She waved the wand around the room like a queen waving her scepter at her subjects. But there was a prickling of power as the wand moved past us. Whatever else was illusion about Gilda, the wand was real. It was faerie workmanship, but beyond that no one had been able to say what the wand was, and where it had come from. Magic wands were very rare among us, because we didn't need them.
When Gilda had made her wish, she hadn't realized that almost everything she wanted marked her as fake. Her magic was real enough, but the way she did it, everything about her was more fairy tale than faery.
"Come here, little one," she said, and just like that Bittersweet flew to her. Whatever sort of compulsion spell she had in her voice, it was strong. Bittersweet nestled into those golden ringlets, lost in the dazzle of light. Gilda turned as if to leave the room.
Lucy called, "Excuse me, Gilda, but you can't take our witness just yet."
"I am her queen. I have to protect her."
"Protect her from what?" Lucy asked.
The light show made Gilda's face hard to read. I thought she looked annoyed. Her perfectly bowed mouth made an unhappy moue. Her perfectly blue eyes narrowed a little around her long diamond-sparkled lashes. When I'd last seen her, she'd been covered in gold dust, from her eyelashes to a more formfitting formal dress. Gilda was always gilded, but it changed substance with her clothes.
"Police harassment," she said. Again she turned as if to leave.
"We aren't done with our witness," Lucy said.
Robert said, "You seem in a hurry to leave, Godmother, almost as if you don't want Bittersweet to speak with the police."
She turned back then, and even through all the silly lights and sparkles she was angry. "You have never had a civil tongue in your head, brownie."
"You liked my tongue well enough once, Gilda," he said.
She blushed in that way that some blonds and redheads do, all the way into her hairline. "The police wouldn't let me bring all my people inside here. If Oberon were here you wouldn't dare say such things."
Frost said, "Oberon? Who's Oberon?"
She frowned at him. "He is my king, my consort." Her eyes narrowed again, but more like she was squinting. I wondered if the diamond lights were bright enough to affect her vision. She was acting as if they were.
Her face softened suddenly. "The Killing Frost. I had heard you were in L.A. I've been waiting for you to visit me." Her voice was suddenly sweet and teasing. There was some power to her voice, but it washed over me like the sea on a stone. I didn't think it was my improved shields. I think this compulsion spell was simply not meant for me.
She turned and said, "Darkness, the Queen's Darkness, now exiled to our fair land. I'd hoped that you would both pay court to me. It has been so long since I've seen anyone from faerie. I would dearly love it if you would visit me."
"Your magic will not work on us," Doyle said in his deep voice.
A little shiver ran down her, making the top of her crown shake, the blue lace quiver, and the diamonds send little rainbows around the room. "Come over here and bring that big, deep voice with you."
Frost said, "She's insulting you."
"More than us," Doyle said.
I took in a lot of air, let it out slowly, and moved forward past the police. My men moved with me, and I felt that Gilda genuinely thought her spell was working. Now that we'd seen what she did to Bittersweet, and what she had tried to do to my men, we were going to have to take a harder look at how she got the other lesser fey to obey her. If it was all magic and compulsion and no free will, then that was bad.
"Both of you coming to me, how marvelous," she said.
"Am I missing something?" Lucy asked as I passed her.
I whispered, "A pissing contest of sorts."
Gilda couldn't keep acting as if she didn't see me. She kept smiling past me at Doyle and Frost, as if pretending still that they were coming closer for her. She actually held out her hand at a higher angle than I would need, as if she'd just bypass me.
"Gilda, Godmother of Los Angeles, greetings," I said, voice low but clear.
She made a little humph sound, then looked at me, lowering her hand as she did so. "Merry Gentry. Back in town, I see."
"All the royal of faerie know that if another royal gives you your title, you must give them back their own, or it's an insult that can only be settled by a duel." That was half true - there were other options - but a duel was at the end of all the other options. But Gilda wouldn't know that.
"Duels are illegal," she said primly.
"As are compulsion spells that steal the free will of any legal citizen of these United States."
She blinked at me, frowning. Bittersweet cuddled against Gilda's curls with a face gone half sleepy, as if touching Gilda made the godmother's spell even stronger. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do," I said, and I leaned closer, so that the light around her dress reflected in my tricolor eyes and moonlight skin. "I don't remember you being this powerful last time we met, Gilda. What have you been doing to gain such power?"
I was close enough to see the flash of fear in her perfect blue eyes. She masked it, but it had been there. What had she been doing that she didn't want anyone to know about? I had the thought that maybe she really didn't want Bittersweet to talk to the police. Maybe Gilda knew more about the murders than she wanted to let on. There were spells - evil spells, forbidden spells - that allowed a fey to steal power from those less powerful. I'd even seen a human wizard who had perfected it so that he could steal power from other humans who had only the faintest trace of faerie blood. He'd died trying to rape me. No, I didn't kill him. The sidhe traitor who had given the human the power killed him before we could use him to trace the power back to its master. The traitor was dead now, too, so it had all evened out.