A Stroke of Midnight
Chapter 27-28

Chapter 27
RHYS PACED BY THE BATHTUB, THOUGH THERE WAS PRECIOUS little room for pacing. The bathroom was bigger than most standard modern bathrooms, but once you squeezed in Frost, Doyle, Galen, Nicca and his wings, Kitto, and me, no bathroom short of Queen Andais's personal bathroom would have been big enough. Kitto was running the bath, playing servant, which he'd started doing more and more. Andais had offered me servants, but Doyle had refused on the grounds of my safety. We couldn't trust anyone as we trusted each other. That was part of the reason. The other part was that the servant would spy for Andais, and we had too many secrets for that. We didn't share that part with Andais.
"When I escorted Major Walters and the good doctor to their cars, the FBI was still there."
"Persistent bastard," I said.
Rhys shook his head, and stopped beside me. "No, Merry, not persistent. Carmichael, who thought our Killing Frost was so pretty, had just gotten to the cars, too."
"What are you saying, Rhys?" Doyle was leaning to one side of the door.
"That according to the FBI and the people who escorted Carmichael out, only a few minutes had passed since I put Carmichael outside of the mound."
"It's been hours since then," I said. I was sitting on the corner of the wide marble edge of the tub, trying to make myself small, so we weren't too crowded.
"Not according to the humans outside," Rhys said.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"It means that the sithen is playing with time," Doyle said.
"Time always runs funny inside faerie," I said.
"But only in pockets," Rhys said, "and only by a few minutes, maybe an hour. Faerie has been on the same time schedule as the mortal world since before we came to America." He leaned against the double sinks, fitting himself beside Galen.
Nicca had most of the far corner of the room for himself and the sweep of his wings. "What does it mean?"
Frost spoke from the wall on the other side of the door. "It means that it isn't only the sidhe and the demi-fey who are regaining some of their old powers."
"You told me that the humans reacted to the entrance to faerie as if the hallway had its old glamour," Doyle said. "Why should we be surprised that the sithen is gaining back other abilities as well."
I hugged my knees, trying to ignore the scratchy dried blood on my jeans. Kitto was testing the nearly full tub. I said, "Sometimes you talk about the sithen as if it's just a building, sometimes you talk as if it's a being in its own right, sometimes you speak of the sithen as if it is faerie. I asked my father once if the sithen was alive, and he said yes. I asked if it was a person, and he said no. I asked if it was faerie, and he said yes. I asked if it was the totality of faerie, and he said no. Does anyone alive today actually know what the sithen are?"
"You do ask the most difficult questions sometimes." Rhys crossed his arms, the white of his trench coat framing his pale suit. A wet line on his trousers showed where the snow had stained the cloth. He'd made two more trips outside that night than most of the rest of us.
"Does that mean you can't answer the question, or you won't?"
"You're Princess Meredith NicEssus, our future queen; if you order it, we have to answer," he said.
I frowned at him. "I did not order you to tell me, Rhys, I asked."
He rubbed the heel of his hand against his good eye, and when he lowered it, he looked tired. He might be boyishly handsome forever, but his face could still hold lines of weariness now and then. "I'm sorry, Merry. But if the sithen is messing with time, then we're going to have to post a guard outside of faerie, so that we can figure out the difference between the two places chronologically. That will tell us how bad it is right now, but..."
"But not how big the difference will grow," Nicca said.
Rhys nodded. "This could get really bad."
"I'm losing something here," I said. "Why do you all look so worried?"
"Don't look at me," Galen said. "I don't know why they all look gloomy about it either. I mean the sithen does a lot of weird stuff, it always has."
"And what if the sithen decides to make the difference between inside faerie and outside faerie not just hours to minutes, but years to days?" Rhys said.
Galen and I exchanged a look. He said, "Can it do that?" I said, "Oh."
"It has in the past," Rhys said.
"I thought that the queen or king of the court controlled the time difference," I said.
"Once," Doyle said, "but that ability went away long ago."
"Wait," Galen said, "did you say the queen could control how big the time difference was?"
Several of us nodded.
"Didn't the old stories say that only hours would pass inside faerie, but centuries would pass outside in the human world?"
"Yes," Doyle said, looking at Galen as if he had said something smart.
"We accomplished a lot in the last few hours, but the rest of the world has used up only a few minutes. In effect, our sithen is moving faster than everybody else. Isn't that opposite of the way it used to work? Didn't mortal time move faster than ours?"
