A Stroke of Midnight (Merry Gentry #4)(43)

“So you cannot make her cooperate,” Frost said.
Walters shook his head. “She’ll be pissed if she knows I told you as much as I did. If she gets pissed, she’ll be even less likely to share.”
“Then why did you tell us?” Aisling asked.
I kept my gaze on Walters this time as he said, “Because it’s got to be one of the people who were here in the hallway with us. Because they’re the only ones we took prints from. I won’t give you a name just because their print was where it shouldn’t be, not if you’re just going to kill them. But I don’t want you getting killed either.”
“Why, Major Walters, I’m touched.” I didn’t smile when I said it.
“Give me your word that the suspect won’t be harmed in any way, and I’ll help you talk to Polaski.”
“I give you my word that I will do everything within my power to keep whoever it is safe from harm.”
“Doing everything in your power isn’t the same thing as promising that they won’t be harmed,” Walters said.
“No, it isn’t, but I’m Princess Meredith, not queen. I am not absolute ruler here. You can promise me things, but if the chief of police overrides you, then where does that leave me?” 
He shook his head. “Fine, talk to Polaski, but she’s not going to be happy with either of us.”
“Why should she be any different?”
“What?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Just ignore me, Walters, I’m not feeling my best.”
“If I’d had two assassination attempts on me in two days, I’d be pissed.”
I thought about that. It wasn’t getting myself killed that bothered me; it was getting everyone else killed. There’s a reason why the president and his family aren’t supposed to date the secret service agents who guard them.
There was still blood on Galen’s hand, his blood, dried, a little tacky still. Too much blood. Too much was happening in too small a space of time. Holding Galen’s hand made me start to tremble. I realized in that moment that I was going to break down.
“Can you give us a few minutes, Major, please?” My voice was only a little shaky.
He started to argue, but something in my face made him simply nod and walk back down the hallway. I fought it off until he was almost out of sight, then the first sob came. I clung to Galen, felt the glamour slip away, and lost it. I cried and sobbed until I started to hyperventilate. I couldn’t breathe, and my knees started to buckle. Galen took me to the ground, put his back against the wall, and let me wrap my legs around his waist, let me hold him as close as I could short of sex.
Galen stroked my hair, and said, “It’s all right, it’s all right.”
“Long, deep breaths, Meredith,” Frost said, kneeling beside us. “Slow your breathing or you will pass out.”
I fought the wordless, screaming panic. I fought to breathe, and couldn’t do it.
Galen stroked my hair and lied to me. “It’s okay, we’re safe, I’m safe.” Lies, all lies. My body was screaming, “Can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe.”
Frost grabbed my face between his hands, held me so tight it hurt. He made me look at him. “Meredith, Meredith!” He kissed me. Maybe simply to stop the noises, or because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. The Queen’s Ravens are trained in weapons, hand-to-hand combat, battle strategy, even politics. Hysterical women are not on the list.
His mouth closed over mine, and I struggled against it. There was no air. I fought free of Galen’s arms and clawed at Frost. He breathed a cold wind into my mouth. The moment the cold touched me, I stilled, as if my body just stopped. I think even the blood in my veins stopped. A moment of nothingness, silent, still, cold. It was like being thrown into freezing water; the shock of it stopped the hysteria, stopped everything for a moment.
Frost drew away from the kiss, and my breath rushed back in a huge, chest-hurting gasp. I took several deep, painful breaths in a row, while he held my face, and stared into my eyes, as if searching for me. His grey eyes held that tiny snowscape in them again, and I felt as if I were falling forward, falling forward into Frost’s eyes. He blinked, and the sensation stopped, but some night I was going to have to see what would happen if I kept looking into those snowy eyes. But not tonight. Not tonight.
“Princess Meredith,” a woman’s voice said, “I’m sorry to intrude.”
I wiped at the tearstains on my face, which didn’t help, since all I succeeded in doing was putting more of Galen’s blood on my face. I must have looked a horror when I turned around to face Dr. Polaski.
Her breath came out in a gasp, which let me know just how bad I looked. You don’t get people who work in forensics gasping much. “Major Walters filled me in on some of what’s been happening here today.” She shook her head and took her glasses off, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.“We do not want the general public to know what is happening inside faerie,” Frost said.
“I can keep my mouth shut.” She looked at me, and I saw something in her face that was almost pity. “Are you able to talk to me, Princess Meredith?”
I took a deep breath, and it shook a little. My voice sounded hoarse, and I had to clear it, but I finally managed, “Talk to me, Dr. Polaski, I’ll listen.”
The guards parted for her to come closer to us. I was still sitting in Galen’s lap, my legs wrapped around his waist. If the intimate position made her uncomfortable, she didn’t show it. I stayed where I was because I still wanted to hold Galen as close as I could. It was a way of clinging to him without looking like I was clinging to him. Galen’s hands rested at the small of my back.
Polaski knelt down beside us so we were eye level. “I need to know a few things, and you are the only one I can ask, but by asking, I will give away the suspect I’m most interested in.”
“Understood,” I said.
She put her glasses back on and shook her head. “I don’t think you do. Walters told me that you won’t put whoever I find on trial. You’ll torture them or just kill them. Is this true?”
“Yes,” I said.
She waited, as if she expected me to say more. Then she smiled, and said, “No human I know would have just said yes to that. They would have felt they had to justify taking another life. They would have felt so many things.” She looked at me with those long-lashed eyes. “But you don’t feel what we would feel.”
“It isn’t fey versus human, Doctor, it’s cultural. I was raised in a world where torture is the norm for crimes, and execution is used when necessary, though it’s rare. We do not keep someone on death row for twenty years while they search for legal loopholes.”
“I’ve seen some awful things in my job, Princess Meredith, and there are a handful of people who I would sleep easier knowing they were dead.” She sighed. “I need your word that you will not execute the person I’m about to reveal.”
“I can’t promise that, not without lying.”
“Your word that they won’t be executed until I have processed the evidence we’ve collected.”
I looked at Frost, and Mistral beside him. “Do you think I can promise that and not be forsworn?”
“I think the queen would put weight to your word of honor, and not offend the human police,” Frost said.
“That wasn’t a yes,” I said.
“A simple yes might not be true,” he said; his face was its arrogant best, empty, careful. I thought it was more for the doctor’s benefit than mine. 
“Mistral?” I asked.
“She is very interested of late in courting good public relations. The reporter’s death is bad enough. She won’t want it bandied about that we executed someone without proof.”
“So that’s a yes,” I said.
He looked at Frost, they both looked back at me. Mistral said, “She’s Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness.” He shrugged.
“Your word that you won’t let them execute anyone until I have processed the evidence,” Polaski said.
I thought about what I could promise Polaski, and finally said, “My word that I will do everything in my power to see that no one is harmed irretrievably before you have contacted us again.”
“Harmed irretrievably.” She almost smiled. “I’ve never heard anyone say it like that before.”
I just looked at her, willing my face to show nothing.
“All right, I’ll take your word. Don’t disappoint me.”
“I’ll try not to,” I said.
“Can the little faeries change shape?”
“Many of the fey have more than one form.”
“Can the little ones be big, like human size?”
“When you say ‘little,’ do you mean the small, winged fey, the demi-fey?”
She nodded.
“Some of them can change form to be almost human in size. But it’s rare among them.”
Galen started to massage my back. I wasn’t sure who he was trying to comfort, himself or me.
“How rare?”
“Rare enough that until recently we thought they’d lost the ability.”
“We know of only one demi-fey who can do it now,” Frost said.
Polaski glanced up at him. “Here’s the other question. Could some spell or bit of faerie magic interfere with what I’m seeing?”