"Please," Jeffrey said. "Please, I'm sure it's because I'm not saying it right."
I crossed my arms under my breasts and did not sit back down. "I'm sorry, Mr. Maison, but we've all had a long morning, too long a morning to play twenty questions. Either tell us something concrete about your employer's problem, or find another private detective firm."
He put his hand out, almost touching the desk, then let his hand fall back to his well-tailored lap. "My employer wishes to see people of her own kind again." He stared at me as if willing me to finally catch on.
I frowned at him. "What do you mean, people of her own kind?"
He frowned, clearly out of his depth, but doggedly trying. "My employer isn't human, Ms. Gentry, she's... very aware of what high-court fey are capable of." His voice was hushed but sort of pleading, as if he'd given me the biggest hint he was allowed to give me, and he hoped I'd figure it out.Fortunately, or unfortunately, I had figured it out. There were other fey in Los Angeles, but other than myself and my guards, there was only one high royal -- Maeve Reed, the golden goddess of Hollywood. She'd been the golden goddess of Hollywood for fifty years now, and since she was immortal and would never age, she might be the golden goddess of Hollywood a hundred years from now.
Once upon a time she'd been the goddess Conchenn, until King Taranis, the King of Light and Illusion, had exiled her from the Seelie Court, exiled her from faerie, and forbidden any other fey to speak with her ever again. She was to be shunned, treated as if she had died. King Taranis was my great-uncle, and technically I was fifth in line to his throne. In reality I wasn't welcome among the glittering throng. They'd made it clear at an early age that my pedigree was a little less than ideal and that no amount of royal Seelie blood could overcome being half Unseelie.
So be it. I had a court to call home now. I didn't need them anymore. There'd been a time when I was younger that it had meant something to me, but I'd had to put away that particular pain years ago. My mother was a part of the Seelie Court, and she had abandoned me to the Unseelie to further her own political ambitions. I had no mother.
Don't misunderstand, Queen Andais didn't like me much either. Even now, I wasn't completely sure why she'd chosen me as heir. Perhaps she was just running out of blood relatives. That tends to happen if enough of them die.
I opened my mouth to say Maeve Reed's name, but stopped myself. My aunt was the Queen of Air and Darkness; anything said in the dark would eventually travel back to her. I didn't think King Taranis had an equivalent power, but I wasn't 100 percent sure. Caution was better. The Queen didn't care about Maeve Reed, but she did care about having things to negotiate with, or hold against, King Taranis. No one knew why Maeve had been exiled, but Taranis had taken it personally. It might be worth something to him to know that Maeve had done the forbidden. She'd contacted a member of the courts. There's an unspoken rule that if one court banishes someone from faerie, the other court respects the punishment. I should have sent Jeffery Maison running back to Maeve Reed. I should have said no. But I didn't. Once, when I was young, I asked one of the royals about Conchenn's fate. Taranis overheard. He beat me nearly to death; beat me the way you'd strike a dog that got in your way. And that beautiful, glittering throng had all stood and watched him do it, and no one, not even my mother, had tried to help me. I agreed to meet with Maeve Reed later that day because for the first time I had enough clout to defy Taranis. To harm me now would mean war between the courts. Taranis might be an egomaniac, but even his pride wasn't worth all-out war.
Of course, knowing my aunt, it might not be war, at first. I was under the Queen's protection, which meant that anyone who harmed me had to answer to her personally. Taranis might prefer a war to the Queen's personal vengeance. After all, he'd be a King in the war, and Kings rarely see frontline action. If he pissed off Queen Andais enough, Taranis would be the front line all by his little lonesome. I was trying to stay alive, and they don't say knowledge is power for nothing.
Chapter 3
When the door closed behind Jeffery Maison, I expected the two guards to argue with me. I was half-right.
"Far be it from me to question the princess," Rhys said, "but what if the King objects to you breaking Maeve Reed's exile?"
I winced at the mention of the name out loud. "Does the King have the ability to hear everything said in daylight, the way the Queen hears after dark?"
Rhys looked puzzled at me. "I don't... know."
"Then let's not help him find out what we're doing by saying her name out loud."
"I have never heard that Taranis has such a power," Doyle said.
I turned in my chair to stare at him. "Well, let's hope not when you've just said his name out loud."
