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blow that killed your great-grandmother, my mother?”
    “She died in one of the last great wars between the courts.”
    “Aye, but who killed her?”
    I looked at Sholto. His face was its arrogant mask, but his eyes were thinking too hard. I didn’t know his face as well as Rhys’s or Galen’s, but I was almost certain that he was thinking furiously.
    “Did you kill my great-grandmother?”
    “I slew many in the wars. The brownies were on the side of the Seelie Court, and I was not. I, and my people, did kill brownies and other lesser fey of the Seelie Court in the wars, but whether one of them was your blood, I do not know.”
    “Worse then,” Gran said. “You killed her and it meant nothin’ to ya.”
    “I killed many. It becomes difficult after a time to separate the dead one from another.”
    “I saw her die at his hand, Merry. He slew her and moved on, as if she were nothing.” There was such pain in her voice, a raw hurt that I had never heard from my grandmother.
    “Which war was this?” Doyle asked, his deep voice falling into the sudden tension like a stone thrown down a well.
    “It was the third call to arms,” Gran said.
    “The one that started because Andais boasted that her hounds could out-hunt Taranis’s,” Doyle said.
    “So that’s why it’s called the War of Dogs,” I said.
    He nodded.
    “I do nae know why it began. The king ne’r told us why we were to fight, only that to refuse was treason and death.”
    “Think about why the first one is called the Marriage War,” Rhys said.
    “That one I know,” I said. “Andais offered to marry Taranis and combine the two courts, after her king died in a duel.”
    “I can’t remember anymore which of them took insult first,” Doyle said.
    “That war was more than three thousand years ago,” Rhys said. “The details tend to get fuzzy after that much time.”
    “So all the great fey wars have been over stupid reasons?” I asked. “Most of them,” Doyle said.
    “The sin of pride,” Gran said.
    No one argued with her. I wasn’t certain that pride was a sin—we weren’t Christian—but pride could be a terrible thing in a society where the rulers had absolute sway over their people. There was no way to say no, no way to say “isn’t this a stupid reason to get our people killed?” Not without being imprisoned, or worse. That went for both courts, by the by, though the Seelie Court was more circumspect over the centuries, so that its reputation among the media had always been better. Andais liked her tortures and executions more public.
    I looked from Gran to Sholto. His handsome face was uncertain. He tried for arrogance, but there was a flinching in his tri-yellow eyes. Was it fear? Perhaps. I think he believed in that moment that I might cast him away, because three thousand years ago he had slain my ancestor.
    “He waded through our people as if they were so much meat, something to be cut down, so that he could get to the main fightin’,” Gran said, with rage in her voice that I’d never heard even for the abusive bastard who had been her husband at the Seelie Court.
    “Sholto is the father of one of your great-grandchildren. Sex with him awakened the wild magic. Sex with him is what has given back the dogs and faerie animals that are appearing in the courts and among the lesser fey.”
    She gave me a look—such bitterness in that one look. It frightened me a little. My gentle Gran, so full of hate. “Rumor said that, too, but I didnae believe it.”
    “I swear by the Darkness that Eats all Things that it is true.”
    She looked startled. “Ya did nae ha’ to make that oath to me, Merry-girl. I would believe ya.”
    “I want this clear between us, Gran. I love you, and I am sorry that Sholto slew your mother, my great-grandmother, in front of you, but he is not only the father of one of my children, he is also the consort who helped me bring back much of the magic that has returned. He is too valuable to me and