"You have cleared out the Unseelie sithen. They've all come to L.A. with you. Who is left, who tormented you so?"
"I've taken only the guards away, not the nobles," I said.
"But all guards are noble among the sidhe, or they are not worthy of guarding a queen, or a king."
I shrugged. "I have called to me that which is mine."
He went to his knees again, but closer to my feet, so that I had to fight the urge to back up a step. Earlier I would have, but something about this moment made me want to be the queen that the Fear Dearg needed. Doyle seemed to feel me think it, because he put a hand on my back as if to help me not give ground. Frost simply moved to my other side, so that he almost touched me, but he was keeping his hands free for weapons, just in case. In public they tried to keep one of them free for that, though sometimes it was hard to comfort me and guard me at the same time.
"You have not called the Fear Dearg, Queen Meredith."
"I did not know they were mine to call."
"We were cursed and our women destroyed so we would cease to be a people. No matter how long-lived we are, the Fear Dearg are a dying race."
"I have never heard even a hint that the Fear Dearg have women, or of a curse."
He turned those black, uptilted eyes to Doyle at my side. "Ask that one if I speak the truth."
I looked at Doyle. He simply nodded.
"We and the Red Caps almost beat the sidhe. We were two proud races, and we existed on bloodshed. The sidhe came to help the humans, to save them." His voice was bitter.
"You would have killed every man, woman, and child on the isle," Doyle said.
"Mayhap we would have," he said, "but it was our right to do it. They were our worshippers before they were yours, sidhe."
"And what is a god if he destroys all those who worship him, Fear Dearg?"
"What is a god who has lost all his followers, Nudons?"
"I am no god, nor was I ever."
"But we all thought we were, didn't we, Darkness?" He gave that disturbing chuckle again.
Doyle nodded, his hand on my back tensing. "We thought many things that turned out not to be true."
"Ay, that we did, Darkness." The Fear Dearg sounded sad.
"I will tell you truth, Fear Dearg. I had forgotten you and your people and what happened so long ago."
He looked up at Doyle. "Oh, ay, the sidhe do so many things that they simply forget. They wash their hands not in water, or even blood, but forgetfulness and time."
"Meredith cannot do what you want."
"She is crowned queen of the sluagh, and for a brief moment queen of the Unseelie. Crowned by faerie and Goddess, that's what you made us wait for, Darkness. You and your people, we were cursed to be nameless, childless, homeless, until a queen crowned rightly by Goddesses and faerie itself granted us a name again." He looked up at me. "It was a way for them to curse us forever without sounding like it was forever. It was a way to torment us. We used to come before every new queen and ask for our names back, and they all refused."
"They remembered what you were, Fear Dearg," Doyle said.
The Fear Dearg turned to Frost. "And you, Killing Frost, why so silent? Do you have no opinions but the ones that Darkness gives you? That's the rumor, you're his sub."
I wasn't entirely sure that Frost would understand that last part, but he knew he was being taunted. "I do not remember the Fear Dearg's fate. I woke to winter, and your people were gone."
"That's right, that's right, once you were but wee Jackie Frost, just one more retainer in the court of the Winter Queen." He did that head c**k to one side again. "How did you turn into a sidhe, Frost? How did you grow in power while all the rest of us faded?"
"People believe in me. I am Jack Frost. They talk, they write books and stories, and children look out their window and see the frost on their windows and think I did it." Frost took a step toward the smaller kneeling man. "And what do the human children say of you, Fear Dearg? You are barely a whisper in the human's minds these days, all forgotten."
The Fear Dearg gave him a look that was frightening, for real, because it held such hate. "They remember us, Jackie, they remember us. We live in their memories and in their hearts. They are still what we made of them."
"Lies will not help you, only truth," Doyle said.
"It's not lies, Darkness, go into any theater and watch their slasher flicks. Their serial killers, their wars, the slaughter on the evening news when a man kills his whole family so they won't know he's lost his job, or the woman who drowns her children so she can have another man. Oh, no, Darkness, humans remember us. We were the voices in the blackest night of the human soul, and what we planted there still lives. The Red Caps gave them war, but the Fear Dearg gave them pain and torment. They are still our children, Darkness, make no mistake about that."
"And we gave them music, stories, art, and beauty," Doyle said.
"You are Unseelie sidhe; you gave them slaughter, too."
"We gave them both," Doyle said. "You hated us because we offered more than just blood, death, and fear. No Red Cap, no Fear Dearg ever wrote a poem, painted a picture, or designed something new and fresh. You have no ability to create, only to destroy, Fear Dearg."
He nodded. "I have spent centuries, more centuries than most acknowledge, learning the lesson you set us, Darkness."
"And what lesson have you learned?" I asked. My voice was soft, as if I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer.