A Shiver of Light
Page 58

“I’m glad they were willing to go.”
“They didn’t think they had a choice when they started.”
“What?”
She smiled. “They thought you ordered them to go to therapy, and by the time they realized you hadn’t meant it that way, most of them were benefiting from it, so they kept going.”
“I would never order someone to go to therapy. I mean, you can order them to go the appointment, but you can’t make them actually work their issues.”
“You ordered them to talk to the therapist, and after what Cel did to them if they disobeyed him, or Andais did to anyone who disobeyed her, they worked their therapy as if their lives depended on it.”
I shook my head and sighed. “They are all so much more damaged than I knew. Wait, is that why some of the female guards stopped going to therapy a few weeks ago?”
“Yes, they finally realized that you hadn’t meant it as an order. A few of them tested to see if you meant it as a suggestion and when you didn’t get angry about it, a few more stopped going.”
“Most of them haven’t stopped going,” I said.
“As I said, Meredith, they worked hard at their therapy for fear of what you’d do to them if they didn’t, and it worked strangely well for many of them.”
“I didn’t think you could force someone to do therapy like that.”
“Neither did I, but it seems to be working for them.”
I frowned, puzzling, and finally shook my head. “If it’s working, it’s working.”
“You are surprisingly practical about very impractical things.”
“Do I say thank you, or is that a problem?”
She smiled. “Neither, but the same guards who speak of Cel in hate-filled tones say wonderful things about your father. I think most of them are still in love with him, both as a good leader and as a man.”
“I was actually thinking earlier that my family has more crazy than sane in it. Though you forgot that my grandmother was wonderful and caring, as were her parents, my great-grandmother and -grandfather.”
“You’re right, I did forget. Because your grandmother was half human and half brownie I counted her as less, but I shouldn’t have, because it seems like the insanity comes from the sidhe side of things.”
“We’re not the most stable people,” I said.
“I think it’s living for so long, Meredith. Our bodies don’t age, but maybe our minds do.”
“Are you saying that Taranis and Andais have a version of dementia?”
“Maybe, though Cel wasn’t that old by sidhe standards.”
“I think Cel was always weak and twisted, but his mother indulged him, let him think he could do no wrong, and that cemented his crazy.”
She studied me again as if looking for a flaw, or a hint, or something I couldn’t guess at. “You are your father’s daughter, and that is a good thing.”
“I am my grandmother’s, too, and that’s a good thing as well.”
“Yes, yes it is.” She brushed off her hands as if brushing the topic away. “Let’s go see the newest babies—though with Nicca and Biddy’s daughter, Kadyi, and Liam, there are a lot of babies.”
“Did you hear that Cathbodua and Usna are expecting?”
She looked startled, and then she laughed again. “No, I hadn’t heard; that’s wonderful and just fun, that the cat and the bird are having a baby.”
“Andais said something similar, the cat and the crow.”
Maeve’s face sobered. “I would not be compared to the Queen of Air and Darkness in any way.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She shivered, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “It’s all right, you didn’t … it’s just so many of us seem to go mad as the centuries pass, it makes me worry.”
“Worry about what?” I asked.
“About my own sanity, I suppose.”
“You have never shown any sign of the madness that haunts some of the noble lines of faerie.”
“Oh, it’s not just the noble lines, Meredith; some of the lesser fey are just as unpredictable, they just don’t have the power of life and death to indulge their insanity.”
It was my turn to study her. “What makes you say that?”
“The Fear Dearg, for one; you know we have one of them living here in Los Angeles.”
“I’ve met him,” I said.
She shuddered. “I remember the wars against them. It was like their entire race was as bad as Andais, Taranis, and Cel combined. It’s why we took their magic away.”
“The Fir Dhaeg said the sidhe also took their females, so though they live forever they’re dead as a race.”
She nodded, rubbing her arms again. “We could not work a spell to kill them, or destroy their evil entirely, but we destroyed what we could of them.”
“The Fir Dhaeg said that I could give him back his name. That the curse the sidhe placed upon them could be cured by a royal chosen by Goddess and faerie.”
“I do not know the details of the curse, but all curses must have a cure; it’s part of the balance. Nothing is truly forever, nothing is that is made cannot be unmade, and that which is unmade has the possibility of being reborn.”
“What happened to the Fir Dhaeg females? Doyle would not tell me details after we met the one here in L. A.”
“We could not destroy them, Meredith, for they were as much a part of faerie as the sidhe, but we were able to kill them at a price.”
“What price?” I asked.
“That we would take in their essence, absorb them. We would tie the Fir Dhaeg to the sidhe forever, so that if they reincarnated they would come back as one of us. The hope was that our bright blessings from the Goddess and Her Consort would cleanse their evil, but I wonder sometimes if the opposite happened.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I wonder sometimes if the Fir Dhaeg contaminated the sidhe with their darkness.”
“Taranis and Andais were already king and queen by then; you can’t blame their evil on the Fir Dhaeg.”
“I suppose not, but I remember the day that it was done. The females didn’t die; they faded and the energy went somewhere, Meredith. What if it went not into the land, or sky, or plants, or water, but into the ones that did the cursing? Andais was part of that spell; your father was not.”
“You’re saying that in cursing the Fir Dhaeg, Andais may have … what, become one herself?”
Maeve shrugged. “Maybe, or maybe she was mad even then and we just hadn’t realized it.”
“Faerie chose her to be queen of the Unseelie Court, so she was fit to rule once,” I said.
“She was a great war leader, so yes, she was fit once.”
“Have you discussed your theory with anyone else?”
“No, by the time I thought of it I was in exile. I had a lot of time to think upon old things while I was alone.”
“I’ll share your theory with Doyle and see what he thinks.”
“Remember that he was a part of the spell, too.”
“Doyle is not evil,” I said.
“I didn’t say he was, but being around evil changes a person, even if you’re killing it on the battlefield.”