Maeve opened her shapely mouth, then closed it. She couldn't call him a liar, because it was true. She finally settled for, "I don't know what to say," in a much more subdued voice.
Frost turned to me. "She'd never have touched Sage if she was still part of the golden court."
"Oh, I don't know," I said. "I'm proof that more than one Seelie will sully her body with those not of her court."
He shook his head, and his hair caught the light more than the small diamonds he wore. No jewel could truly compete with his hair. "Uar the Cruel wed your grandmother to avoid a curse. Besaba went to your father as part of a treaty. Trust me, Merry, the shining ones do not come willingly to our beds."
"As you should know, Jackie Frost."
He winced but didn't back down. He turned to her and moved forward enough to invade her personal space by American standards. When she didn't move back, he invaded her space even by fey standards. They were almost touching, the entire lengths of their bodies. It managed to be threatening, not erotic. Frost was taller, but only by a few inches. They met each other's eyes, opponents, evenly matched.
She looked at him, but her words were meant for me. "He was not always sidhe. Did you know that?" Her voice was calm, but held malice the way the air can hold the beginnings of a storm.
"Yes," I said, "I know Frost's origins."
She glanced at me then, and surprise showed on her face. "He would not have told you willingly."
I shook my head. "He showed me willingly with his magic. I've seen him dancing over the snow. I know what he is, and what he was, and it changes nothing for me."
Her lovely face went from surprise to astonishment. She stepped away from him and took my arm. "Of course it changes how you feel. You thought you were bedding a sidhe, and you find he is merely the hoarfrost brought to life."
I looked down at her hand, and my face must have been as unfriendly as I was beginning to feel, because she dropped away from me.
"You mean it. You truly mean it. It makes no difference to you."
I shook my head. "None."
She looked puzzled then. "I don't understand that."
"You came back into your powers as Conchenn just last night. You slept with your first sidhe in a century. You wake up this morning, and you don't sound like Maeve Reed. You sound like just another Seelie noble. I've never understood why the Seelie embraced such a Victorian view of sex. It's so un-fey-like."
"You don't understand, Merry, how could you? Sleeping with a human would be forgiven, but not f**king a demi-fey. My need outrode my common sense last night. I was power-drunk. This morning, I'm sober."
"But you're exiled from the Seelie Court, Maeve, and the Unseelie Court doesn't care about origins, only about results. It's not where you come from, but what you can do for us."
She shook her head. "I can't shield my eyes. I can't make my glamour cover them this morning, and I don't know why. I've worn this glamour for decades. It feels almost more real than my true form, but I haven't been able to cover my eyes again. You gave me power, Merry, but you stripped me of things, too."
"So it's my fault that you f**ked Sage?"
"Maybe," she said, but even in that one word there was doubt. She didn't really believe it.
"It doesn't really matter what the Seelie Court thinks of your actions, Maeve. If you ever go back there, the King of Light and Illusion will see you dead. You're welcome to join the Unseelie Court and come with us. You can be in the heart of faerie tonight." I watched her while I said it, and saw the hunger in her face before she hid it.
She gave me her publicity smile. "I am Seelie sidhe, Merry, not Unseelie."
"I was once a member of the golden court," Frost said.
"You were never a member of the court, Jackie Frost. Never!"
He gave her a cold smile. "Allow me to rephrase. I was once barely tolerated at the court of beauty and illusion. Tolerated because as others faded in power, I grew. Not through some other sidhe's powers, but through the minds of the humans. They remembered me when they'd forgotten all of you beautiful, shining deities. Little Jakual Frosti, Jackie Frost, Jack Frost." He stepped in close to her again, and this time she shrank back from him, just a little. "But who still speaks of Conchenn? Where are your poems, your songs? Why did they remember me, and not you?"
Her voice was small. "I don't know."
"I don't know, either, but they did." He leaned in even closer, close enough almost, to kiss. "Me they remembered, when so many they forgot. 'Tis a mystery."
He began to glow then as if the moon were trapped inside his body, and the light spilled out of his eyes, making them nearly as silver as his hair. The wind of his power filled the air around his body with a glowing halo of his own hair. He stood before her like some metallic vision, forged of liquid silver.
She couldn't stand so close to his power and not respond. She'd been without the touch of sidhe for too long for that. The need would not be quenched in one night's embrace, a few washes of power. Such hunger goes deeper than that.
His power brought hers in a golden rush, drained her hair to white-blond, and filled the air around her with the swaying of it. They were so close that their powers intermingled, yellow and silver merged in a line between them. This was not godhead, this was merely the power of the sidhe.
I watched them, and understood why my human ancestors had thought they were gods. Now they'd probably be mistaken for angels, or big men from Mars. I watched them glow at each other, and even through the light I could see the raw need on Maeve's face. Frost didn't look hungry, he looked satisfied.