I watched the rest of them exchange glances, except for Kitto, who seemed totally absorbed in running the bath. "By the looks on everyone's faces, I've missed something."
"We had a lot to do tonight," Galen said. "We still have a lot to do tonight, and while we get all of it done, the outside world moves at a crawl. The question is, are we the only sithen experiencing the time shift?"
Rhys hugged him one armed. "You know, you're smarter than you look."
"Don't compliment me too much, Rhys, it'll go to my head." But he was smiling.
"Am I slow tonight, or is everyone else just faster than I am?" I asked.
"Exactly," Doyle said.
I frowned at him. "Exactly what?"
"Did you at any time tonight say out loud that you needed more time?" Doyle asked.
"I might have said something like, we don't have enough time to investigate the murder and play court with the queen. Not those words, but..." I looked at Doyle. "Are you saying that I might have wished this into happening?"
"You did make a mirror appear in your room," Doyle said, "simply by wanting to see what the cloak looked like."
I was suddenly so scared that cold tingled down to my fingertips. "But Doyle, that could mean that anything I say could be taken literally by the sithen."
He nodded.
"We must find out how time is running in another sithen," Frost said. "If the goblins or the sluagh are gaining hours on the mortal world, then faerie itself has decided to change. Sometimes it does that."
"And if it is only our sithen?" Nicca asked.
"Then Meredith must be very, very careful what she says." He was looking at me, and I could almost watch some idea coming to life in his mind.
"What are you thinking?" I asked him.
"Not just him," Rhys said.
"No, not just him," Galen said. He shivered, rubbing his arms as if he was cold, too. "For once I know what the bad news is before anyone says it."
"Then fill me in," I said.
"If only the queen can make time change inside the sithen, and Merry was able to do it..." Galen said, and left it unfinished.
"Once upon a time," Doyle said, his voice seeming deeper, as if the low-growling echoes needed to fill all the small room, "even if you fought your way to the throne, or were elected by all the other rulers as high king, or high queen, you still could not rule a faerie mound. You could not sit on the throne of a specific sithen unless the sithen itself accepted your right to rule."
"I haven't heard that story," I said.
"It is a forbidden story," Frost said, looking at Doyle.
"Why would it be forbidden?" Galen asked.
I made the logic leap this time. "Andais wasn't chosen by the sithen," I said.
"She was in Europe," Doyle said, "but when we arrived in America, the new faerie mound did not."
"What do you mean 'new'?" I asked.
"Faerie is not just a physical location. The moment Andais stepped into the new mound here, it should have been the same, but it wasn't."
"We all assumed it was because of the third weirding, the one that the American government forced on us before they would allow us to move here," Rhys said. "So many of us lost so much power that we - " he shrugged - "sort of looked the other way about the sithen not cuddling up to Andais."
"She did allow the nobles to enter the sithen and have us watch them one by one," Frost said. "If the sithen had reacted to any of them more than to her, she had agreed to step aside."
"My aunt agreed to let the throne go to any noble the sithen chose?" I said.
"Hard to believe, I know," Rhys said, "but she did. We all assumed that the last weirding had taken too much of her power for her to rule us. Then the worst happened."
"The sithen knew none of them," Doyle said.
"Okay, I understand how that would be bad, but why is it forbidden to talk about it?" I asked.
"Did Prince Essus ever explain to you how the various faerie courts came into being?" Doyle asked.
I started to say yes, of course he had, but he hadn't. "I know that once the sidhe were not simply two courts, Seelie and Unseelie, but dozens, with different kings and queens, like the goblin court and the sluagh, but more independent."
"So independent that we fought among ourselves, until we all agreed that we needed a high king," Rhys said. "Once there was only one sidhe high ruler, not two."
"I know this one," I said. "The first Unseelie sidhe ruler was cast out of the Seelie Court, but he refused to leave faerie. He went from court to court and asked for entrance, but they feared the sidhe, and so finally the only fey court left was the sluagh. The most frightening and least human of all the fey. They took him in, and from that time on any sidhe who was cast out of other courts could petition to join the sluagh."
"Very good," Rhys said, "but do you know when the Unseelie became a sidhe court, separate from the sluagh?"
"When there were enough sidhe who didn't want to be called sluagh," I said.
"Almost," Doyle said.
"Why almost?" I asked.
"At one time, a fey of a certain kind would simply become powerful enough, magical enough, for the very stuff of faerie to acknowledge them, and create a kingdom for them. One of the sidhe who had joined the sluagh was our first king. Faerie created a place for him to rule, and the sidhe left the sluagh's court and made one of our own."
