A Shiver of Light (Merry Gentry #9)(12)

“It is not my place to say.”
“I’ve asked your opinion,” I said.
She cocked her head to one side, then moved in the air so she was more in front of my face than Rhys’s. “Why ask my opinion, my lady?”
“It will affect you, as it will affect everyone who lives with us, so I am interested in what you think.”
She gave me a very serious, searching look. I saw the intelligence in that tiny face that I hadn’t seen before; she was as bright as her brother, but maybe a better thinker, deeper anyway. 
“Very well. The queen is always very careful to look good in front of the human media, so if you did the reality show, then cameras might keep us all safe from her.”
“The queen is insane, she can’t help herself,” Galen said.
Penny looked at him, then back to me. “If that were true, then she would have lost her control at a press conference decades ago, but she never has; if she can control herself to that degree then she is not truly insane, she is simply cruel. Never mistake someone who cannot control their murderous impulses from someone who simply has no one to tell them, ‘Stop, behave yourself.’ I find that most cruel people, no matter how awful their actions, once faced with punishment, or someone stronger, behave. Mean is not crazy, it is merely mean.”
I thought about what Penny had said, really thought about it. “She’s right. My aunt has never lost control of herself in front of the media. If she were truly serial killer crazy, she’d have lost it at least once, but she never has, not that I remember.” I looked at Rhys and then at Galen.
They looked at each other, and then back at me. “Well, I’ll be damned,” Rhys said.
“Penny is right, isn’t she?” Galen asked.
I nodded. “I think she is.”
“The king also has never lost control in front of the media.”
“He attacked our human lawyers and us once before he kidnapped me,” I said.
“But there was no media to record it, Princess Merry. It is still a matter of witnesses, but no video or pictures.”
“I think that the king was honestly insane during that attack,” Rhys said. “His guard had to physically jump him, bury him under their bodies to keep him from continuing the attack.”
I shivered and cuddled into Rhys. Taranis had almost killed Doyle in that attack, and my Darkness was not an easy kill.
“If that is true, then a television show may not protect us from the king.”
One of the other demi-fey flew upward on tiny white wings with little black spots on them. She was even tinier than Penny’s Barbie doll size, as if she were trying harder to ape the butterfly she resembled. It was a Cabbage White, an American butterfly, which meant she’d likely been born here.
Her voice was high and musical, as if a trilling bird’s song could be words. “My sister is still in the Seelie Court. She told me that the king was enraged that you had slipped his seduction magic. He’d never had a woman except for the queen of the Unseelie Court escape from his spells.”
“Which is why he came for me later,” I said, softly.
The little faerie flew closer and laid a hand no bigger than the nail of my little finger on my hand. “But even then his magic did not work; he had to hit you with brute force like any human. He knows now that his magic does not work on you.”
“Did your sister hear him say that?” Rhys asked.
She nodded so hard that her pale blond curls bobbed.
“We think the king will not try magic again,” Penny said.
“We, you mean the demi-fey?” I said.
“I do,” she said.
The little one patted my finger, as I might have patted someone’s shoulder. “We are all sorry that he hurt you, Princess Merry.”
“That is much appreciated,” I said.
The little one flew up higher, her butterfly wings a blur of white as she hovered, but also showing agitation, nerves.
“Tell her, Pansy,” Penny said.
“Many speak in front of us as if we are dogs and can neither understand nor report to others,” Pansy said.I nodded. “You are some of the best spies in all of faerie because of it.”
She smiled. “The king has decided that it was his magic you found objectionable, and he plans to try to woo you as a regular man might.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It might mean that he would behave for the cameras as nicely as the queen,” Penny said.
“How long have you known this bit of information?” Rhys asked.
“Pansy only heard from her sister recently, and the gossip came up. Her sister did not realize the importance of it, or the use we might make of the information.”
