“We do not know why or how it happened,” Doyle said.
“So Sholto dying is my fault; that he couldn’t heal it like a nightflyer might, or a sidhe might, is because he loved me? How can that be?”
I wasn’t panicked now, I was horrified.
There was a hissing from the nightflyers and one of them slid to the floor and rose upward as if a manta ray could stand. It spoke with the flat, lipless mouth on its underside, gesturing with its tentacles that were so like Sholto’s.
“Our queen, it was a fearsome wound; even we might have died of it.”
There was a hissing, sibilant chorus from the others.
“Do not blame yourself, and if your mortality did spread to our king, he was still the happiest we had ever seen him.”
One of the others peeled itself back enough from the wall to say, “So young and so sad, until you came.”
The one that was standing, swaying like a fleshy carpet, was able to walk forward. “We will see you safe, and the killer punished. Your little goblin shamed us into coming to protect you and the babes; it is the last duty we can do the best king in all of faerie.”
All the nightflyers were very old, so saying
thank you
was potentially an insult, but I wanted to say something. “What is your name?” I asked.
“Barra, my queen.”
“Sholto was the best of rulers in all of faerie, and a good man. I am honored that you, Barra, and so many of the nightflyers have traveled so far to help keep me and Sholto’s children safe.”
He bowed, and it was clumsy, because among the sluagh they weren’t expected to do something that worked so awkwardly for their anatomy.
“The bow is much appreciated, but I know that among your own people that is not a gesture expected of you, and I will not expect it either.”
He looked at me with huge dark eyes. “You are wise in our ways.”
“I am your queen until you elect another king; I will do my best by you all, until that time.”
It was as if the mantle of his body flowed, or waved from top to bottom. “It was voted on; we will elect no new king until we have avenged King Sholto.”
“That might be months,” I said. “Won’t you need a ruler before that?”
“You are our ruler until we have a new king.”
I said the only thing I could say. “I am honored, and I will do my best to rule as Sholto would have wished.”
Doyle put his hand over his heart and bowed to all the nightflyers. “We are all honored by your presence here, but I do not think it will be months before Sholto is avenged.”
We all looked at him. “Rhys’s last phone call said that they had linked a fingerprint to one of the sidhe at the beach. Rhys and Barinthus and some of the Red Caps have taken the suspect to the police station.”
“Is he the one who shot Sholto, or did he just load the rifle?” I asked.
Doyle looked down at me, and it was an approving look. “Sometimes in these months of you being pregnant I have forgotten that you were a detective here in the Western Lands before I found you.”
“Sometimes I feel like I’ve been pregnant forever, and never anything else, but being a mother doesn’t make me not Merry Gentry, private detective.”
“We do not know if he pulled the trigger, or if he was part of a conspiracy. Until we are certain we have no other traitors among the sidhe, we will surround you with guards we are certain of, like all in this room.”
“We appreciate the trust you show us,” Barra said.
“The sluagh have more honor than most of the guard of any court,” Doyle said.
Barra gave another of those strangely graceless, graceful bows.
“We need to know everything the suspect knows,” I said.
“He is not wanting to talk.”
“I’m assuming he’s claiming diplomatic immunity as a noble of the court,” I said.
“Of course,” Doyle said.
“Good,” I said.
He looked at me. “Good, Merry? That means the police cannot question him at all.”
“It also means that the sidhe has put himself firmly in the hands of faerie, and I am a queen of faerie. We will treat our traitor as a noble of the faerie courts, and he will tell us everything we want to know.”
“If you torture him, the police will likely stop you.”
I smiled and could feel that it wasn’t a pleasant smile. “I don’t think we’ll have to resort to traditional torture.”
“What are you planning?” Galen asked, and he sounded suspicious.
“How much of the sluagh is here in the Western Lands? Is it just nightflyers?”
“No, our queen, we are many. Your goblin sidhe brought many of us through the mirror.”
“Even better,” I said.
“Merry,” Galen said, “what are you planning to do?”
“I am the Queen of the Sluagh, and he’s slain my king; I am within my rights to use the sluagh to question him.”