"Okay," I said.
"We're all afraid to say it," Rhys said, "because we've all managed not to say the part that is most likely to get us in trouble."
"What part?" I asked.
"A court without a ruler begins to fade," Nicca said.
They all looked at him as if surprised he'd had the courage to say it. It took me a moment to understand the implications.
It was Galen who had said it out loud. "Goddess save us, that's what's been happening to our court. We had no true ruler, so the sithen was dying. Our slice of faerie has been dying."
"Not just ours," Doyle said.
"Who else?" I asked.
"Our bright cousins follow a king whose sithen did not know him."
"Their sithen didn't know any of their nobles either?" I asked.
"Rumor has it, and it's only rumor, that instead of welcoming sidhe who the sithen recognized, he exiled them," Rhys said.
"It's not rumor," Doyle said.
We all looked at him. "Who?" I asked.
"Aisling," he said.
Something on Frost's face told me that he had known. The rest looked as shocked as I felt. "They had a true king and Taranis exiled him?"
Doyle and Frost nodded.
"But that is monstrous," Nicca said. "Even Andais was willing to give up her throne if a true queen could have been found."
"Does his court know?" I asked Doyle.
"Most, no."
"But some?" I asked.
"Some," he said.
"How can they support him? The Unseelie had no choice but to fade, but he had a new king to sit on the Seelie throne. They didn't have to fade."
"Did our sithen recognize Aisling when he came here?" Galen asked.
"No," Doyle said.
"Why not?" he asked.
Doyle shrugged, and I guess that was answer enough, or the only answer he had.
"The bath is ready," Kitto said, his voice as neutral and empty as a servant's.
I touched his shoulder, and he gave me a small smile. Something occurred to me. "Did the goblin mound know Kurag when you came to this country?"
"I am not important enough to know such things. I do not know."
"The goblins are less faded than the sidhe. They are still what we left them."
"But wait," Galen said, "the Seelie sidhe are less faded in power than we are. Why is that? Shouldn't both courts be fading at about the same rate?"
"They should be," Doyle said.
"But they aren't," I said.
"They don't seem to be," Rhys said.
"You've thought of something," Doyle said.
"What made Taranis desperate enough to help release the Nameless, one of our most dangerous magicks, into the human world to kill Maeve Reed? She'd been exiled from faerie for more than a century. It couldn't have just been Merry's visit to her. That could have gotten him to send someone to assassinate Maeve, but not to release the Nameless." Rhys shook his head. "I've been thinking about it, and I can't make it make sense."
"Like his inviting Merry to his ball," Galen said. "That makes no sense either. He's hated her all her life."
"Not hated, Galen, you have to think more of a person to hate them, and my uncle doesn't think anything of me. I was more a nonentity at the Seelie Court than here at the Unseelie Court."
"So why is he so hot to see you? Why now?"
"None of us have liked this sudden invitation," Doyle said, "but we have had our discussions, and we are going to accept."
"I still think it's too dangerous for Merry," Galen said.
"We will be there to protect her," Doyle said.
"You know, it would be really interesting to take Aisling as one of my honor guard."
"I do not believe that Taranis would allow him to pass into his court," Doyle said.
"If he refuses any of my guard it is within my rights to take insult and refuse the invitation," I said.
They all looked at one another. "It has possibilities," Rhys said.
Galen nodded. "I like anything that keeps Merry from having to attend this ball."
"How can you say that?" Frost asked. "You saw what just the touch of Aisling's power did to Melangell. Taranis has negotiated that only the guards who have visited Meredith's bed may accompany her to the ball."
It wasn't the horror of Melangell's sightless eyes that I was remembering, it was the moment when Aisling held me and I'd noticed that his eyes were empty, as if pieces were missing. Aisling had been trying to gain a kiss through his veil. The Goddess had come to me, and there had been no warning in my mind. No caution about touching Aisling. Was I sidhe enough to bed Aisling, veiled or unveiled? Or was it more simple than that? True love was supposed to be proof against Aisling's magic. Was I in love enough to resist? And was the risk of Aisling's body worth the chance to avoid whatever scheme Taranis had in store for me?
"If you do not get into the bath soon it will begin to grow cool," Kitto said.
I hugged him, and he hugged me back. "Kitto is right. Galen and I need to get clean."
"Then have sex," Galen said.
I smiled back at him. "Yes, then have sex."
"And Nicca, as well," Doyle said, "so he will be free to go to Biddy."
