Chapter Four
This fear Dearg was smaller than I but only by a few inches. He was just under five feet. Once he'd have probably been average size for a human. His face was wizened, with grayish whiskers sticking out from his cheeks like fuzzy muttonchop sideburns. His nose was thin, long, and pointed. His eyes were large for his face and up-tilted at the corners. They were black, and seemed to have no iris until you realized that, like Doyle's, his irises were simply as black as his pupils, so you had trouble seeing them.
He walked ahead of us up the sidewalk, with its happy couples walking hand in hand and its families all smiling, all laughing. The children stared openly at the Fear Dearg. The adults took quick looks at him, but it was us that they stared at. I realized that we looked like ourselves. I hadn't thought to use glamour to make us look human, or at least less noticeable. I had been too careless for words.
The parents did double takes, then smiled, and tried to make eye contact. If I did that, they might want to talk, and we really needed to warn the demi-fey. Normally I tried to be friendly, but not today.
Glamour was the ability to cloud the minds of others so that they saw what you wished them to see, not what was actually there. It had always been my strongest magic, until a few months ago. It was still the magic I was most familiar with, and it flowed easily across my skin now.
I spoke low to Doyle and Frost. "We're getting stared at, and the press isn't here to complain."
"I can hide."
"Not in this light you can't," I said. Doyle had this uncanny ability to hide like some kind of movie ninja. I'd known he was the Darkness, and you never see the dark before it gets you, but I hadn't realized that it was more than just centuries of practice. He could actually wrap shadows around himself and hide. But he couldn't hide us, and he needed something other than bright sunlight to wrap around himself.
I pictured my hair simply red, human auburn, but not the spun garnet of my true color. I made my skin the paleness to go with the hair, but not the near pearlescent white of my own skin. I spread the glamour out to flow over Frost's skin as we walked. His skin was the same moonlight white as my own, so it was easier to change his color at the same time. I darkened his hair to a rich gray and kept darkening it as we moved until it was a brunette shade that was black with gray undertones. It matched the white skin and made him look like he'd gone Goth. He was dressed wrong for it, but for some reason I found this color to be the easiest for me on him. I could have chosen almost any color if I had had enough time, but we were attracting attention, and I didn't want that today. Once too many people "saw" us as us, the glamour might break under their knowledge. So it was down and dirty, change as we walked, and a thought out to the people who had recognized us, so that they would do a double take and think they'd been mistaken.
The trick was to change hair and skin gradually, smoothly, and to make people not notice that you were doing it, so it was really two types of glamour in one. The first just simply an illusion of our appearance changing, and the second an Obi Wan moment where the people just didn't see what they thought they saw.
Changing Doyle's appearance was always harder for some reason. I wasn't sure why, but it took just a little more concentration to turn his black skin to a deep, rich brown, and the oh-so-dark hair to a brown that matched the skin. The best I could do quickly was to make him look vaguely Indian, as in American Indian. I left the graceful curves of his ears with their earrings, even though now that I'd changed his skin to a human shade, the pointed ears marked him as a faerie wannabe, no, a sidhe wannabe. They all seemed to think that the sidhe had pointy ears like something out of fiction, when in fact it marked Doyle as not pure-blooded, but part lesser fey. He almost never hid his ears, a defiant gesture, a finger in the eye of the court. The wannabes were also fond of calling the sidhe elves. I blamed Tolkien and his elves for that.
I'd toned us down, but we were still eye-catching, and the men were still exotic, but I would have had to stop moving and concentrate fully to change them more completely.
The Fear Dearg had enough glamour that he could have changed his appearance, too. He simply didn't care if they stared. But then a phone call to the right number wouldn't make the press descend on him until we had to call other bodyguards to get us to our car. That had happened twice since we came back to Los Angeles. I didn't want a repeat.
The Fear Dearg dropped back to talk to us. "I have never seen a sidhe able to use glamour so well."
"That's high praise coming from you," I said. "Your people are known for their ability at glamour."
"The lesser fey are all better at glamour than the bigger folk."
"I've seen sidhe make garbage look like a feast and have people eat it," I said.
Doyle said, "And the Fear Dearg need a leaf to create money, a cracker to be a cake, a log to be a purse of gold. You need something to pin the glamour to for it to work."
"So do I," I said. I thought about it. "So do the sidhe that I've seen able to do it."
