Wynn had remodeled the place a bit since our last visit. The ostentation had been toned down, the defensibility up. I approved; maybe he wasn't a complete idiot.
    The sky was overcast, except for the burning pillar of sunlight that speared down into the center of the tower. Meara sniggered.
    "Guess he's home," I observed.
    "I would say so," she agreed.
    There was a storm on the way; we heard thunder. Or maybe it was geese. Thunder would be better; geese meant the Wild Hunt was near, and while that would no doubt make life very uncomfortable for Wynn, it would also make it very short for the rest of us.
    The drawbridge was down, we saw as we drew nearer, and the portcullis up.
    Conner looked for the subtle signs that would mean there was hidden danger; the place as a whole didn't feel very healthy. "The moat isn't particularly friendly," he warned us, becoming visible again.
    We pondered the rippling black roses and decided there was no reason to get too close to it, debating tactics. Meara wanted to try sunlight, so Llweder pulled it out of his satchel; the light reflected from the surface of the roses and cast little rainbows about, but there was no other effect. Conner found a rock and lobbed it in; it rustled like leaves and rippled like water. One does have to give Wynn points for craftsmanship, even if he is mad.
    "Shall we cross the drawbridge and see what attacks us?" Meara suggested.
    "That's not really the kind of philosophy I like to live my life around, but okay," Gannon replied, rather restrainedly.
    "I was thinking that perhaps Conner could shoot a flaming arrow into it? Just to see if that has any effect," I put forward. No sense getting attacked from behind before we even got close to Wynn himself.
    No need for an arrow, Meara simply raised a hand. Flames rippled along the surface of the moat. The moat rose on one side of the bridge, just like the rose maze had on earlier visit. I drew my sword by reflex; the thing was large, three-headed, and more than a little on fire.
    Conner's arrow flew and knocked a sizeable chunk out of the creature. Llweder cast a spell to create ice in the moat, freezing the creature in place. He wanted to cross the bridge now.
    "No, let's kill it," I countered.
    "We've got another big battle waiting for us inside," he pointed out.
    "That we may need to run away from," Conner added.
    "Always secure your route of retreat," I told them. "Even a Rhys knows that much. Dad made sure to remind me before I left." Just in case the fire went out, or the creature broke free.
    "The route of retreat is always forward," Conner muttered.
    I had a problem in that the creature was stuck too far from the edge of the moat for me to reach it with my sword. Gannon found himself in the same position. We watched it burn for a bit longer—Meara sent a second Salamander Bolt into it. The entire moat was aflame now; the hydra writhed and screamed.
    "All right, maybe we don't need to bother," I admitted.
    Thunder crashed and lightning lit the sky in the near distance as we crossed the bridge between the walls of flame and entered Wynn's keep once again. And that was definitely the yammering of geese.
    "I'm not sure if this is a really good time or a really bad time to be paying a call," I murmured.
    "I don't know, should we just leave our cards with the butler? Or the horse, as the case may be?" Meara offered.
    A fortified tower stood in the midst of the small yard, a round main tower with four smaller towers around it.
    "Oh, boy is he an arrogant bastard," Meara breathed.
    "Are you just figuring this out?!" I stared at her.
    "I just didn't realize how arrogant." The front door was open, and there were lights up in the tower, and the beam of sunlight, of course. "He's going to be the only tanned Unseelie lord there is."
    There was a stable off to one side—certainly a more logical place for it—and a couple of other small outbuildings. There were some things that looked like chickens scratching around in the dust, but those symbols they were scratching out did not look healthy.
    "The front door is safe," Conner told us. "He's got something messing up my Sight past that. Everything in the courtyard is fine, but he's got some sort of barrier through there."
    "Guess he didn't like us waltzing in and rearranging his stuff," I smiled, and walked in. He was clearly expecting company; the ground floor of the tower was a maze, black marble carved in exquisite detail into the form of a hedge maze.
    Conner spent a few moments watching the Fae chickens to see if there were any omens to be seen there. There was something in the pattern of the corn, he was sure of it.
    "The chickens are tying to tell me something."
    "They're trying to tell you they want more corn," Meara suggested.
    "No, it's something deeper than that, something about a silver circlet.... hey are you still carrying that—you're going to hit me again, aren't you?" he asked.
    "No, we're not going to hit you. We're going to make you go first," she grinned.
    "What!"
    Bickering, they all came inside. Meara's augury spell made it easy to reach the center of the maze without mishap.
    "Look out!" Conner yelled; a large wrought-iron chandelier plummeted from the ceiling toward us as we scattered. It hadn't been in any real danger of hitting us, but we were a bit warier as we continued on through the maze, ending up not too far from where we'd begun, near the south tower. There was a staircase there, leading up one level.
    Meara handed Conner a bag of birdseed. "Maybe you want to leave a bread crumb trail?"
    "It would summon the chickens," he replied somberly.
    "Ooh." She stopped teasing him in favor of looking around. The central tower on this floor was stocked with Wynn's treasures, organized with the usual pathological neatness. While they collected a few souvenirs, I stalked about looking for the next staircase, which turned out to be in the west tower. The next floor was full of weapons, although Hunger was of course not present. Conner stared longingly at my backpack.
    "Stop that," I snapped.
    Meara picked up a glass bow. The next stair was in the north tower, leading to what looked like it might have been a seraglio, uninhabited. There was a slightly reassuring lack of dead bodies. Black and red, silk and satin, roses of course. Meara found a pair of women's slippers and tucked them into her bag. I gave her a perplexed look and continued on.
    "Shoes are items of great power," she explained.
    "Okay....."
    We climbed the east tower to Wynn's workroom, packed to the rafters with books and magical implements. In the center of the room was a stone circle; in the middle of that, a staircase led up yet again.
    Meara grabbed a chalice. Conner looked longingly at the library but restrained himself. Llweder grunted.
    The next floor was a feasting hall with room for forty, to reward those who had climbed all those stairs. Still no sign of our, uh, host, but a feast had been laid out, with every place set. I wondered if he was going to be entertaining some of the people he'd killed. Meara took a plate; I decided not to ask, and led the way up the next flight of stairs.
    This was now the throne room, which didn't look very different than it had last time, though it had of course moved a bit. There were scorch marks on the wall above the throne, Hunger's shadow.
         

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