I nodded. "I'll give them the bed. The first time you have sex with someone shouldn't be in a bathtub, it's too awkward."
"You're going to have sex in a bathtub with a six-foot-tall man with wings." Rhys grinned and shook his head. "I think I want to watch this."
"You must include Royal," Nicca said.
"I haven't forgotten him," I said. "We just didn't need him taking all our news back to his queen."
"He will spy for Niceven," Frost said.
"I'm aware that Royal's first duty will be to his own queen and court."
"Your bedroom is crawling with wingless demi-fey," Rhys said. "It's like an infestation."
"Queen Niceven doesn't want Meredith to feed any one demi-fey too many times in a row," Doyle said.
"I do not want to share her bed with the demi-fey," Frost said.
"Oh, Frost," I said.
He held up a hand. "I'm not saying I won't, but I don't think any of us want a demi-fey with us every time we make love."
"Your bath is going to get cold," Kitto said again.
I stood up, and started peeling off the bloody clothes. "Everybody who isn't getting in the tub, leave. The night isn't getting any younger."
Frost winced. "Will that make time speed, or slow?"
"I forgot," I said, with my shirt in my hands, and the bra still to go. "I just forgot, it's an expression."
"You cannot afford expressions," Doyle said.
"I'll do my best, but it's almost impossible to watch every word you say."
"You must try, Meredith, you must try."
"Let's find out first if the goblins and the sluagh are moving at human time or our time before we panic Merry," Rhys said.
Doyle nodded. "Take some men of your choosing and go."
"Why am I the one who keeps having to go back and forth in the snow?"
"Death does not feel the cold," Doyle said.
"No, but neither does the dark, and you get to stay nice and warm." He went for the door. "I'll leave more men than I take. This is more spying than fighting."
"But you might need to fight," Doyle said.
"Take at least two others with you," I told him.
"Aye, aye, Cap'n." He did a mock salute, then walked out.
I looked at Frost and Doyle, still standing on either side of the door. "Unless you're staying to watch, it's time to thin the number of people in here," I said.
"Do you wish an audience?" Doyle asked.
The question caught me off-guard. I actually thought about it, then shook my head. "No, not really." I looked at him, studied that dark face. "I didn't know you enjoyed watching."
"I don't. Very few among the guards enjoy voyeurism."
"The queen beat it out of us," Galen said.
Doyle nodded. "Almost literally."
"I, for one," Frost said, "do not wish to watch whether you will it, or no."
"I would never ask anything of you, Frost, that I thought would hurt you, not if I had a choice."
He started to get offended, or to pretend he didn't understand me, but then his face softened, and he even gave a little smile. "I know you would not. It is not Galen and Nicca with you tonight that bites at me. It is the demi-fey. I do not like him. I do not like a princess of the sidhe having to use her body as a bargaining chip."
"Frost," I said, going to him, "a royal woman's body has been a bargaining chip for thousands of years. At least I'm not bargaining myself away in marriage. That might be my fate if I were human."
"Married to that... thing." The look on his face was so shocked it was funny. I laughed, I could not help myself. He jerked as if I'd struck him.
I touched his arm, but he pulled away. I'd had enough. "First, the demi-fey are a part of this court. The way the sidhe treat them, the way everyone treats them, is a disgrace. They are either part of us or they are not." I watched his face close down, watched that sullen arrogance close around him, but I didn't stop just because his feelings were hurt. I couldn't afford to keep stopping every time he got his feelings hurt, it happened too often. "Second, I'm tired of your acting as if your blood and body are too precious to be bargained with. I put my flesh and blood up for grabs a lot for you, all of you. You won't feed anyone. You won't even let a single demi-fey watch. Rhys won't let goblins touch him, or the demi-fey either now."
"He fell to the power of Sage's glamour," Frost said. "He will not risk it again."
"Fine, but I'm risking it. Galen has more reason to be afraid of the demi-fey than either Rhys or you, and he's going to do this for me, for us, tonight." I moved closer to him, but didn't try to touch him. I didn't want to see him pull away. "I know you covered my body with yours, that you offered your life for mine today. But so did Galen. He nearly paid with his life tonight, yet here he stands ready to let a demi-fey touch him."
"What do you want of me?" Frost asked.
"I want you to stop pouting about me sharing myself with the lesser fey, when you won't let your so-white flesh be touched by them. I want you to stop making me feel as if I'm the whore and you're too good for it." I realized I was angry, really angry. But it wasn't Frost I was angry with, I was just angry. And I hadn't been able to be angry at the people I most wanted to be angry with, so suddenly this unreasoning anger flared. My skin ran hot with it, making me glow through the dried crust of blood and gore.
