A Caress Of Twilight

Chapter 16

Over dinner, we discussed what to do when Niceven called back.

Doyle had left a message that would let her know who had called. He was sure she'd be intrigued enough to call back, and he was also sure she'd know what we wanted. "Niceven has been anticipating this call. She has a plan. I don't know what that plan will be, but she will have one." Doyle was sitting on my right so that his body blocked me from the window. He'd made me draw the drapes, but allowed the window to be opened for the breeze.

It was December in California, and the wind through the window was delightfully cool, like late spring or very early summer in Illinois. By no stretch of imagination did it feel cold or wintry in the least.

"She is an animal," Galen said, pushing back his chair. He took his empty bowl to the sink and began to run water into it, his back to us.

"Do not underestimate the demi-fey because of what they did to you, Galen. They used teeth because they enjoyed it, not because they don't have swords," Doyle said.

"A sword the size of a straight pin," Rhys said, "not much of a threat."

"Give me a blade no bigger than a pin and I could slay a man," Doyle said, deep voice soft.

"Yes, but you're the Queen's Darkness," Rhys said. "You've studied every weapon known to man or immortal. I doubt Niceven's crew has been as thorough."

Doyle stared at the pale-haired man across the table from him. "And if it were your only weapon, Rhys, wouldn't you study how it could be used on your enemy?"

"The sidhe are not the enemies of the demi-fey," he said.

"The demi-fey, like the goblins, are tolerated, and barely that in the courts. And the wee-fey do not have the goblins' fierce reputation to protect them from the slings and arrows of mischance."

For some reason mention of the goblins made it hard not to look at Kitto. He hadn't sat at the table but had crouched underneath. He'd eaten his stew, then crawled to his oversize doggie bed. He seemed shaken by the afternoon at Maeve Reed's pool. Too much sun and fresh air for a goblin.

"No one harms the demi-fey," Frost said. "They are the queen's spies. A butterfly, a moth, a tiny bird can all be demi-fey. Their glamour is almost undetectable even by the best of us."

Doyle nodded around a mouth full of stew. He sipped a little of his red wine, then said, "All that you say is true, but the demi-fey were once much more respected in the courts. They were not merely spying eyes, but truly allies."

"With the wee-ones," Rhys said. "Why?"

I answered, "If the demi-fey leave the Unseelie Court, then what remains of faerie will begin to fade."

"That is an old wives' tale," Rhys said. "Like if the ravens leave the Tower of London, Britain will fall. The British Empire has already fallen, and yet they still clip the poor ravens' wings and stuff them full of food. The damn things are as big as small turkeys."

"It is said that where the demi-fey travel, faerie follows," Doyle said.

"What does that mean?" Rhys asked.

"My father said that the demi-fey are the most closely allied with the rawness that is faerie, the very stuff that makes us different from the humans. The demi-fey are their magic more than any of the rest of us. They cannot be exiled from faerie because it travels with them wherever they go."

Galen leaned against the counter at the end of the kitchen, arms crossed over his now bare chest. He'd put the apron away, I think to save me embarrassment. I don't know why his bare chest wasn't as eyecatching as his chest peeking through all that sheer cloth, but I couldn't eat and sit across from him while he wore the apron. The second time I missed my mouth with the stew, Doyle asked him to take the apron off.

"That doesn't work for most of the rest of the smaller fey. The rule is, the smaller you are, the more dependent you are on faerie, and the more likely you are to die when away from it. My father was a pixie. I know what I'm talking about," Galen said.

"How big a pixie?" Rhys asked.

Galen actually smiled. "Big enough."

"There are many different kinds of pixies," Frost said, either missing the humor or ignoring it. I loved Frost, but his sense of humor wasn't his best feature. Of course, a girl doesn't always need to laugh.

"I've never known another pixie who wasn't a member of the Seelie Court," Rhys said. "Did you ever learn what your father did to earn exile from Taranis and his gang?"

"Only you would refer to the glittering throng as Taranis and his gang," Doyle said.

Rhys shrugged, grinned, and said, "What'd your daddy do?"

The smile faded, then grew, on Galen's face. "My uncles tell me that my father seduced one of the king's mistresses." His smile faded. Galen had never met his father, because Andais had had him executed for the audacity of seducing one of her ladies-in-waiting. She never would have done it if she'd known there was going to be a child. In fact, the pixie would have been elevated to noble rank and there would have been a marriage. It had happened with stranger mixes. But Andais's temper made her a little too quick on the death sentence, and thus Galen never met his father.

