"Mercedes Lackey and Roberta Gellis - Ill Met by Moonlight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

It was impossible to tell one of Rhoslyn's constructs from another, except by the ribbons around their
necks. They all looked like starveling girl children with huge eyes and small mouths. But those pursed lips
could open wide as a lion's maw and show teeth that were as long and pointed as any wolf's. And the
long, thin fingers on their sticklike arms . . . Pasgen had seen those fingers slice up an ogre as if he were a
cheese.

For a long moment the constructs stared at each other in silence and Pasgen began to debate in his mind
whether he could destroy them before they wounded him . . . and what his sister might do to him if he
destroyed her toys.

Then Rhoslyn was there, stepping out of a shadow as if she had been conjured.

"Pasgen," she said, and looked at her constructs. "What ails you? Do you not know my brother?"

"Yes, lady," the girl with the yellow ribbon whispered, flexing her hands, "but this one is not the same. He
has two hearts."

As Denoriel passed through the door to Aleneil's house, he wondered whether Elfhame Avalon was not
just a bit too open to passersby. Elfhame Logres was open too—the gardens, woods, and meadows, but
the palace Llachar Lle had defenses. Even his own apartment inside the palace had a door that would
exclude any who had not been sealed into its memory.

Of course with the Academicia in Avalon where most of the Magus Majors lived and worked, an inimical
intruder would not last long. Not to mention what King Oberon and Queen Titania could do should
anyone be foolish enough to invade the place . . .

Denoriel found himself smiling, and relaxed; he was being foolishly protective. Surely he did not need to
be concerned for the safety of his precious sister and Avalon. He was still smiling when Aleneil stepped
from the doorway of her solar. She smiled at him, and then laughed aloud.

"I guessed you would be coming here as soon as Mwynwen told you, but so quickly . . ." She frowned
anxiously. "Oh, you didn't make a Gate, did you?"

"No, no. I will go strictly by the rules. I remember all too well what happened two years ago when I
carelessly tried to light a candle. I have no desire at all to feel again as if every vein in my body is afire."
He grinned at her. "Miralys brought me by his own sweet ways without regard to Gates or other
Passages."

"Ah." Aleneil turned and led the way into her solar. "I suppose the elvensteeds use magic, but it is
something completely unlike our own."

"I think," Denoriel replied, having had quite some time to actually think about such things and great need
to actually do so, "that it is more that they are like otters that slice through the water of magic, and we are
the poor ducks, paddling furiously across the top of it and doing as much splashing and churning as
getting anywhere."

That made Aleneil laugh. "Oh, please. A swan at least! Well, thanks to Miralys, then. He must have felt
your need."