"Oh, but once the sidhe could conjure castles out of thin air, and food to tempt any mortal that was mere air," the Fear Dearg said.
"I've not seen ..." Then I stopped, because the sidhe didn't like admitting out loud that their magic was fading. It was considered rude, and if the Queen of Air and Darkness heard you, the punishment would be a slap, if you were lucky, and if you weren't, you'd bleed for reminding her that her kingdom was lessening.
The Fear Dearg gave a little skip, and Frost was forced a little back from my side, or he would have stepped on the smaller fey. Doyle growled at him, a deep rumbling bass that matched the huge black dog he could shift into. Frost stepped forward, forcing the Fear Dearg to step ahead or be stepped on.
"The sidhe have always been petty," he said, as if it didn't bother him at all, "but you were saying, my queen, that you'd never seen such glamour from the sidhe. Not in your lifetime, eh?"
The door of the Fael was in front of us now. It was all glass and wood, very quaint and old-fashioned, as if it were a store from decades before this one.
"I need to speak with one of the demi-fey," I said.
"About the murders, eh?" he asked.
We all stopped moving for a heartbeat, then I was suddenly behind the men and could only glimpse the edge of his red coat around their bodies.
"Oh, ho," the Fear Dearg said with a chuckle. "You think it's me. You think I slit their throats for them."
"We do now," Doyle said.
The Fear Dearg laughed, and it was the kind of laugh that if you heard it in the dark, you'd be afraid. It was the kind of laugh that enjoyed pain.
"You can talk to the demi-fey who fled here to tell the tale. She was full of all sorts of details. Hysterical she was, babbling about the dead being dressed like some child's story complete with picked flowers in their hands." He made a disgusted sound. "Every faery knows that no flower faery would ever pick a flower and kill it. They tend them."
I hadn't thought of that. He was absolutely right. It was a human mistake, just like the illustration in the first place. Some fey could keep a picked flower alive, but it was not a common talent. Most demi-fey didn't like bouquets of flowers. They smelled of death.
Whoever our killer was, they were human. I needed to tell Lucy. But I had another thought. I tried to push past Doyle, but it was like trying to move a small mountain; you could push, but you didn't make much progress. I spoke around him. "Did this demi-fey see the killings?"
"Nay" - and what I could see of the Fear Dearg's small wizened face seemed truly sad - "she went to tend the plants that are hers on the hillside and found the police already there."
"We still need to talk to her," I said.
He nodded the slip of his face that I could see between Doyle and Frost's bodies. "She's in the back with Dobbin having a spot of something to calm her nerves."
"How long has she been here?"
"Ask her yourself. You said you wanted to talk to a demi-fey, not her specifically. Why did you want one to speak with, my queen?"
"I wanted to warn the others that they might be in danger."
He turned so that one eye stared through the opening the men had left us. The black eye curled around the edges, and I realized he was grinning. "Since when did the sidhe give a rat's ass how many flower faeries were lost in L.A.? A dozen fade every year from too much metal and technology, but neither faerie court will let them back in even to save their lives." The grin faded as he finished, and left him angry.
I fought to keep the surprise off my face. If what he'd just said was true, I hadn't known it. "I care or I wouldn't be here."
He nodded, solemn. "I hope you care, Meredith, daughter of Essus, I hope you truly do."
Frost turned and Doyle was left to give the Fear Dearg his full attention. Frost was looking behind us, and I realized we had a little line forming.
"Do you mind?" a man asked.
"Sorry," I said, and smiled. "We were catching up with old friends." He smiled before he could catch himself, and his voice was less irritated as he said, "Well, can you catch up inside?"
"Yes, of course," I said. Doyle opened the door, made the Fear Dearg go first, and in we went.
Chapter Five
The Fael was all polished wood, lovingly hand carved. I knew that most of the interior woodwork had been recovered from an old West saloon/bar that was being demolished. The scent of some herbal and sweet musk polish blended with the rich aroma of tea, and overall was the scent of coffee, so rich you could taste it on your tongue. They must have just finished grinding some fresh for a customer, because Robert insisted that the coffee be tightly covered. He wanted to keep the freshness in, but it was more so that the coffee didn't overwhelm the gentler scent of his teas.