I stepped back from him. "I am tired, Frost, and there is still much for my body to do tonight. By our bargain I must be with Royal, in some way. By the queen's order I must be with Galen and Nicca tonight. And one other green man before dawn finds me." I thought about it. "I need to bed Sholto before we go to the goblin court tomorrow night so we can count on the sluagh as our allies." I shook my head. "I did it again, didn't I?"
"Before dawn finds you," Doyle said, "yes."
"But there is too much to do, and the clock starts ticking again at dawn."
He nodded. "I would offer my blood in your place if it would satisfy Niceven."
I smiled at him. "I know you would, but the demi-fey don't seem to like you. Later, when we have the time, I'd like to know the story behind that."
"No," Doyle said, "you will not like the story, and I will not like telling it."
He looked so solemn, almost sad, that I touched his arm, and said, "Unless I need to know it, you may keep your secret feud with Niceven's court a secret."
"Would you really let the little fey touch you?" Frost asked.
Doyle looked at his friend. "Yes, if it was necessary."
"How can you let those things touch you?"
"How can I ask of the princess what I would not give myself?" Doyle said.
Frost bent his head, eyes closed. He took in a lot of air, as if he were trying to get enough breath for some long, deep dive. His breath came out in a shaky rush. He opened his eyes, and they were raw with emotion, like grey wounds. "I would never ask of you a thing that I would not do myself, Meredith. I am sorry."
I touched his arm, and this time he didn't pull away. I leaned into him, and offered my face up for a kiss. There was enough height difference that if he didn't bend down to kiss me, I couldn't make him. Not without a chair to stand on. But I didn't have to get a chair.
Frost met me halfway, bending down, his hands on my arms, steadying me on my tiptoes. We kissed. I meant it to be a chaste kiss, a "good-bye for the night" kiss, but he had other ideas.
His lips pressed against mine, hard, fierce. His tongue pushed at my mouth, and I opened to him, let him slide inside my mouth. His breath shuddered inside my mouth, as if he were breathing me in, and he crushed me against him. He lifted me off my feet and wrapped me around him. He fed at my mouth with tongue and teeth and lips, until I made small sounds at the force of his mouth, the near painful grip of his arms and hands. I melted against him; when he drew back from the kiss, I was light-headed, and tried to keep the kiss going. I'd forgotten where we were, what I was supposed to be doing. I forgot myself as I had at the press conference. I forgot everything but the taste of his mouth, the feel of his body. I forgot everything but Frost's kiss.
He drew away from me while I fought to kiss him again. I was making small, protesting noises as he tried to slide me down his body and set me on the floor. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and refused to be set down.
"Meredith, Meredith." I think Doyle's deep voice had been talking to me for a while. I finally looked at him. He smiled and shook his head. "He has to go now, we both do."
I looked back to Frost, who had finally wrapped his arms back around me when I wouldn't let him drop me. He looked terribly pleased with himself. "Now I can leave you to others."
I shook my head, because what I wanted to say was don't leave, but I couldn't. It wasn't that I didn't want Galen, but... Frost seemed to always be able to make me want him.
"If you are leaving, then you need to put her down," Doyle said.
He let me slide down his body, and I let him do it, this time I did. My knees were a little unsteady, and he had to keep his hand on my arm for a moment, before I could stand on my own.
He laughed, a purely masculine laugh. "Goddess help me, but I do love you."
"Enough, Frost," Doyle said, "we have other work to do tonight." He motioned for the door, and this time Frost went where he was told. Doyle turned to me at the open door. "I will not try to compete with that." He said it with a smile.
I raised up on tiptoe, my hands on his chest, and said, "It isn't a competition."
He lowered his face to mine. "In the mortal words of the human world, the hell it isn't." He kissed me, firm and thorough but chaste compared to what Frost had done, then he drew back from me. "Do you wish me to send in the demi-fey?"
"Let us get the blood off of us first. I'll send Nicca or Kitto for Royal."
"As you wish." His eyes flicked behind me, then he touched my face, and closed the door behind him.
I turned around to find that two of the other men in my life had undressed while I was preoccupied. Galen's body was covered in patches of dried blood. It wasn't lust that made me go to him and wrap myself around his nude body, it was fear. Later there'd be time for lust, but in that moment I just wanted to hold him, wanted to feel him warm and alive in my arms. My hands couldn't seem to avoid feeling the dried scratchiness of blood. It was everywhere on the smooth perfection of his skin. My hands found the still-healing wound in his back. I shivered.
