"You attempted to cheat the Queen of Air and Darkness," Mab hissed. "You practiced a vile, wicked deception upon me, my knight." Her inhuman eyes glittered. "I expected no less of you. Were you not strong enough to cast such defiance into my teeth, you would be useless to my purposes." Her smile widened. "To our purposes now."
The very ground seemed to quiver, to let out an unthinkably low, deep, angry growl.
Mab's eyes snapped to Demonreach. "I have his oath, ancient one. What he has given is mine by right, and you may not gainsay it. He is mine to shape as I please."
"Dammit," I said tiredly. "Dammit."
And a voice—a very calm, very gentle, very rational voice whispered in my ear, "Lies. Mab cannot change who you are."
I struggled and twitched my fingers. "Five," I muttered, "Six. Seven. Heh." I couldn't help it. I laughed again. It hurt like hell and it felt wonderful. "Heh. Heh."
Mab had gone very still. She stared at me with wide eyes, her alien face void of expression.
"No," I said then, weakly. "No. Maybe I'm your knight. But I'm not yours."
Emerald fire flickered in her eyes, cold and angry. "What?"
"You can't make me your monster," I slurred. "Doesn't work. And you know it."
Mab's eyes grew colder, more distant. "Oh?"
"You can make me do things," I said. "You can mess with my head. But all that makes me is a thug." The effort of so many words cost me. I had to take a moment to rest before I continued. "You wanted a thug; you get that from anywhere. Lloyd Slate was a thug. Plenty where he came from."
Demonreach's burning eyes flickered, and a sense of something like cold satisfaction came from the cloaked giant.
"Said it yourself: need someone like me." I met Mab's eyes with mine and curled my upper lip into a sneer. "Go on. Try to change me. The second you do, the second I think you've played with my head or altered my memory, the first time you compel me to do something, I'll do the one thing you can't have in your new knight." I lifted my head a little, and I knew that I must have looked a little crazy as I spoke. "I'll do it. I'll follow your command. And I will do nothing else. I'll make every task you command one you must personally oversee. I'll have the initiative of a garden statue. And do you know what that will give you, my queen?"
Her eyes burned. "What?"
I felt my own smile widen. "A mediocre knight," I said. "And mediocrity, my queen, is a terrible, terrible fate."
Her voice came forth from lips so cold that frost began forming on them. The next drop of water to fall on me thumped gently, a tiny piece of sleet. "Do you think I cannot punish you for such defiance? Do you think I cannot visit such horrors upon those you love as to create legends that last a thousand years?"
I didn't flinch. "I think you've got too much on your plate already," I spat back. "I think you don't have the time or the energy to spare to fight your own knight anymore. I think you need me, or you wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of keeping me alive for this long, of taxing your strength this much to get it done. You need me. Or else why are you here? In Chicago? In May?"
Again, the inhuman eyes raked at mine. But when she spoke, her voice was very, very soft and far more terrible than a moment before. "I am not some mortal merchant to be bargained with. I am not some petty president to be argued with. I am Mab."
"You are Mab," I said. "And I owe you a debt for preserving my life. For giving me the power I needed to save my daughter's life. Don't think that I have forgotten that."
The faerie's expression finally changed. She frowned and tilted her head slightly, as if puzzled. "Then why this defiance? When you know I will take vengeance for it?"
"Because my soul is my own," I said quietly. "You cannot steal it from me. You cannot change it. You cannot buy it. I am mine, Mab. I have fought long and hard against horrors even you would respect. I have been beaten, but I have not yielded. I'm not going to start yielding now. If I did, I wouldn't be the weapon you need."
Her eyes narrowed.
"I will be the Winter Knight," I told her. "I will be the most terrifying Knight the Sidhe Courts have ever known. I will send your enemies down in defeat and make your power grow." I smiled again. "But I do it my way. On my terms. When you give me the task, I'll decide how it gets done—and you'll stay out of the way and let me work. And that's how it's going to be."
After a long silent moment, she said, "You dare give commands to me, mortal?"
"I can't control you," I said. "I know that. But I can control me. And I've just told you the only way you get what you want out of me." I shrugged a little. "Up to you, my queen. But think about whether you want another thug to command or an ally to respect. Otherwise, you might as well start cutting on me right here, right now, and get yourself somebody with less backbone."
The Queen of Air and Darkness stared down at me for silent moments. Then she said, "You will never be my ally. Not in your heart."
"Probably not," I said. "But I can follow the example of my godmother. I can be a trusted enemy. I can work with you."
Mab's pale white eyebrows lifted and her eyes gleamed. "I will never trust you, wizard." And then she rose abruptly and let my head fall back to the earth. She walked away, her silken gown hanging limply upon her insect-thin frame. "Prepare yourself."