Every table was full, and there were people sitting at the curved edge of the bar, waiting for tables or taking their tea at the bar. There was almost an even number of humans to fey, but they were all lesser fey. If I dropped the glamour we would have been the only sidhe. There weren't that many sidhe in exile in Los Angeles, but the ones who were here saw the Fael as a hangout for the lesser beings. There were a couple of clubs far away from here that catered to the sidhe and the sidhe wannabes. Now that I'd lightened Doyle's skin, the ears marked him as a possible wannabe who'd gotten those pointy ear implants so he'd look like an "elf." There was actually another tall man sitting at a far table with his own implants. He'd even grown his blond hair long and straight. He was handsome, but there was a shape to his broad shoulders that said he hit the gym a lot, and just a roughness to him that marked him as human and not sidhe, like a sculpture that hadn't been smoothed quite enough.
The blond wannabe stared at us. Most of the patrons were looking, but then most looked away. The blond stared at us over the rim of his teacup, and I didn't like the level of attention. He was too human to see through the glamour, but I didn't like him. I wasn't sure why. It was almost as if I'd seen him somewhere before, or should know him. It was just a niggling sensation. I was probably just being jumpy. Murder scenes do that sometimes, make you see bad guys everywhere.
Doyle touched my arm. "What is wrong?" he whispered against my hair.
"Nothing. I just thought I recognized someone."
"The blond with the implants?" he asked.
"Hm-hm," I said, not moving my lips, because I really didn't like how he was staring at us.
"Good of you to join us this fine morning." It was a hale and hearty voice, one to greet you and make you happy that you'd come. Robert Thrasher, as in thrashing wheat, stood behind the counter polishing the wood with a clean white cloth. He was smiling at us, his nut-brown face handsome. He'd let modern surgery give him a nose, and make the cheekbones and chin graceful, though tiny. He was tall for a brownie, my own height, but he was still small of bone, and the doctor who had done his face had kept that in mind so that if you hadn't known that he'd begun life with only empty holes where the nose was, and a face closer to that of the Fear Dearg, you'd never have known that he hadn't been this delicate, handsome man all his life.
If anyone ever asked for a plastic surgeon recommendation, I'd send them to Robert's doctor.
He smiled, only his dark brown eyes showing the edge of his worry, but none of the customers would see it. "I've got your order in the back. Come back and have a cup before you approve it."
"Sounds good," I said, all happy to go with his tone. I'd lived in the Unseelie Court when the only magic I could do was glamour. I knew how to pretend to feel things that I wasn't feeling at all. It had made me good at undercover work for the Grey Detective Agency.
Robert handed the cloth to a young woman who looked like a pinup girl for Goth Monthly, from her black hair to her black velvet minidress, striped hose, and clunky retroish shoes. She sported a neck tattoo and a piercing through her dark lipsticked mouth.
"Mind the front for me, Alice."
"Will do," she said and smiled brightly at him. Ah, a perky Goth, not a gloomy one. Positive attitude makes better counter help.
The Fear Dearg stayed behind, twisting his face into a smile for the tall human girl. She smiled down at him, and there wasn't a shadow in her face that saw anything but attraction in the small fey.
Robert was moving and we were following, so I left off speculating on whether Alice and the Fear Dearg were a couple, or at least hooked up. He wouldn't have been my cup of tea, but then I knew what he was capable of; did she?
I shook my head and pushed it all away. Their love life was not my business. The office space was neat and modern but all warm earth tones, and had a wall of photographs from home so that all the staff, even those without a desk, could bring family photos in and see them during the day. Robert and his partner were pictured in tropical shirts in front of a beautiful sunset. Goth Alice had several pictures, each with a different friend; maybe she was just friendly. There was a partition, still in that warm shade between tan and brown, that separated the break area from the office space. We heard the voices before we could see around the partition. One was low and masculine, the other high-pitched and feminine.
Robert called out in a cheerful voice, "We have visitors, Bittersweet."
There was a little scream, and the sound of china breaking, and then we were around the corner of the partition. There was nice leather furniture with cushions, a large coffee table, some drink and snack machines almost hidden by an oriental screen, a man, and a small flying faery.
"You promised," she shrieked, and her voice was thin with anger so that there was an edge of buzz to it, as if she were the insect she resembled. "You promised you wouldn't tell!"