He hugged me. "Are you cold?"
"A little," I said aloud. To myself I acknowledged that it wasn't the kind of cold that a coat or a bath would help.
"Let's get in the water then." He smiled down at me as he said it, as if a little hot water would solve everything. If only life were that simple.
Something must have shown on my face, because he frowned at me. "Are you all right?"
I nodded and sighed. So much to do, so many alliances to forge and strengthen, so many enemies to find. I should have been hurrying, should have had my list of goals and been breaking my back to get through them. But in that moment I couldn't think of anything that seemed more important than holding as much of Galen against me as I could manage. Naked in a bathtub doesn't solve everything, but naked with someone you love doesn't hurt anything either.
Chapter 28
THE BATH WAS STILL HOT WHEN I FINALLY SLID INTO IT, WHICH meant that Kitto had drawn it hotter than I liked. He had known that we would talk too long and had planned for it. He'd begun to anticipate my needs, not in the way of a lover or a friend, but in the way of a good servant. Unobtrusive, quiet, just there when needed. No friend or lover I'd ever had had been unobtrusive. Messy, joyous, heartbreaking, wonderful, but never unobtrusive.
I looked at him as Galen slid into the bath. Kitto was one of the oldest of my men, and the oldest among us don't always liked being thanked, so I didn't. "You drew the water too hot, so it would be just right by the time we got in the tub. You knew we'd talk too long."
He ducked his head, not meeting my eyes. "There was much to talk of."
I leaned against the edge of the marble tub, until I could touch his shoulder. "You always seem to know what I'm going to do before I do."
He raised eyes that were unsullied by white, only a bright clear blue. I saw uncertainty there before he lowered them again. "What's wrong, Kitto?" I asked, stroking my fingers up and down his bare shoulder. He'd stripped down to just a thong, as he often did when he did anything messy. To save his clothes, he said. I got the feeling that Kitto owned more clothes now, with me, than he'd ever owned in the goblin court.
He shook his head, sending the black curls of his newly grown hair brushing across his shoulders. A few inches longer and it would have been punishable by torture. Only the sidhe were allowed long hair. He was sidhe now, with his own hand of power. As with Nicca's wings and Mistral's reborn power, so Kitto's sidhe magic had come after sex. With the new power should have come a new confidence, but it had not.
Galen leaned over the tub edge to touch Kitto's other shoulder. "What's up, Kitto, you can tell us."
Kitto flashed him a rare smile. "You are both the kindest sidhe I've ever known." He glanced behind at Nicca. "All of you."
"You're sidhe now, too, Kitto," I said.
He shook his head. "I will never be truly sidhe, not to some."
Nicca knelt behind him, his wings sweeping out along the floor. "Who has been saying such things to you?"
Kitto shook his head again, and Nicca's arms came around from behind, hugging him. Kitto stiffened, as if afraid. I leaned up over the tub edge until I could lay a kiss upon his lips. When I drew back from the kiss, he raised frightened eyes to me.
"What did they say to you?" I asked. I was really worried now. I'd never seen him quite like this, and I didn't like it.
He dropped his gaze again, and wouldn't look at me as he said it. "They said that I would never be anything but a filthy goblin. That only a whore would share her bed with me." He looked up then, and his face was so hurt, so confused. "I didn't think any fey called another whore. It is not our way."
"Oh, Kitto," I said.
"I should not be here if it hurts your chances of being queen." He started to bend down, as if he would make himself smaller, but Nicca's arms wouldn't let him do it. Nicca held him tightly but gently against his body.
"They are jealous," Nicca said.
Kitto looked over his shoulder at the other man. "Jealous of what?"
"Of you," Galen said.
Kitto blinked at him, and shook his head. "No, not of me."
"You are the first non-sidhe to be brought into his power in centuries," Galen said. "No matter how common it used to be, it isn't now. They are jealous that Merry could do it, and you could become it. They're afraid of you and what it might mean if more of the sidhe-sided goblins could be made sidhe."
I looked at Galen.
"What?" he said. "It's true."
"Yes, but I..."
"Didn't think I'd noticed," he said.
I had the grace to look embarrassed. "Let's say, I didn't think you'd noticed so much, and so well."
He smiled, a little sadly. "I'm learning just how stupid everyone thought I was."