If any humans had been in the room, they would have apologized for bringing up such a painful subject, but there weren't any and we didn't bother. If Galen was in pain, he'd have said something, and we'd have taken care of it. He didn't ask and we didn't pry.

"Treat Niceven as a queen, an equal. It will please her and catch her off guard," Doyle said.

"She is a demi-fey. She can never be the equal of a sidhe princess." This from Frost, who sat on the other side of Galen's empty chair. His handsome face was as severe and haughty as I'd ever seen it.

"My great-grandmother was a brownie, Frost," I said. My voice was soft, so he wouldn't think I was chiding him. He didn't take well to that. Frost seemed impervious to so much, but I'd learned that he was really one of the most easily wounded of the guards.

"A brownie is a useful member of faerie. They have a long and respected history. The demi-fey are parasites. I agree with Galen: they are animals."

I wondered what else Frost would say that about. What other members of faerie would he dismiss out of hand?

"Nothing is redundant in faerie," Doyle said. "Everything has its purpose and its place."

"And what purpose do the demi-fey serve?" Frost asked.

"I believe that they are the essence of faerie. If they were to leave, the Unseelie Court would begin to fade even faster than it already is."

I nodded, getting up to put my own bowl in the sink. "My father believed it was so, and I haven't found much that my father believed turn out to be false."

"Essus was a very wise man," Doyle said.

"Yes," I said, "he was."

Galen took the bowl from my hands. "I'll clean up."

"You made dinner. You shouldn't have to clean up, too."

"I'm not much good for anything else right now." He smiled when he said it, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.

I let him take the bowl so I could touch his face. "I'll do what I can, Galen."

"That's what I'm afraid of," he said softly. "I don't want you to put yourself in debt to Niceven, not for me. It's not a good enough reason to owe that creature anything."

I frowned and turned to the room at large. "Why call her creature? I don't remember the demi-fey's reputation being this bad before I left the court."

"Niceven's court has become little more than the queen's errand runners, or Cel's. You cannot retain respect if you have been regulated to a threat and nothing more."

"I don't understand. What threat? You've all been saying that the demi-fey are no threat."

"I have not said that," Doyle said, "but what the demi-fey did to Galen was not the first time it has been done, though this time was more. . severe. More flesh was taken than I'd seen before."

Galen turned away at that and began to busy himself at the sink, rinsing out the bowls, placing them in the dishwasher. He seemed to be making more noise than was necessary, as if he didn't want to hear the conversation anymore.

"You know that crossing the queen can get you sent to the Hallway of Mortality to be tortured by Ezekiel and his redcaps."

"Yes."

"Now she will sometimes threaten us with being given to the demi-fey. In effect, Niceven's court, once a court of faerie with all the respect and ceremonies of any court, has been reduced to nothing more than another boggle to be dragged out of the dark and sent to torment others."

"The sluagh are not merely boggles," I said, "and they have a court with their own customs. They have been one of the greatest threats in the Unseelie arsenal for a thousand years."

"Much longer than a mere thousand years," Doyle said.

"But they have retained their threat, their customs, their power."

"The sluagh are what remain of the original Unseelie Court. They were Unseelie before there was such a term. It was not they who joined us, but we who joined them. Though there are very few among us now who remember that, or who will admit to remembering it."

Frost spoke. "I hold with those who say that the sluagh are the essence of the Unseelie Court, and if they leave, we will fade. It is they, and not the demi-fey, who hold our most primitive power."

"No one knows for certain," Doyle said.

"I don't think the Queen would chance finding out," Rhys said.

"No," Doyle said.

"Which means that the demi-fey are in a position similar to the sluagh," I said.

Doyle looked at me. "Explain." The sudden full weight of that dark gaze made me want to squirm, but I resisted. I wasn't a child anymore to be frightened of the tall dark man at my aunt's side.

"The queen would do almost anything to keep the sluagh on her side, and at her beck and call, but wouldn't the same be said for the demi-fey? If she truly fears that their leaving would make the Unseelie decline even faster than they are already, then wouldn't she do almost anything to keep them at her court?"

Doyle stared at me for what seemed a long time, then finally he gave one long blink. "Perhaps." He leaned toward me, clasping his hands on the nearly empty table. "Galen and Frost are correct about one thing. Niceven does not react like another sidhe. She is accustomed to following the commands of another queen, to have, in effect, given her royal authority over to another monarch. We must make her think of you in that way, Meredith."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"We need to remind her in every way that you are Andais's heir."