The man was standing, trying to comfort her as she hovered near the ceiling. Her wings were a blur, and I knew when she stopped moving that it wouldn't be butterfly wings on her back, but rather something faster, slimmer. Her wings caught the artificial light with little winks of rainbow color. Her dress was purple, only a little darker than my own. Her hair fell around her shoulders in white-blond waves. She would barely fill my hand, tiny even by demi-fey standards.
The man trying to calm her was Robert's partner, Eric, who was five foot eight, slender, neatly dressed, tanned, and handsome in a preppie sort of way. They'd been a couple for more than ten years. Before Eric, Robert's last love of his life had been a woman who he'd been faithful to until she died at eighty-something. I thought it was brave of Robert to love another human so soon.
Robert spoke sharply. "Bittersweet, we promised not to tell everyone, but you were the one who flew in here babbling hysterically. Did you think no one would talk? You're lucky that the princess and her men are here before the police."
She flew at him, tiny hands balled into tiny fists, and her eyes blazed with rage. She hit him. You would think that something smaller than a Barbie doll wouldn't pack much punch, but you'd be wrong.
She hit him, and I was behind him, so I felt the wave of energy that came before and around her fist like a small explosion. Robert was airborne, and pitched backward toward me. Only Doyle's speed put him between me and the falling man. Frost yanked me out of the way of both as they hit the floor.
Bittersweet turned on us, and I watched the ripple of power around her like heat on a summer's day. Her hair formed a pale halo around her face, raised by the wind of her own energy. It was the magic that kept a "human" that small alive without her having to eat multiple times her own body weight every day like a hummingbird or a shrew.
"Do not be rash," Frost said. His skin ran cold against mine as his magic woke in a skin-tingling winter's chill. The glamour that I'd used to hide us fell away, partly because to hold it with his magic coming was harder, and partly because I hoped it would help bring the small fey to her senses.
Her wings stopped, and I had a moment to see the crystal of dragonfly wings on her tiny body as she did the airborne equivalent of a human stumbling on uneven ground. It made her dip toward the ground before she caught herself and rose to eye level with both Frost and Doyle. She'd turned sideways so she could see both of them. Her energy quieted around her as she hovered.
She bobbed an awkward curtsey in the air. "If you hide yourself with glamour, Princess, then how's a fey to know how to act?"
I started to come around Frost's body, but he stopped me partway with his arm, so I had to speak from the shield of him. "Would you have harmed us if we had simply been humans who were part fey?"
"You looked like those pretend elves that the humans dress up as."
"You mean the wannabes," I said.
She nodded. Her blond curls had fallen around her tiny shoulders in beautiful ringlets, as if the power had curled her hair tighter.
"Why would human wannabes frighten you?" Doyle asked.
Her eyes flicked to him, and then back to me as if the very sight of him frightened her. Doyle had been the queen's assassin for centuries; the fact that he was with me now didn't take away his past.
She answered his question while looking at me. "I saw them coming down the hill from where my friends were ..." Here she stopped, put her hands in front of her eyes, and began to weep.
"Bittersweet," I said, "I'm sorry for your loss, but are you saying you saw the killers?"
She just nodded without moving her hands from her face, and began to weep louder, an amazing amount of noise from a being so small. The weeping had an edge of hysteria to it, but I guess I couldn't blame her.
Robert moved around her to Eric, and they held hands as Eric asked Robert if he was hurt. Robert just shook his head.
"I have to make a call," I said.
Robert nodded, and something in his eyes let me know that he understood both who I was going to call and why I wasn't doing so in this room. The little fey didn't seem to want anyone to know what she'd seen, and I was about to call the police.
Robert let us go back into the storage room that was behind the offices, but not before he had the Fear Dearg come in and sit with Eric and the demi-fey. Extra security seemed like a really good idea.
Frost and Doyle started to come with me, but I said, "One of you stay with her."
Doyle ordered Frost to do so, while he stayed with me. Frost didn't argue; he'd had centuries of orders followed from the other sidhe. It was habit for most of the guards to do what Doyle said.
Doyle let the door close behind us as I dialed Lucy's cell phone. "Detective Tate."
"It's Merry."
"You think of something?"
"How about a witness who says she saw the killers?"
"Don't tease," she said.
"No tease, I plan to put out."
She almost laughed. "Where are you, and who is it? We can send a car down and pick them up."