“Some of the sluagh seen without magic to protect the mind can cause madness,” Doyle said.
“I think he’ll talk before that happens,” I said.
“Ruthless, and practical,” Barra said. “We approve.”
There was another hissing sound like a Greek chorus from some Lovecraftian nightmare. It made me smile, because it would likely scare the hell out of our traitor.
“I brought you fresh clothes,” Galen said.
I smiled at him. “Then let’s get me dressed and go help Rhys question our prisoner.”
“Let the doctor say you are well enough to go, first,” Doyle said.
“I am well enough.”
“Galen, fetch the doctor.”
Galen turned without a word and went for the door. One of the nightflyers slithered across the ceiling, poured like thick water down the wall, and crawled sideways out the door. Galen held the door without being asked, as if he expected it.
“There are more guards outside the door, both human and fey. It has been decided that none of your lovers go anywhere without extra guard.”
“I agree,” I said.
“We will lose no more princes of faerie to this plot,” Barra said.
I let go of Doyle’s hand so I could hold Frost’s with both of mine. “But we will lose this prince of faerie, eventually. I am so sorry, Frost.”
Frost smiled down at me. “We will grow old together, my Merry. What could be better than that?”
Doyle leaned in and put his dark hand over our clasped ones. I realized he was crying, the tears gleaming in the lights. “Do not leave me all alone, not both of you, I do not think I could bear it. I would rather age and fade with the two of you than live the rest of eternity without either of you.”
We opened our arms and the Darkness laid himself across the bed so we could hold him while he cried, because we would age and he would not.
TRANCER’S HANDCUFFS WERE
fastened through the metal ring on the metal table in the interrogation room. His feet were chained to a ring in the floor. His long brown hair was disheveled, but since he couldn’t raise his hands to smooth it into place, there was nothing he could do about it. I knew how vain the men of the courts were about their appearance, so it bothered him more than it would have most men, but there were probably things about his physical appearance that bothered him more right now. One tricolored eye was swelling shut, the cheek underneath it was swollen, and his mouth had blood drying at the corner of the opposite side from the other damage, as if someone had hit him on one side, then backhanded him and hit him again. For all I knew that was exactly what happened, but honestly, I didn’t care. I hoped it hurt, hoped he was hurting. If he had pulled the trigger and killed Sholto, I planned on him hurting, a lot.
I was strangely calm as I sat across the table from him. I felt icy calm, as if something in me had gone cold and would never be warm again. It was still a type of shock, emotional shock, and I knew that, but thanks to being in shock, I didn’t care about that either. It would help me think; it would help me question the man sitting chained across from me without losing my temper. The police hadn’t wanted me in here, and as Merry Gentry, private detective, I wouldn’t have been, but I was sitting here as Queen Meredith of the Sluagh, and Trancer was still invoking his rights as a citizen of faerie, so being a queen trumped my PI license all to hell.
No matter what you see on television, interrogation rooms are small, so with Rhys and Doyle standing behind me, and Detective Lucy Tate standing in the far corner along with one local detective it was … cozy. Lucy was here as a courtesy since she was L. A. homicide, not Malibu, which was where the beach house was located, but the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department was like most police departments, they both fiercely protected their turf and wanted desperately to avoid blame in high-profile cases. There was always that mix of wanting to be the hero and not wanting to be the scapegoat for a mediaworthy case like this one. It was a thin line to walk, and they were willing to let me help them walk it, for now.
“You told me you and your wife wanted me to help give you a baby; was that a lie?”
I had a moment to see him surprised by the question, before he schooled his face to polite blankness. It didn’t work as well with the bruises and blood, but he did his best. He was a noble of the Seelie Court; he knew how to hide his feelings.
“Answer her,” Doyle said in a growling deep voice.
“I don’t have to answer her,” Trancer said.
Detective Ivan stepped away from the wall, running a hand through his short, dark hair. He looked exotic, almost Asian, but not quite. “You don’t have to talk to us, local cops, or even Detective Tate here, because your diplomatic immunity means we have no authority over you.”