"I still don't understand."

"When Cel contacts the demi-fey, he is his mother's son. His requests are usually as bloody, or more so than his mother's. But you are asking for healing, for help. That automatically puts us into a position of weakness, for we ask a boon of Niceven and have little power to offer her in return."

"Okay, I understand that, but what can we do about it?"

"Lounge upon the bed with your men. Drape us around you for effect just as the queen would do. It is a way of looking powerful, for Niceven envies the queen her bevy of men."

"Doesn't Niceven get her pick of the demi-fey?"

"No, she had three children by one male, and he is her king. She cannot be freed of him."

"I didn't know Niceven had a king," Rhys said.

"Few do. He is king in name only."

The thought wasn't the idle gossip it should have been. Sleeping with all the guards was lovely. But being forced to marry one of them, simply because we made a child. . What if the father was someone I didn't respect? The thought of gentle Nicca tied to me forever was a frightening one. He was lovely to look at, but he wasn't powerful enough or strong enough to help me much as king. In fact, he was more likely to end up a victim instead of a help. Which reminded me.

"Is Nicca still working on that bodyguard case?"

"Yes," Doyle said, "he took over from Frost."

"How did the client feel about trading guards in midstream?"

Doyle looked at Frost, who shrugged. "She is in no real danger. She merely wants a sidhe warrior on her arm to show how much a star she is. One sidhe warrior is much like another for her purposes."

"How much of a show do we need to put on for Niceven?" I asked.

"As much as you are comfortable with," he said.

I raised my eyebrows at that and tried to think.

"Don't include me in the show," Galen said. "I don't want to see any of those things, not even from a distance." He'd loaded the dishwasher and turned it on, so that the quiet chug-chug of the machine followed him as he returned to his chair. Apparently, he'd help us plan, as long as he wasn't included in the event.

"That makes it tough. You and Rhys are the only two of this group who really don't mind major flirting in public. Both Frost and Doyle are usually pretty circumspect in public."

"For tonight, I am willing to help," Doyle said.

Frost looked at him. "You would pander in front of the wee ones?" He made it a question.

Doyle shrugged. "I think it is necessary."

"I will be on the bed, as I have been for some of the queen's calls, but I will not pander, not for Niceven."

"That is your choice. But if you will not play the part of Meredith's lover, something you actually are, then do not ruin the show that the rest of us put together. Perhaps you should wait in the living room while we talk to the wee-fey."

Frost narrowed those grey eyes of his. "You held me back today when I would have aided Meredith. Twice you held me back. Now you suggest that I not be in her bed while you play her lover. What's next, Darkness? Will you finally break your fast, and take my night in her bed for truth and not just playacting?"

"I am within my rights to do so."

That made me stare at Doyle. His face was blank, neutral. Had he just said he would share my bed tonight, or was he just arguing with Frost?

Frost stood up, looming over the table. Doyle stayed seated, calmly looking up at the other man. "I think we should let Meredith decide who shares her bed tonight."

"We are not here to make Meredith choose," Doyle said. "We are here to see her with child. The three of you have had three months and her womb is empty. Would you truly deny her a chance to have a child, to be queen, knowing that if Cel succeeds and Meredith fails, he will see her dead?"

Emotions chased over Frost's face too quickly for me to follow them all. Finally, he hung his head. "I would never wish Meredith ill."

I stepped forward and touched his arm. The touch made him look at me. His eyes were filled with such pain, and I realized that Frost was jealous of me. As much as I cared for him, he hadn't earned the right to be jealous of me in that way. Not yet. Though I realized with a start that the thought of never having him in my arms again was a painful one. I couldn't afford the sinking sense of loss any more than he could afford the jealousy.

"Frost. .," I began, I don't know what I would have said, because there was a sound of sharp bells from the bedroom. It was as if someone had taken the delicate sound of silver bells and turned them into alarm bells. The sound sent my pulse racing, and not in a good way. I'd let go of Frost's arm when the sound came. We stood there looking at each other while everyone but Galen and Kitto moved toward the bedroom.

"I have to go, Frost." I started to apologize but didn't. He hadn't earned it, and I didn't owe it.

"I will come with you," he said.

I gave him wide eyes.

"I will do for my queen what I would do for no one else." And I knew in that moment that he didn't mean Andais.