I touched his shoulder. "Not stupid, never that."
"Foolish then, or oblivious."
"Oblivious," Nicca said. "Can't truly argue that one."
I had to smile. "You did seem oblivious to most of the politics."
Galen nodded. "I was, maybe I still am, but we all have to keep our wits about us. We all have to see what there is to see, or we are going to die." He gripped my arms, sloshing the water against our bodies. "When it was just my life and there was no chance that I would ever be in your bed, I didn't care that much." He hugged me against him. "There's too much to lose now, and I don't want to lose any of it."
I wrapped my arms around him, held him as tight as I could. My hands traced the patches of dried blood, covering all of him that hadn't gone in the water. I trailed my hands down and found that even in the water, the blood still clung. So much blood, so terribly much.
"I'm sorry that I didn't pay attention before," he said, his cheek against my hair. "I didn't see a point to it, if I couldn't have you. I don't see everything, not the way Doyle does, or Frost, or even Rhys, but I do see some things, and I'm trying to see more."
There was a lump in my throat so big I couldn't swallow past it. My chest felt tight, and it was hard to breathe. My eyes were suddenly hot, and I knew I was about to cry only a second before it started. I didn't want to cry. He was safe. We were safe. But feeling the dried blood made me remember the moment I'd seen him lying on his back in a lake of his own blood. That heart-stopping moment when I'd thought he was gone. Thought I'd never hold him warm against me again. Thought his arms would never press our bodies together again. That I'd never see his smile or hear his voice or gaze into his living eyes.
Galen stroked my hair and raised my face up to his. "Merry, are you crying?"
I nodded, because I didn't trust my voice.
"Why?" he asked.
Nicca said it for me. "She thought she'd lost you today, Galen."
Galen stared down into my face. "Is that why you're crying?"
I nodded again, and buried my face against his chest. He leaned back into the water, cradling me against his body. He stroked my skin, petted my hair, and whispered, "It's all right. I'm all right."
"But what about next time?" I asked.
"The queen made it clear that I might be the key to bringing babies back to the sidhe. I don't think they'll want to hurt me now."
"Cel's people will," Kitto said.
We looked at him.
"I hear things because no one notices me."
I felt a twinge at that because I'd done it, too. He'd accused me once of talking over him like he was a dog or a chair. That was before he had become my lover, but even now it was easier not to notice him than the rest. He had survived in the goblin mound by being unobtrusive, as invisible as he could make himself. He still had the habit of it.
"I heard some sidhe saying that they did not believe that anyone of Andais's line would be able to bring life back to the Unseelie."
"Who said this?"
"They saw me, after they had spoken. I think they would have tried to hurt me, but King Sholto came down the hallway. He had some of his sluagh with him."
"Was this today?" I asked.
"Yes."
"If he was here, I wonder why he didn't come to the throne room."
"I do not know, but he was wounded," Kitto said.
"Wounded?" Galen said.
"How badly?" Nicca asked.
"He had an arm in a sling, and a bandage on the side of his face and head."
"Who could harm a warrior of the Unseelie, and the King of Sluagh, that badly?" Nicca said as if he was simply thinking aloud.
"Goblins could," Kitto said, "if they caught him unaware and unable to use his magic. There are warriors among my people who could best any you have, except for your sidhe magic."
"Or another sluagh," I said softly.
They all looked at me. "There are some among his people who think that by coming to my bed he will become full sidhe, and they will lose him as their king."
"I heard it was mostly his harem of night hags," Nicca said.
"Did everyone but me know that his hags were his harem?" I asked.
Nicca and Galen exchanged glances. "We envied him as the only guard who had an outlet for his desires," Nicca said.
"They're afraid that the touch of sidhe flesh will steal him away," Galen said.
"No one but Merry would sleep with him," Nicca said. "No other sidhe would risk bearing his child, for fear it would be a monster."
I shook my head. "Once the Unseelie welcomed any child. It was the way of our court. When did we become an anthropomorphic club? When did two arms, two legs, and human beauty become the ideal?"
"Long before either of you were born," Kitto said.
Nicca nodded. He was cuddling Kitto now more than just holding him. Kitto's eyes still looked fragile, as if he believed whatever the sidhe had said to him. No name calling truly bites deep unless, in some dark part of us, we believe it. If we are confident enough then it's just noise, but Kitto wasn't confident, not in the least.