“See, I don’t have to answer any of your questions.” He sounded far too satisfied when he said it.
“You don’t have to answer our questions,” Lucy said, “but you do have to answer to your own people.”
“The princess is not one of my people.”
“Technically, I am a princess of both courts, but I’m not here as a princess.”
He actually sneered at me. “What then, as a private detective?”
I smiled, not pleasantly. I clenched my hands together in front of me, because if I lost control of my temper I didn’t want to hurt him by accident. No, if I hurt him, I wanted it to be on purpose.
“No, as Queen Meredith.”
“Queen of what?” And again he made it disdainful.
“Queen of the Sluagh, married and crowned by faerie itself to King Sholto.”
A flicker of uncertainty crossed through the one eye I could read well, but his arrogance climbed back into place almost instantly. “The sluagh are already electing a new king, and then you will be nothing to them. They are not a hereditary monarchy, so even if your babies are Sholto’s they gain no hold on the crown of the dark host.”
“The sluagh have voted to elect no new ruler until King Sholto’s murderer is punished. Until then, I am Queen Meredith the First, of the Sluagh.”
I saw the first hint of fear, but he conquered it quickly and was back to arrogance. “I don’t believe you.”
“It is unprecedented in all their long history, so I can understand you not believing it, but you don’t have to take my word for it.” I looked back over my shoulder and said, “Doyle, could you ask Barra to come inside, please?”
He went to the door without a word, spoke low, and held the door open. Barra didn’t walk in; he crawled sideways around the wall of the door frame and flowed up to hang on the ceiling above me, which put him above the table, and our prisoner—who stared up at the nightflyer with undisguised fear on his face. Good.
But Trancer was made of stern stuff, and though he couldn’t quite control his face, his voice was unconcerned. “Almost every type of fey has been exiled at one time or another. One nightflyer in the Western Lands proves nothing.”
“Oh, is that all,” I said. “Doyle, if you please.”
He opened the door again and the nightflyers flowed inside like writhing, fleshy water, until they covered the ceiling and most of the walls.
I spared a glance for Lucy and Detective Ivan; they had both been introduced to the nightflyers and knew the plan. One of the reasons Detective Ivan was the local policeman in the room was that he was the one who had had the least amount of discomfort interacting with them. Lucy had visited with us at the main house, so she knew that fey came in many shapes and sizes.
Trancer wasn’t pale, he was gray from fear. He had to lick his lips twice before he said in a strained voice, “They could not have traveled here this quickly.”
“You thought that once Sholto was dead no one else could open the way for his sluagh, didn’t you, Trancer?”
He just stared at them; the skin near his one good eye had started to twitch. “This is not possible.”
“Who is the Queen of the Sluagh?” I asked.
They answered in a hissing chorus, “You are, Queen Meredith.” The last syllable of my name hissed nicely in echoes around the room.
“Are you expecting Taranis to rescue you, Lord Trancer?” I asked.
There was the barest flicker of confirmation in his face, quickly hidden between a mixture of ongoing fear and the last bit of arrogance he could muster. “He is the only king I acknowledge.”
“But there, you see, Trancer, we have a problem.”
“I have no problem, for I am a noble of the Seelie Court and neither the humans nor you have authority over me.”
“Actually, we contacted the Seelie Court and they don’t give a damn what we do with you. In fact, the various factions seem to be very busy disavowing all knowledge of your actions.”
He frowned. “What are you babbling about? The factions all bow to our one true king.”
“If you mean Taranis, he is no longer King of the Seelie, or of anyone anywhere for that matter,” I said.
“Your lies will not trick me,” he said.
“It is true that Taranis was the absolute ruler of his court, and once given the throne it’s for life, which means in his case forever.”
“Your own words prove that you are lying,” Trancer said.
“There are only two things that could dethrone a King of the Seelie,” I said.
He blinked at me, and I could see him thinking. “The king is father of at least one of your brats, proving that he is not infertile.”
“Ironic, isn’t it,” I said.