I thought about it, and realized Gran was absolutely right. The chances of her injuring them was somewhat high, because they wouldn’t have wanted to injure my grandmother. It might have made them hesitate, but eventually if she’d risked me, or truly injured them, they would have had no choice but to fight back.
I thought about that, my Gran up against the King of the sluagh and Doyle. It made me cold just thinking about it. It must have shown on my face, because Doyle came to the other side of the bed from where Gran stood. Rhys was still keeping her a little back from the bed, or rather he stood in her way, and she made no move to come closer to the bed. I think she understood that the guards, all the guards, would be leery of her for a time. I couldn’t blame them, because I agreed. Some spells leave lingering touches, even after being removed. Until we studied Cair’s spell we couldn’t be certain of everything it had been designed to do.“What would she be willing to risk her own grandmother for?” Galen asked, sounding shocked.
“I think I know,” Doyle said. “I was inside the Golden Court as a dog. Even the black hounds are still treated as mere dogs. People are incautious in front of dogs.”
“You heard something about this spell?” Rhys asked.
“No, but about Merry’s family.” Doyle came to hold my hand, and I was glad for the touch. “There are still those in the court who use Cair’s physical appearance as a reason not to accept Merry as their queen.” He bowed to Gran. “I do not feel this way, but the Golden Court sees your other granddaughter as a monster and Merry not much better because of how human she appears. They seem to view her height and curves almost as badly as they do Cair’s face.”
“They are a vain lot, the Seelie,” Gran said. “I lived among them for many years, married to one of their princes, but they could ne’r forgive me for looking so brownie. I think if I looked more human, like me dad, they could have accepted me more, but brownie blood beating out the human, nay, that they could not see past.”
“Your twin daughters are both lovely, and except for hair and eye color look very sidhe. They can pass,” Doyle said.
“But neither of the grandchildren can,” Gran said.
“True,” Doyle said.
“Does anyone else find it interesting that all the fathers except me are mixed blood?” Rhys asked. He was still holding the glowing thread carefully away from his body. What were we going to do with it?
“Like calls to like,” Gran said.
“Some of the Seelie nobles said that if I could help a pureblood sidhe couple get with child more of both courts would follow me,” I said. “Some of them are saying that only the mixed breeds can breed with my help, because my blood isn’t pure enough.”
Doyle rubbed his thumb along my knuckles. It was a nervous gesture, and it meant that he wondered the same thing. Was it what Gran said, like calls to like? Was I simply not sidhe enough to help the pure-bloods?
“Doyle,” Galen said, “are you bleeding?” He moved up to the other man, and touched his back. His fingers came away with dots of crimson on them.
CHAPTER FOUR
DOYLE DIDN’T FLINCH OR OTHERWISE REACT. “IT IS A VERY small wound.”
“But how did it happen?” Galen asked.
“I believe the glass is coated with some sort of man-made material,” Doyle said.
“So because it’s man-made and not natural,” I said, “it was able to cut you?”
“Normal glass would have still cut me.”
“But it would have healed by now,” I said, “without the man-made coating?”
“It is a small cut, so yes.”
“But you were covering Merry’s body when you were cut,” Gran said, and her voice was flat, almost without accent. She could do that when she wished, though it didn’t happen often.
“Yes,” he said, and looked at her.
She swallowed hard. “I do nae have the magic resistance to be near my Merry right now, do I?”
“It is sidhe magic we will be fighting,” he said.
She nodded, and a look of deep sorrow came over her face. “I cannae be with ya, Merry. I cannae resist what they will make me do. It’s one of the reasons I left their court. A brownie is a servant there, and when we are invisible to them we are safe, but brownies were ne’r meant to dabble in court politics.”
I reached out to her. “Gran, please.”
Rhys stepped between us as she moved forward. “Not a good idea yet. We need to look at the spell first.”
“I would say I would n’er hurt my girl, but if the Darkness…if Captain Doyle had not protected her, I would have cut her ’stead of his back.”
“What could they have offered to Merry’s cousin?” Galen asked. “Mayhap the thing they offered me centuries ago,” Gran said.
“What was that?” Galen asked.