He spoke in a small, low voice. "I looked almost sidhe as a baby. My mother must have kept me for a few months, then the scales appeared around my spine, and when the teeth came in, so did the fangs. That was enough for her to leave me by the goblin mound, to either be taken in or killed. She left me there knowing that the goblins liked to eat a bit of sidhe flesh." He huddled in on himself, wrapping Nicca's arms closer around him. I couldn't tell if it was on purpose or accidental that the movement wrapped the other's arm tighter. Most fey like to be touched, it comforts them, but the goblins are a different race than most. They like sex, but touch can as easily lead to violence as sex among them, and there is very little touching that is only comfort and not sex.
"But you're wrong, Meredith. The sidhe, even the Unseelie, never took in every child. Goblin-sided babies that looked less than pure sidhe were left to die outside the goblin mounds."
"The goblins took in their sidhe-sided children," I said.
Kitto shook his head, and only Nicca's arms kept him from curling into a little ball. Only Nicca's strength kept the smaller man upright. "Not always," Kitto whispered.
I reached out to touch his face. Galen, with his longer arms, could touch more of him. He found a hand to hold on to, and Kitto gripped the hand he offered. If I hadn't been almost touching his face with mine, I might not have heard what he whispered next. "Sometimes they raise them until they're big enough to eat. Not enough meat on a baby." He looked up at me, his eyes shining with unshed tears. "When I got big enough, the woman who wet-nursed me wouldn't let them have me. Because I was smaller than normal, it had taken me longer to get big enough, so long that I was talking, and she had grown fond of me. She fought for me. She bled for me. She saved me, but when she needed me, I was too small, too weak, to save her." A look of rage crossed his face, and he closed his eyes as if he didn't want me to see it. "One of the sidhe today said something, like he knew. He said I'd always been small, too small to be a real goblin, too small to be sidhe, too small to be anything but a burden and a danger to those around me." Kitto looked up at me. "I didn't think any sidhe visited the goblin mounds except for your father, and you. How did he know?"
I wanted to say that the sidhe in question had guessed. Had simply looked at Kitto's small size and used it to be cruel. That he hadn't known Kitto's background, but only made an educated guess. But would it be more cruel to tell Kitto that his past was so obvious that a stranger could see it written on his body, or to let him believe that his history was known for certain by sidhe who dealt with the goblins more than they should?
Galen decided for me. "They didn't know, Kitto, they just guessed. They were being mean. That's all. They didn't know that what they said would hit so close to the truth."
"Guess?" Kitto said, looking at him. "Guess? They guessed? How? How could they know? How?" He gripped Galen's hand with his smaller ones. "Is my shame written across my body? Is it that easy to see that I am weak? That I am a burden to those around me? I am a danger to you even." He reached out to me then, gripping my hand so tight it almost hurt. "If I got you with child, they would never accept me as king, or you as queen. The two sidhe lords said they'd see you dead before they'd let a goblin-sided sidhe sit on the Unseelie throne."
I wanted to ask who "they" were, but he might not know their names, and to ask it now seemed cruel. The two lords hadn't been talking of conspiracies. They had simply been giving voice to their prejudices. They had said the cruelest truths they could find. But if they had truly planned on killing him, and me, then they wouldn't have told him. They wouldn't have taunted him with it. Or they wouldn't have let him go unscathed after overhearing them. His clean, unbloodied flesh meant they didn't really mean it. They were bullies, nothing more. I could get him to describe them for me later. Tonight, I didn't want to make him dwell upon it. I wanted him to forget about it, at least for a little while.
I wanted to caress him, to hold him until that look left his eyes. But there was no room tonight on my dance card, not unless I could figure out a way to combine people again. Galen would sleep in big puppy piles, but he didn't like sharing sex. Nicca shared just fine, and I think he would have agreed to almost anything just so he could get to Biddy in the next room. I didn't mind being the one he rushed through. I enjoyed Nicca, but he did not speak to my heart and body the way Galen did, or Doyle, or Frost.
It was Galen who reached for Kitto. Galen who pulled him closer to the tub. "I'm sorry, Kitto, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to say..." He didn't finish it, but he'd said enough to let me know that he knew he'd said too much. That he'd said aloud what I'd been thinking, and he understood that his comments had hurt Kitto. He understood it, and was willing to try to undo the hurt he'd inadvertently done.
Many humans watched the casual touching among us and mistook it for sex, but it isn't always. Sometimes you just need to be touched. Sometimes you see such hurt, such loneliness in another fey's eyes that you must do something, anything, to chase that look away. Sometimes sex isn't even about sex among us. Sometimes it's just the last resort for making someone smile.