I found the “we” interesting. Penny didn’t mean just demi-fey, but us, her, me, all of us fey living at the estate in Holmby Hills. It was rare for one type of fey to include themselves with others not of their kind. But then I’d accepted any fey who came into exile with us, or were already here in California in an exile older than my own. With a few exceptions, everyone was welcome.
There was a knock at the door, and the guard opened the door and peeked in, saying, “The ambassador is back.”
I sighed, and said, “Send him in.”
Peter Benz walked through the door smiling, his handsome face set in easy lines, his hand already out to shake. His dark blond hair was cut short and neat; his suit was tailored to his five-foot, eight-inch frame so he looked taller, and it showed off that he exercised and ate carefully enough that he was in shape. He was vain enough that he’d paid for his suit to fit, rather than hide his body. The last ambassador had been vain, too, and Taranis had played on that vanity for all he was worth.
I didn’t really want to play that game, but I wanted this ambassador to be one who worked for both courts, not just the Seelie, so I made myself smile and walk toward that extended hand.
His even white teeth spread in a Hollywood-worthy smile. Mr. Benz was an ambassador now, but he had the feel of someone who had much bigger goals for his future. Ambition wasn’t a bad thing; it could make a person very good at his job.
His handshake was firm, but not too firm. He also didn’t have an issue with my hand being small; so many men either engulfed my hand in theirs or barely touched my hand as if afraid they’d crush it.
“Princess Meredith, thank you for seeing me again.”
“Mr. Benz, you are the new ambassador to my people; why wouldn’t I receive you?”
He raised a well-groomed eyebrow at that, but turned with a smile to shake first Galen’s hand and then Rhys’s. The cloud of flying demi-fey he didn’t really look at; he treated them as if they were the insects they resembled. I would have said, How very human, but even among the sidhe, we forgot to count them, or many did. 
I glanced at Penny and Pansy as they hovered in the air. They met my look with one of their own; they’d noticed his lack of notice, too. The demi-fey would be wonderful spies on human politicians. To my knowledge no one in faerie was doing that, but it was a thought, a potentially useful one. I filed it away for later, much later. We had a long way to go before spying on human politics was a priority for me.
“I know you must be eager to go home.”
I looked at him. “Define home,” I said.
He smiled again and made a little push-away gesture with his manicured hands. “You’ve made it very clear that Ms. Reed’s mansion is your home for now.”
“While my uncle is confined to faerie, I think I will not be safe there.”
The smile faded. “I am sorrier than I can say about all the problems you and King Taranis are having.”
“Did you know that once upon a time the king could hear any conversation that mentioned his name?” Rhys said.
Benz gave him a skeptical but pleasant look. “I was told that hadn’t been true in a very long time, Mr. Rhys.”
“No, but then he hadn’t been able to use his hand of light through a mirror being used as a magical Skype interview in centuries either.”
“We also believe he’s reacquired the ability to use the mirrors as a door that he can step through, or pull someone else through,” I said.
Again, that eyebrow rose. “Really?”
“Yes,” I said, “really.”
“No one saw him step through a mirror or pull someone else into one during the unfortunate events in your lawyers’ chambers,” Benz said.
“But we did see herbs touch the surface of the mirror, and they floated as if on water tension,” I said.
“When a mirror runs like water, or even semiliquid, it usually means that the person on the other side can step through,” Rhys said.
“Does it really?” This time Benz looked more interested than skeptical.
We both nodded. Galen was sort of ignoring us all as he continued to sort the things we were taking from those we were donating. Oddly, Galen was probably best suited to have charmed the ambassador; it was actual ability for him, a type of glamour magic, which was why we’d decided he would leave the talking to us. We didn’t want to be accused of trying to magically influence the new ambassador after what had happened to the last one.
Benz said, “I am learning so much about faerie and its magic. Thank you for being my teachers.”
“We are some of your teachers, but not all,” I said.
He gave a little self-deprecating head gesture, almost an aw-shucks head bob, like a bashful movement. I wondered if it was the last remnant of an old gesture. Had our so-secure Benz been shy once?