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.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“THEY RAN DOWN THE HILL,” BITTERSWEET SAID IN A HIGH, ALMOST musical voice, but it was music that was off-key today. It was her stress showing through even as she tried to answer questions.
She was hiding between Robert’s collar and his neck, peeking at the two plainclothes detectives like a scared toddler. Maybe she was that frightened, or maybe she was playing to her size. Most humans treat the demi-fey like children, and the tinier they are, the more childlike humans view them. I knew better.
The two uniforms, Wright and O’Brian, had taken up posts by the far door, where the detectives had told them to stand. The Fear Dearg had gone back into the outer room to help in the shop, though I had given a thought to how much help he would be with customers. He seemed more likely to frighten than to take orders.
“How many ran down the hill?” Lucy asked in a patient voice. Her partner had his notebook out writing things down. Lucy had once explained to me that some people got nervous watching their words being written down. It could help you intimidate suspects, but it could also intimidate witnesses when that was the last thing you wanted. The compromise was that Lucy let her partner write down when she interrogated. She did the same for him on occasion.