"It's a demi-fey, and a tiny one. She probably can't ride in a car without being hurt by the metal and tech."
"Shit. Is she going to have problems just coming in the buildings at headquarters?"
"Probably."
"Double shit. Tell me where you are and we'll come to her. Do they have a room where we can question her?"
"Yes."
"Give me your address. We're on our way." I heard her moving through the grass fast enough that her slacks made that whish-whish sound.
I gave her the address.
"Sit tight. I'll have the closest uniforms come babysit, but they won't have magic, just guns."
"We'll wait."
"We'll be there in twenty if the traffic actually gets out of the way of the lights and sirens."
I smiled, even though she couldn't see it. "Then we'll see you in thirty. No one moves in traffic here."
"Hold the fort. We're on our way." I heard the wail of the sirens before the phone went dead.
"They're on their way. She wants us to stay here even after the closest uniforms arrive," I said.
"Because they do not have magic, and this killer does," Doyle said.
I nodded.
"I do not like that the detective asks you to put yourself in harm's way for her case."
"It's not for her case. It's to keep any more of our people from dying, Doyle."
He looked down at me, studying my face, as if he hadn't seen it before. "You would have stayed anyway."
"Until they kicked us out, yes."
"Why?" he asked.
"No one slaughters our people and gets away with it."
"When we know who did this thing, are you determined to see them stand trial in human court?"
"You mean, just send you out to take care of them the old-fashioned way?" It was my turn to study his face.
He nodded.
"I think we'll go with the court."
"Why?" he asked.
I didn't try to tell him that it was the right thing to do. He'd seen me kill people for revenge. It was a little too late to hide behind the sanctity of life now. "Because we're in permanent exile here in the human world and we need to adapt to their laws."
"It would be easier to kill them, and save the taxpayers' money."
I smiled, and shook my head. "Yes, it would be fiscally responsible, but I'm not the mayor, and I don't manage the budget."
"If you did, would we kill them?"
"No," I said.
"Because we are playing by human rules now," he said.
"Yes."
"We won't be able to play by human rules all the time, Merry."
"Probably not, but today we are, and we will."
"Is that an order, my princess?"
"If you need it to be," I said.
He thought about it, then nodded. "It will take some time to get used to this."
"What?"
"That I am no longer just a bringer of death, and that you are also interested in justice."
"The killer could still get off on some technicality," I said. "The law isn't really about justice here, it's about the letter of the law and who has the best lawyer."
"If the killer gets off on a technicality, then what would my orders be?"
"That's months or years down the road, Doyle. Justice moves slowly out here."
"The question stands, Meredith." He was studying my face again.
I met his eyes behind their dark glasses, and said the truth. "He, or they, either spend the rest of their lives in prison, or they die."
"By my hand?" he asked.
I shrugged, and looked away. "By someone's hand." I moved past him to touch the door. He grabbed my arm, and made me look back at him.
"Would you do it yourself?"
"My father taught me to never ask of anyone what I'm not willing to do myself."
"Your aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness, is quite willing to get her own lily-white hands bloody."
"She's a sadist. I'd just kill them."
He raised my hands in his and kissed them both gently. "I would rather your hands hold more tender things than death. Let that be my task."
"Why?"
"I think if you drench yourself in blood it may change the children you carry."
"Do you believe that?" I asked.
He nodded. "Killing changes things."
"I'll do my best not to kill anyone while I'm still pregnant."
He kissed me on the forehead, and then leaned down to touch his lips to mine. "That is all I ask."
"You know that what happens to the mother while pregnant doesn't really affect the babies, right?"
"Humor me," he said, rising to his full height, but keeping my hands in his. I don't know if I would have told him he was being superstitious because a knock on the door interrupted us. Frost opened the door. He said, "Uniformed police are here."
Bittersweet began screaming again, "Police can't help! Police can't protect us from magic!"
Doyle and I sighed at the same time, glanced at each other, and smiled. His smile was a small one, just a bare lift of his lips, but we went through the door smiling. The smiles slipped and we hurried as Frost turned back and said, "Bittersweet, do not harm the officers."
We went to join him in trying to keep the tiny fey from throwing the big, bad policemen across the room.
Chapter Six
It wasn't big, bad policemen. It was big, bad police officers, because one of the uniforms was a woman, and they were both perfectly nice, but Bittersweet would not be comforted.