"I have plotted against the King of Light and Illusion for millennia, Princess, and much of that plotting was done in broad daylight. Many of our human allies over the centuries have flatly refused to meet with the Unseelie after dark. They seemed to think that agreeing to meet during the day was a sign we trusted them, and that they could trust us. Taranis never seemed to know what we were doing, day or night," Doyle said, head to one side, sending rainbows dancing through the room from the diamonds in his ears. "I believe that he does not have our Queen's gift. Andais may hear everything spoken in the dark, but I believe that the king is as deaf as any human."
Anyone else I would have asked if he was sure, but Doyle never spoke unless he was certain. If he didn't know something, he'd say so. There was no false pride in him.
"So the King can't hear us talking thousands of miles away," Rhys said. "Fine, but please tell Merry what a bad idea this is."
"What is a bad idea?" Doyle asked.
"Helping Maeve -- " Rhys glanced at me, then finished with, "the actress."
Doyle frowned. "I don't remember anyone by that name ever being exiled from either court."
I turned around in my chair and stared at him. His face was dark and unreadable against the bright sunlight. The glasses hid a great deal of his expression, but I was betting, glasses or no, he would have looked puzzled.
I heard Rhys's silk coat whispering as he walked across the floor toward us. I glanced at him. He raised his eyebrows at me. We both looked at Doyle.
"You don't know who she is, do you?" I asked.
"The name you mentioned, Maeve something -- should I recognize it?"
"She's been the reigning queen of Hollywood for over fifty years," Rhys said.
Doyle just looked at us. "People from this Hollywood have approached the Queen and the court over the years to come and make movies, or allow them to film movies of their lives."
"Have you ever actually seen a movie?" I asked.
"I have seen movies at your apartment," he said.
I glanced at Rhys. "We have got to get all of them out to a movie."
Rhys half leaned, half sat on my desk. "We could all use a night out."
Kitto plucked at the hem of my short skirt, and I moved my chair so I could look down into his face. A bar of sunlight fell full across his face. For a second the light filled his almond-shaped eyes, turning the solid sapphire blue orbs paler as if they were water and I could see down, down into the sparkling blue depths to a place where white light danced. Then he closed his eyes, wincing against the brightness. He buried his face against my thigh, one small hand wrapped around my calf. He spoke without looking up. "I don't want to sss-ee a movie." He was slurring his Ss badly, which meant he was upset. Kitto worked very hard to talk normally. When you have a forked tongue, that's not easy.I touched his head; his black curls were so soft, soft the way that a sidhe's hair is soft, not the roughness of goblin hair. "It's dark in the theater," I said, stroking his hair. "You could curl up on the floor beside me and never look at the screen."
He rubbed his head against my thigh like some giant cat. "Truly?" he asked.
"Truly," I said.
"You'll like it," Rhys said. "It's dark and sometimes the floor is so dirty that it sticks to your feet when you walk on it."
"I'll get my clothessss dirty," Kitto said.
"I wouldn't think a goblin would worry about staying clean. The goblin mound is full of bones and rotting meat."
"He's only half goblin, Rhys," I said.
"Yeah, his father raped one of our women." He was staring down at Kitto, though all he could have seen was perhaps a pale hand or arm.
"His mother was Seelie, not Unseelie," I said.
"What does it matter? His father forced himself on a sidhe woman." His voice held heat enough to scald.
"And how many of our sidhe warriors took their pleasure on unwilling women, even goblins, during the wars?" Doyle asked.
I glanced at Doyle and could see nothing through the dark glasses. I looked quickly at Rhys and saw a pale blush chase up his cheeks. He glared at Doyle. "I have never touched a woman who did not invite my attentions."
"Of course not, you are a member of the Queen's Guard, her Ravens, and it is death by torture for one of her Ravens to touch any woman except for the Queen herself. But what of the warriors who are not members of the personal guards?"
Rhys looked away, his blush darkening to a bright, deep red.
"Yes, look away, as we've all had to look away over the centuries," Doyle said.
Rhys's neck turned slowly, as if every muscle had gone suddenly tight with anger. Last night he'd had a gun in his hands and he hadn't been frightening. Now, just sitting on the edge of my desk, he was frightening.