Chapter 35 begins with Merry awakening in the hotel bed, covered in Frost’s long silver hair. Kitto was curled up next to Merry, and Merry remembers that Kitto had taken a nice chomp out of her shoulder during the night, the flesh he had taken to finalize her alliance with the goblins. Sometime during the third or fourth time having sex with Frost, Merry allowed Kitto to bite her. Merry feels a little sorrow, though, as Kitto had felt immense pride that Merry had allowed him to mark her as a lover (leaving a visible bite-mark), and Merry has no intentions of ever having sex with him.

Merry realizes that her wounds from the roses the night before had nearly healed, which surprises her as she’s never healed this quickly before. She assumes that it is the sex that is healing her. She then realizes that she is freezing – it is quite chilly in the room, and she was left with only a small corner of the sheet. Frost was wrapped in it. Instead of tugging on the sheet like a normal person, she moves over to Frost and licks down his spine to wake him up. As soon as Frost wakes, she covers herself in the blankets. She and Frost start cuddling, but they soon stop as they hear commotion outside the hotel room’s window.

Frost gets up from the bed, naked, and throws open the curtains, revealing a man standing there with a camera. The photographer immediately begins taking pictures of naked Frost, with Merry and Kitto both nude in the bed. Frost smashes his fist through the window and grabs the photographer by the neck, choking him. Doyle kicks the hotel room door open and rushes in, demanding Frost stop choking the photographer. Frost eventually lets go, dropping the photographer to the ground outside the window, and Merry runs over to close the curtains, when she notices a huge group of photographers and reporters snapping pictures of them. She shuts the curtains, and they run through the adjoining doors to the hotel room next door (which Galen had booked the night before).

Frost, Merry, and Kitto get dressed and Doyle lets them know that they have a greater problem than the reporters and photographers outside the hotel. A copy of that day’s St. Louis Dispatch newspaper is sitting on the bedside table, and Merry wonders what the big deal is – she assumes Jenkins outed her as the missing Faerie princess.

But when they see the paper, it’s full of sex pics of her and Griffin, from when they were engaged years before. Griffin had apparently given Jenkins a full interview, detailing his time with Merry, and exposing all of their private life together. They also hand her several tabloids containing even racier pictures. Merry is aghast, and both Doyle and Frost begin apologizing to her for what Griffin did to her. Doyle lets her know that he has already told the queen about Griffin’s betrayal, that she will kill him for what he did to Merry. Apparently Griffin is no where to be found, but the queen has her best searching for him.

Her best couldn’t even find Merry who was HIDING IN FUCKING LA as a high profile private detective. Yeah, they’ll find Griffin, sure.

The chapter ends with Merry waffling on about how badly Griffin hurt her for doing this, for betraying her like this. They plan to return to Faerie to aid Andais in coming up with a good spin on the scandal.

Characters Introduced:

None

Themes Introduced:

Griffin released photograph and an interview revealing his and Merry’s sex life together. He escapes and is no where to be found.

Sex: just in tabloids.

Oh and apparently Merry was at one time offered to do a centerfold shot for Playboy, but she turned it down because she’s just so fucking noble.

Chapter 36

Chapter 36 begins hours later, as the last of the reporters and photographers had left the Unseelie sithen. Andais had thrown a press conference for them in order to answer their questions. Merry and Cel sat to either side of Andais. Any questions that were asked, Andais answered, and whenever she was asked a question that she did not want to answer (one reporter had asked about Branwyn’s Tears being used in LA), Andais would play off that she had no knowledge of it. The sidhe do not lie, however they are able to exaggerate to the point of almost lying, and their power of persuasion is so good that they could even convince someone to believe almost lies.

After the press conference, Cel was led off to begin his torture in the Hallway of Mortality. Andais retired to her chamber with Doyle and Frost for a debriefing about the situation at the hotel (you’d think they’d have done that BEFORE the press conference???), so Merry is left with Galen (who is limping and thus goes by himself to be looked at by a healer), Rhys, Kitto and Pasco to guard her. They begin to escort Merry back to her room, as they would be staying at court tonight due to the amount of press still following Merry. However, on the way to her room, the group gets lost, as the sithen had changed the hallways on them. Instead, they found themselves in front of a very large wood and bronze door – the Abyss of Despair lay behind the door.