The policewoman did not like the Fear Dearg. I suppose if you hadn't spent your life around beings who made him look like a GQ cover boy he might be worth a little fear. The problem really was that the Fear Dearg liked that she was afraid of him. He kept an eye on the hysterical Bittersweet, but he also managed to inch ever closer to the blonde woman in her pressed uniform. Her hair was back in a tight ponytail. Every bit of shiny on her was shined. Her partner was a little older, and a lot less spit and polish. I was betting she was new on the force. Rookies tended to take it all much more to heart at first.
Robert had asked Eric to man the front with Alice. I was also guessing that he had sent his human lover away from Bittersweet just in case she lost control of her power again. If she hit Eric the way she had hit Robert and Doyle, he might have been hurt. Better to surround hysterical fey with people who were tougher than pure human blood could make you.
Bittersweet was sitting on the coffee table crying softly. She'd exhausted herself with hysterics, the energy burst, and crying; all of it had taken its toll. It was actually possible for a really tiny fey to deplete their energy so badly that they could fade away. It was especially hazardous outside of faerie. The more metal and tech around a fey, the harder it could be on them. How had such a tiny thing come to Los Angeles? Why had she been exiled, or had she simply followed her wildflower across the country like the insect she resembled? Some flower faeries were very devoted to their plants, especially if they were species specific. They were like any fanatic: the narrower your focus, the more devoted you could be.
Robert had taken one of the overstuffed leather chairs and given us the couch. The couch was actually a nice intermediate size between my and Robert's height, and the average height of a human worker. Which meant it fit me well enough, but probably didn't fit Doyle or Frost quite right, but they weren't interested in sitting down, so it didn't matter.
Frost sat on the arm of the couch by me. Doyle stood near the "door" of the half-partitioned room and kept an eye on the outer door. Because my guards wouldn't sit down, the two uniforms didn't want to sit either. The older cop, Officer Wright, did not like my men. He was six feet and in good shape, from his short brown hair to his comfortable and well-chosen boots. He kept looking from Frost to Doyle to the little faery on the table, but mostly at Frost and Doyle. I was betting that Wright had learned a thing or two about physical potential in his years on the job. Anyone who could judge that never liked my men much. No policeman likes to think that they may not be the biggest dog in the room just in case a dogfight breaks out.
O'Brian, the female rookie, was five foot eight at least, which was tall to me, but not standing there with her partner and my guards. But I was betting that she was used to that on the force; what she wasn't used to was the Fear Dearg at her side. He'd worked himself within inches of her. He'd done nothing wrong, nothing she could complain about except invade her personal space, but I was betting that she'd taken to heart the lectures on human/fey relations. One of the cultural differences between us and most Americans was that we didn't have the personal-space boundaries that most did, so if Officer O'Brian complained, then she was being insensitive to our people with Princess Meredith sitting right there. I watched her try not to be nervous as the Fear Dearg moved just a fraction closer to her. I watched the thought in her blue eyes as she tried to work out the political implications of telling the Fear Dearg to back off.
There was a polite knock on the door, which meant it wasn't Lucy and her people. Most police have very authoritative knocks. Robert called, "Come in."
Alice pushed through the door with a small tray of pastries. "Here's something for you to munch on while I take your orders." She'd flashed a smile at everyone, showing dimples in the corners of her full red mouth. The red lipstick was the only deviation to her black-and-white outfit. Did her smile linger a little on the Fear Dearg? Did her eyes harden just a little at his closeness to O'Brian? Perhaps, or maybe I was looking for it.
She hesitated with the sweets as if unsure who to serve first. I helped her make the decision. "Is Bittersweet cool to the touch, Robert?"
Robert had moved over to sit with the demi-fey and she was still sobbing quietly on his shoulder, huddled against the smooth line of his neck. "Yes. She needs something sweet."
Alice gave me a thankful smile, then offered the tray first to her boss and the little fey. Robert took an iced cake and held it up toward the little fey. She seemed not to notice it.
"Is she hurt?" Officer Wright asked, and he was suddenly more alert, more something. I'd seen other police do that, and some of my guards. One minute they're just standing there, the next they are "on;" they are cop, or warrior. It's like some internal switch is hit and they are just suddenly more.
