"Yes," Nicca said in his soft voice, "and then the items we'd wrought ourselves began to break, or just stopped working. It was as if the spell drained them."
I knew that Nicca was centuries old, but I kept forgetting until he said something that forced me to remember.
"I don't think everyone would have agreed to the second weirding if they'd known what would happen to our wands, our staffs." Nicca shook his head, sending his deep brown hair glimmering in the lights. "I wouldn't have agreed."
"Many of us would not have agreed," Doyle said.
"If that's true," I said, "then how did you all agree to the weirding that made the Nameless? That was the third weirding, so you all knew what to expect. You all knew how much you could lose."
"What choice did we have?" Rhys said. "It was either give up more of our power or be exiles without a country."
"We could have stayed in Europe," Frost said.
"And what," Doyle said, "be forced out of our hollow hills to buy houses and live next door to humans? To be forced to intermarry with humans." He looked back at me and said, "I don't mean to insult the princess, but a little mixed blood is one thing; to be forced to marry humans is something else. Those who remained behind in Europe had to sign treaties to give up their culture." He spread his arms and hands wide. "Without their culture and belief a people do not exist."
"That's why they did it," Rhys said. "It was a way of destroying us that didn't smack of genocide."
"The humans were not strong enough to kill us all," Frost said.
"No," Rhys said, "but they were strong enough to bring us to the treaty table and force a peace that more than half of every race of the fey thought was unfair."
"I know the facts of what happened," I said, "but this is the first time I've ever heard any of you talk about the exile with this much emotion."
"We left Europe to save what was left of faerie," Doyle said. "Now that cup sits on the table, and it will all begin again."
"What will begin again?" I asked.
"The Goddess gave us her gifts, the Consort gave us his gifts, then one day they were gone. How can we trust that whatever gift we are given will not abandon us at our hour of need?" Pain, anger, frustration, hope, all fought across the darkness of his face.
"I think you're borrowing trouble," I said. "I think that we should figure out if the cauldron still does what it used to do before we worry about it disappearing again."
Rhys shook his head. "It never worked just because we wanted it to. It feeds us when we need to be fed. It heals when we need healing. The high holy relics are not sideshow entertainment. They only work if there's need."
"It's a matter of faith," Nicca said. "We have to have faith that it will help us when we need it." He didn't sound happy about it when he said it.
"Faith," Rhys said, so full of emotion that his voice was lower than normal, thick with things unsaid. "I gave that up a long time ago, Nicca. I'm not sure I can pick it back up again."
"I think we all believed we were truly gods," Doyle said, "equal to any. When the first lessening happened, we learned different." He strode to the table and looked almost as if he was going to pick up the cup, but he didn't. "We learned the difference between playing gods and being gods." He shook his head. "It is not a lesson I want to learn twice."
"Me, either," Rhys said.
"I was never more than I am right now," Frost said. "I learned different lessons." He didn't sound any happier about his lessons than the rest did about theirs.
My father had made sure I knew the cold facts of our history, but he'd never complained, never spoke of the pain I was seeing now. I'd known intellectually that the sidhe had lost much, but I hadn't really understood. I probably didn't understand even now, but I would try. Goddess help me, I would try.
"Didn't the children of Dana demand that the goblins not be gods to the humans?" Kitto asked. "Wasn't that your rule to the very first peace treaty with us? Is it that much different from what the humans have done to all of us?"
Rhys turned toward the smaller man. "How dare you compare - " He stopped in midsentence and shook his head. He rubbed his free hand across his face as if he was tired. "Kitto's right," he said.
The surprise showed on all our faces, even Doyle's. "Did you just agree with Kitto?" Nicca asked.
Rhys nodded. "He's right. When we first landed, we were as arrogant, and as determined to break the goblins' power, as the humans are of us."
"I'm not sure it's arrogance on the humans' part," I said. "I think it's mostly fear that another fey-and-human war might decimate Europe."
"But it's still arrogance to think that they can dictate rules of conduct to a civilization that existed millennia before their ancestors stopped living in caves," Rhys said.
To that I could add nothing, so I didn't try. "I concede the point."
He grinned at me. "You're not going to argue with me?"
I shrugged. "Why should I? You're right."
"You know, you have a mighty democratic way of thinking for the heir to a throne."
"I was raised for ten years out among the democratic American humans. I think it helps keep me humble." I smiled at him, because I couldn't not smile. Rhys had that effect on me, sometimes.
"I hate to break up the love-fest," Galen said, "but what are we going to do about the cauldron, chalice, whatever?"