Merry cannot remember the last time that the sithen had decided to reorganize the hallways and rooms that made it up. Rhys says that it hasn’t happened in a millennium. Pasco opens the door for Merry and the group and they enter the room. The room was large and circular, with a large round hole in the center – the abyss. No one knew how deep the abyss was, and it was rumored that it had no bottom, and that any sidhe thrown into it fell forever. There was a railing surrounding the hole, and the raining was bespelled to keep anyone from accidentally falling in or committing suicide by jumping in. The only way someone could enter the abyss was by being forcibly thrown over the railing.

As Merry and co begin to cross the room toward the door on the other side, Merry notices a blur of motion across the room as well as hears a sound behind them. She turns toward the sound and sees Rhys on his knees with Pasco standing over him with a bloody knife in his hand. Rhys falls forward to the ground, unmoving. Merry begins moving backwards to the door and sees Rozenwyn and Siobhan appear from the darkness. They part and walk on either side of the abyss towards Merry. Merry continues backing up until her back hits the wall behind her, Kitto crouching at her side.

Merry tells Pasco that Rhys won’t die of the knife wound. They respond that the knife won’t kill him, but while he’s down they can easily throw him over the railing into the abyss. Merry then asks if that’s her fate as well, and Siobhan tells her that they will kill her first, then toss her dead body over, as they’re under strict orders to kill her, no matter what. Merry is only wearing two knives, while all the guards are fully armed with swords, so she knows she’s quite outmatched. She takes one of the knives out of her pocket anyway, and the guards all laugh at her. Siobhan and Rozenwyn advance on her, and once close enough, Kitto launches himself onto Siobhan. She stabs at him with her sword, but it hardly affected him at all, and he continues thrashing and biting and fighting her. 

Rozenwyn then rushes at Merry, sword drawn. As she’s about to make contact, Merry throws herself onto the floor and as Rozenwyn passes over her, Merry calls her hand of power and touches Rozenwyn’s ankle with her hand, her hand of flesh. Rozenwyn drops to the ground, her leg already turning in on itself, and drops her sword. Pasco runs over to his twin, and as he leaps over Merry she drives Rozenwyn’s sword into Pasco’s body. He falls and reaches out to break his fall and lands directly on top of Rozenwyn’s inside-out leg. His body begins to meld with hers, twisting inside and out, and they conjoin into one large ball of inside-out flesh. As they’re transforming, Merry glances around the room and sees that Siobhan and Kitto had stopped fighting. Siobhan was breathing hard, covered in blood, watching in horror as her friends combined into one solid mass of flesh. Kitto lay next to her, a hole in his chest, but Merry sees that it’s healing quickly. Rhys staggers to his feet and makes his way to Merry’s side. Merry tells him to disarm and restrain Siobhan, and then for him to kill the remnants of Rozenwyn and Pasco. Merry stands up, grabs Rozenwyn’s bloodied sword, and walks alone from the abyss to find Cel in the Hallway of Mortality.

She finds Cel chained up, naked, and with Ezekial just about to cover him with Branwyn’s Tears. Andais stood in the room with Doyle and Frost. Andais asks Merry what has happened, and Merry presents Cel with Rozenwyn’s sword. She tells them that she would have brought an ear from both Rozenwyn and Pasco, but that there wasn’t anything left of them to bring. She holds up her left hand, her hand of flesh, and tells them that Rozenwyn and Pasco now share flesh as they had once shared a womb. She asks Cel if she should have thrown them over the railing into the abyss, as he had meant for them to do to Merry, Rhys and Kitto.

She turns to Andais and demands that Andais honor the full punishment – six full months – for Cel. Andais agrees, and walks out of the room without even looking at her son.

The chapter ends with Ezekial coating Cel with the magical oil. Before Branwyn’s Tears totally overtakes him, Cel issues a threat to Merry. “I was going to just kill you, Meredith, but not now. When I get out of here I’ll fuck you, fuck you  until you’re with my child. The throne is mine even if I have to get it through your lily-white body.” Merry tells Cel that if he comes near her again she’ll kill him, and they all turn to leave the room, to seal the room with Cel in it screaming Merry’s name.

Characters Introduced:

None

Themes Introduced:

Cel is now serving the entire sentence for giving Branwyn’s Tears to a mortal – six months covered in the oil, alone. When he gets out, he’s going to totally fuck Merry.

Sex: IN SIX MONTHS MWAHAAHAA