Officer O'Brian tried to follow suit, but she was too new. She didn't know how to turn on the hyperalert mode yet. She'd learn.
I felt Frost tense beside me on the couch arm. I knew that if Doyle had been on my other side, I'd have felt the same from him. They were all warriors, and it was hard for them not to react to the other man.
"Bittersweet has used up a lot of energy," I said, "and needs to refuel."
Alice was now offering the tray of sweets to Frost and me. I took the second frosted cake, which was somewhere between a cupcake and something smaller, but the frosting was white and frothy, and I was suddenly hungry. I'd noticed that since I got pregnant. I'd be fine, and then I'd suddenly be ravenous.
Frost shook his head. He was keeping his hands free. Was he hungry? How often had he and Doyle both stood at a banquet at the Queen's side and guarded her safety while the rest of us ate? Had that been hard for them? It had never occurred to me to ask, and I couldn't ask now in front of so many outsiders. I filed the thought away for later and began to eat my cake by licking off the frosting.
"She looks like she's had a hard day," Wright said.
I realized that they might not even know why they were here to guard Bittersweet. They might simply have been told that there was a witness to guard, or maybe even less. They'd been told to show up and keep an eye on her, and that's what they were doing.
"She has, but it's more than that. She needs fuel." I ran a finger through the icing and licked the tip of my finger. It was homemade-frosting sweet, but not too sweet.
"You mean eat?" O'Brian asked.
I nodded. "Yes, but it's more than that. We don't eat and we just get hungry, maybe a little sick. When you're warm-blooded, the smaller you are the harder it is to maintain your body temperature and your energy level. Shrews have to eat about five times their own body weight every day just to keep from starving to death."
I gave up with my finger and just licked the icing off the cake. Officer Wright glanced at me, then quickly away and ignored me. Neither officer took anything off the tray, wanting to keep their hands free, too, maybe, or were they told not to take food from the faeries? That was only a rule if you were inside faerie and were human. But I didn't say anything, because if they were passing on the cakes because of fear of faery magic, it was an insult to Robert.
The Fear Dearg took a piece of carrot cake from the tray, smiling his wicked smile up at Alice. Then he stared at me. There was no glancing out of the corners of his eyes; he simply stared. Among the fey if you were trying to be sexy and someone didn't notice, it was an insult. Was I trying to be sexy? I hadn't meant to. I just wanted my icing first, and without silverware there were only so many options.
Robert was still holding the iced cake up to the small fey on his shoulder. "For me, Bittersweet, just a taste."
"You mean she could die just from not eating enough?" O'Brian asked.
"Not just from that. The hysteria and her use of magic all eat up some of the power that enables her to function at this size and still be a reasoning being."
"I'm just a cop, you need to uses smaller words, or more of them," Wright said. He looked at me as he said it, then quickly away. I was making him uncomfortable. Among the humans I was being rude. Among the fey, he was being rude.
Frost slid one arm around me, his fingers lingering on the bare skin of my shoulder. He was still watching the room, but his touch let me know that he'd noticed, and that he was thinking what it would mean to have me use the same skills on his body. Humans who try to play by these rules often get it wrong and are too sexual about it. It's polite to notice, not to grope.
I talked to the officers as Frost's fingers traced my shoulder in delicate circles. Doyle was at a disadvantage. He was too far away to touch me, but he needed to keep his attention on the far door, so how could he acknowledge my behavior and not be a bad guard? I realized that this was the dilemma that the queen had put him in for centuries. He'd shown nothing to her; the cold, unmovable Darkness. I left the icing to itself while I talked to the police and thought about that.
"It takes energy to use a complicated brain. It takes energy to be bipedal, and to do all the things we do at our size. Now shrink us down and it takes magic to make fey like Bittersweet able to exist."
"You mean without magic she couldn't survive?" O'Brian asked.
"I mean she has a magical aura, for lack of a better term, that encircles her and keeps her working. She is by all laws of physics and biology impossible; only magic sustains the smallest of us."
Both officers were looking at the little faery as she scooped icing off the cake and ate it as delicately as a cat with cream on its paw.
Alice said, "I've never heard it explained that clearly before." She gave a nod to Robert. "Sorry, boss man, but it's the truth."
