Midnight Bites Read Online Free

know.”
    â€œShe?” Myrnin paused in reaching for the black woolen breeches that she’d set out for him, and blinked at her.
    â€œAmelie,” Lady Grey said.
    â€œAmelie?”
    â€œOur queen. She was concerned for you, and bid me find you. It took a good slice of time, but I am pleased you’re not as daft as I was told.”
    â€œDaft?”
    â€œHowever, you do repeat things quite a bit.”
    â€œI will bear it in mind.”
    â€œPlease do.” She gave him a look he could not even begin to interpret. “Shall I help you to dress?”
    â€œNo!” He must have sounded as scandalized as she hoped, for she gave him a saucy wink and left the room, closing the heavy oaken door behind her. He almost regretted her departure. She was . . . startling. Beautiful as an angel, tempting as something a great deal farther from heaven. Had Amelie intended for him to . . . No. No, of course not.
    He felt vulnerable in the empty room. It was a hard thing to struggle into the clean clothes, but once he’d fastened them up, he felt far better. She’d even given him red felt shoes, lined with fur and festively embroidered. Amelie must have mentioned his fondness for the exotic.
    Lady Grey was waiting in the hallway. She took him in at a long, sweeping glance, and he bowed again. “Do I meet your approval?”
    â€œSirrah, you met my approval when I found you stinking and ill in a dungeon. You are bidding fair to be a heartbreaker now, though I must credit myself for the beauty of your locks.” She winked at him and pulled the maid’s scarf from her head as she walked down the hallway. “Come. Your mistress will want to greet you, now that you’re half yourself again.”
    â€œOnly half?” he murmured.
    â€œI’ll have a meal waiting when you’re done. I expect that willrestore you the rest of the way.” She walked a few steps ahead, then turned toward him, still striding backward in an entirely unladylike manner. “Of course, restore you to
what
will be the question. Are you really a madman?”
    â€œIt depends on the day of the week,” he said. “And the direction of the wind.”
    â€œClever little madman.” She turned to finish her walk with absolute precision at the doors at the end of the hallway, which she thrust open with the confidence only a queen could possibly have. “My lady Amelie, I bring your errant wizard.”
    â€œNot a wizard,” Myrnin whispered as he edged past her.
    â€œHow disappointing,” she whispered back, then bowed to Amelie and closed the doors, leaving him facing his old friend.
    She was swathed in a dazzling white robe trimmed with ermine, intertwined most tellingly with strands of silver wire. . . . She wanted her subjects to know that she was old enough and tough enough to defeat the burning metal, and therefore them. She looked the same as always: young, beautiful, imperious. She was reading a volume, and she placed a feather in it as a marker and set it aside as he bowed to her. He assayed a full curtsy, and almost fell in rising.
    She was up and at his side instantly to assist him to a nearby chair. “Sit,” Amelie said. “No ceremony between us.”
    â€œAs you wish, my lady.”
    â€œI am not your lady,” she said. “At the least, I do not raise the color in your face the way our good Lady Grey seems to do. I’m pleased you enjoy her company. I hoped she might give you some . . . diversion.”
    â€œAmelie!”
    She gave him a quelling look. “I meant that only in the most innocent sense. I am no panderer. You will find Lady Grey to be anintelligent and well-read woman. The English have no sense of value, to have condemned her so easily to the chop.”
    â€œAh,” he said, as she took her seat again. “How did she escape it?”
    â€œI found a girl of similar age and coloring