"But that's not your real name."

"Of course not. To know the true name of a thing is to have power over it. But for the purpose of this transaction, Lord Screech will do."

"Because the owls are not what they seem?"

"Quite."

I looked him over. Screech was inhumanly tall and almost impossibly slender, with the usual slit-pupilled cat's eyes and sharp, pointed ears. His skin glowed like fine porcelain, so pale as to be almost colourless, and his quick smile showed pointed teeth behind the rose pink lips. He wore long oriental robes of a shimmering metallic green, complete with a stiff high collar that rose behind his head, and his long white hair had been swept up in tufts on either side of his elongated skull, like an owl's. I was tempted to make a Flock of Seagulls joke, but he wouldn't have got it.

And besides, it would have dated me.

"Why ask for me?" I said, directly.

"You have a reputation for arrogance, style, and occasional viciousness," said Screech. "You might almost have been an elf."

"Now you're just being nasty," I said. "And why meet here, of all places?"

"Because I do so love to watch humans degrade themselves," Screech said easily. "Throwing their lives away for such pitiful rewards. No elf would ever lower himself to anything as small as this; even our sins have to be magnificent."

"Tell me what you want," I said. "Or I'm out of here."

"Always so impatient," said Screech, laying aside his bone pipe. "Always in such a hurry. Comes of being mortal, I suppose. Very well, Mr. Taylor, I shall talk, and you will listen, which is of course the proper state of affairs between elf and human. I am presently passing through the Nightside on a matter of importance. It is imperative I complete my journey without being stopped or in any way detained along the way. I am an emissary between the two warring factions of Faerie."

"Hold everything," I said, leaning forward despite myself. "Go back, go previous; run that by me again. The Fae are at war with each other? When did that happen? And why haven't we heard about it?"