, neither can he work magic upon us while we are surrounded by this much metal."
Gregorio asked, "Are you saying that we should let them throw magic at us, and the trucks will take care of it?"
Doyle and Rhys exchanged a look, then Rhys nodded and shrugged. Doyle answered. "The magic should fall apart around the trucks, and as long as your people stay inside them, they should be untouchable."
I turned in Doyle's arms so I could see his face, though dark on dark, I could see little of his expression. Of course, when he didn't wish me to, bright light wouldn't have clued me in to his thoughts.
"Are you saying that we are completely safe inside here from their magic?" Gregorio asked.
Doyle stirred beside me, pulling me even more tightly against him. Rhys took my hand in his, playing with my knuckles again in that worry-stone way, over and over.
"Either they can work magic inside here or they cannot," I said.
"It is not that simple," Doyle said at last.
"Well, since the Humvee with Galen and the others in it is going to be close to them very soon, I suggest you make it simple."
He smiled. "Spoken in the tone of a queen."
"I'm with her," Gregorio said. "I've got people depending on Dawson and me to keep them safe."
I shook my head. "Take the tone any way you like, Doyle, but you're both hiding something from me. Tell me.