Robert said, "No, you're right." He looked at me, and it was a more intent look than before. "I forgot that you were educated at human schools. You have a bachelor of science in biology, correct?"
I nodded.
"It makes you uniquely able to explain our world to their world."
I thought about shrugging but just said, "I've been explaining my world to their world since I was six and my father took me out of faerie to be educated in public school."
"Those of us who were exiled when that happened always wondered why Prince Essus did it."
I smiled. "I'm sure there were plenty of rumors."
"Yes, but not the truth, I think."
I did shrug then. My father had taken me into exile because his sister, my aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness, had tried to drown me. If I'd been truly sidhe and immortal, I couldn't have died by drowning. The fact that my father had to save me meant that I wasn't immortal, and to my aunt Andais that meant that I was no different than if someone's purebred dog had accidentally gotten pregnant by the neighbors' mongrel. If I could be drowned, then I should be.
My father had taken me and his household into exile to keep me safe. To the human media he did it so I would know my country of birth, and not just be a creature of faerie. It was some of the most positive publicity the Unseelie Court had ever gotten.
Robert was watching me. I went back to my icing, because I did not dare share the truth with anyone outside the court. Family secrets are something the sidhe, both flavors, take seriously.
Alice had set the tray on the coffee table and was taking orders, starting at the opposite side of the room with Doyle. He ordered an exotic coffee that he'd ordered the first time we'd come here, and that he liked to have at the house. It wasn't a coffee that I'd ever seen in faerie, which meant that he'd been outside enough to grow fond of it. He was also the only sidhe I'd ever seen with a nipple piercing to go with all his earrings. Again, it spoke of time outside faerie, but when? In my lifetime he hadn't been that far from the queen's side for any length of time that I remembered.
I loved him dearly, but it was one of those moments when I realized, again, that I honestly didn't know that much about him, not really.
The Fear Dearg ordered one of those coffee drinks that has so much in it that it's more milk shake than coffee. The officers passed, and then it was my turn. I wanted Earl Grey tea, but the doctor had made me give up caffeine for the duration of the pregnancy. Earl Grey without caffeine seemed wrong, so I ordered green tea with jasmine. Frost ordered straight Assam, but took cream and sugar with it. He liked black teas brewed strong, then made sweet and pale.
Robert ordered cream tea for himself and Bittersweet. It would come with real scones, clotted cream thick as butter, and fresh strawberry jam. They were famous for their cream teas at the Fael.
I almost ordered one, but scones don't go well with green tea. It just wasn't the same, and I suddenly didn't want anything else sweet. Protein sounded good. Was I starting to get cravings? I leaned to the table and laid the half-eaten cake on a napkin. The icing was totally unappealing now.
Robert said, "Go back to the officers, Alice. They need at least coffee."
Wright said, "We're on duty."
"So are we," Doyle said in that deep, thicker-than-molasses voice. "Are you implying that we hold our duty less dear than you hold yours, Officer Wright?"
They ordered coffee. O'Brian went first and ordered black, but Wright ordered frozen coffee with cream and chocolate - a coffee shake even sweeter than the Fear Dearg had ordered. O'Brian did that quick look at Wright, and the look was enough. If she'd known he was going to order something so girlie, she'd have ordered something besides black coffee. I watched the thought go over her face; could she change her order?
"Officer O'Brian, would you like to change your order?" I asked. I wiped my fingers on another napkin. I suddenly didn't even want the sticky residue of the icing.
She said, "I ... no, thank you, Princess Meredith."
Wright made a sound in his throat. She looked at him, confused. "You don't say that to the fey."
"Say what?" she asked.
"Thank you," I said. "Some of the older fey take thanks as a grave insult."
She blushed through her tan. "I'm sorry," she said, then she stopped in confusion and looked at Wright.
"It's okay," I said. "I'm not old enough to see 'thank you' as an insult, but it is a good general rule when dealing with us."
"I am old enough," Robert said, "but I've been running this place too long to be insulted about much of anything." He smiled, and it was a good smile, all white, perfect teeth and handsome face. I wondered how much all the work had cost. My grandmother had been half brownie, so I knew just how much he'd had changed.
Alice went to get our orders. The door shut behind her, and then there was a very firm, loud knock. It made Bittersweet jump and touch Robert's shirt with her icing-covered hands. Now that was the police. Lucy came through the door without waiting for an invitation.