“A chance to bed, and if with child, marry one of their Seelie nobles. No one will touch Cair for fear that her…deformity will breed true. I was only half human, and I worked in the court as a brownie, but I saw the Seelie and I wished to be a part of it. I was a fool, but it earned my girls a chance to be a part of that glittering mess. But Cair is always outside of it, because she looks too much like her ol’ Gran.”
“Gran,” I said, “it’s not…”
“No, child, I know what face I bear, and I know that it takes a special sidhe to love it. I ne’r found that sidhe, but I was not part sidhe. I did na’ have the blood of the court running in my veins. I was a brownie who got uppity, but Cair, she is one of them. It must be a thing of great pain to watch the others with their perfect faces get what she longs for.”
“I know what it is like to be denied a place at court,” Sholto said, “because you are not perfect enough to be bedded. The Unseelie sidhe run scared of my bed, for fear they will breed monsters.”
Gran nodded, and finally looked at him. “I am sorry that I said some of the things I said, Shadow Lord. I should know better’n most what it is to be hated for bein’ less than sidhe.”
He nodded. “The Queen called me Her Creature. Until Merry came to me, I thought I would be doomed to live out my life until I became simply Creature, as Doyle is Darkness.” He smiled at me then, with that intimate look that he hadn’t quite earned yet. It was so odd to be pregnant after only one night with a man. But then, hadn’t that been what had happened with my parents? One night of sex, and my mother had been trapped in a marriage she did not want. Seven years of marriage before she was allowed to divorce him.
“Aye, the courts are cruel, though I had hoped the dark court would be a little less so.”
“They accept more,” Doyle said, “but even the Unseelie have their limits.”
“They saw me as proof that the sidhe were failing as a people, because once they could bed anything and breed true,” Sholto said.
“They saw my mortality as proof that they were dying,” I said.
“And now the two they feared the most may be the saving of us all,” Doyle said.
“Nicely ironic,” Rhys said.
“I must go, Merry-girl,” Gran said.“Let us test the spell and remove any lingering effects on you,” Doyle said.
She gave him a look that wasn’t entirely friendly. “Rhys and Galen can touch you,” he said. “I do not need to.”
She took a long breath, her thin shoulders going up and down. Then she looked at him with a softer, more thoughtful look. “Aye, ya should look at me, for the thought of you touching me was not a good one. I think the spell lingers in me mind, and it is not good to linger on such thoughts. They grow and fester in the mind and heart.”
He nodded, still holding my hand in his. “They do.”
“Test the spell, Rhys,” she said. “Then cure me of it. I must away, unless you can find a way for me to be proof against such sorceries.”
“I’m sorry, Hettie.”
She smiled at him, then turned a less-happy face to me. “Sorry I am that I will nae be able to help ya through this pregnancy, or help tend the bairns for ya.”
“Me, too,” I said, and meant it. The thought of her leaving hurt my heart.
Rhys held the shining thread out. “I’d like your opinion on it, Doyle.”
Doyle nodded, squeezed my hand, then walked around the bed to Rhys. Neither of them seemed to want to give Gran a clear way to touch me. Was it really that strong a spell, or were they just being cautious?
If it was caution, I couldn’t blame them, but I wanted to say good-bye to Gran. I wanted to touch her, especially if it was the last time I’d see her until after the babies were born. Just thinking that all the way through—when the babies were born—shocked me a little. We’d been trying to get me pregnant for so many months that the pursuit of the pregnancy had been all I’d thought about. That, and staying alive. I hadn’t thought about what it would mean. I hadn’t thought about babies, and children, and having them. It seemed a strange oversight.
“Your face, Merry-girl, so serious,” Gran said.
I looked at her, and remembered being very small, so small that I could curl up in her lap and she had seemed large. I remembered feeling utterly safe, as if nothing in the world could harm me. I had believed that. It must have been before I was six, before the Queen of Air and Darkness, Aunt Andais, had tried to drown me. That had been a moment that had brought the realities of being mortal among the immortal home to me as a child. It was nicely ironic that the future of the Unseelie Court was in my body, my mortal body, which Andais had thought wasn’t worth keeping alive. If I could be killed by drowning, then I wasn’t sidhe enough to live.