We looked at one of the winged demi-fey; it was Penny, Royal’s twin sister. She’d been fluttering among the flowers but now rose so she’d be head height for us. She had her brother’s short black curls, pale skin, and black almond-shaped eyes, but her face was even more delicate, her body a little smaller. She was wearing a gauzy red-and-black dress that looked very nice with her wings.
Rhys looked at her, face not happy. “That makes you very old indeed, little one, much older than I thought.”
“I had no wings then, because our Princess Merry had not worked her wild magic and made us able to fly. We wingless ones among the demi-fey went even more unnoticed than the rest; at least they were color and beauty, but those of us who had not been so blessed only watched from the grass and the roots of things. It gives a perspective that I might not have had if I’d been on the wing back then.”
“What perspective is that?” Rhys asked.
“To know that everyone starts on the ground. Trees, flowers, people, even the mighty sidhe must stand upon the dirt in order to move forward.”
“If you have a point, make it,” he said.
“You have no illusions about what and who you are now; you can make a life that is real, not some fantasy, but something true and good, just as a tree that puts down deep roots can withstand storms, but one with shallow roots is knocked over by the first strong wind. You have become deep-rooted, Rhys, and that is not a bad thing.”
He smiled then, nodding and squeezing my arm where I touched him. “Thank you, Penny, I think I understand. Once I built myself on power that was given to me by the Goddess and Her Consort, but I forgot that it wasn’t my power, so when we lost the grace of the Gods, I was lost, but whatever I am now it’s real and it’s me, and no one can take that from me.”
“Yes,” she said, hovering near Rhys’s face, her wings beating so quickly that the edge of his curls blew softly in the wind of her flight.
“Did I seem like I needed a pep talk to you?” Rhys asked.
“There is often an air of melancholy about you.”
I glanced from the tiny fey to Rhys and wondered, would I have thought that? Was that true? He joked a lot and made light comments, but … behind all of it, Penny was right. I found it interesting that she had paid that much attention to him. I thought of several motives for a female to pay that much attention to a man—did Penny have a crush on Rhys? Or was she just that wise and observant of all of us, of everything? If the first was true, then I doubted Rhys would realize it, and if the second was true, then hearing her thoughts on other things might be interesting.
“Penny, do you think we should do the reality show?” I asked.
She dipped down, which was a flying demi-fey’s way of stumbling. I’d surprised her.
“It is not my place to say.”
“I’ve asked your opinion,” I said.
She cocked her head to one side, then moved in the air so she was more in front of my face than Rhys’s. “Why ask my opinion, my lady?”
“It will affect you, as it will affect everyone who lives with us, so I am interested in what you think.”
She gave me a very serious, searching look. I saw the intelligence in that tiny face that I hadn’t seen before; she was as bright as her brother, but maybe a better thinker, deeper anyway.
“Very well. The queen is always very careful to look good in front of the human media, so if you did the reality show, then cameras might keep us all safe from her.”
“The queen is insane, she can’t help herself,” Galen said.
Penny looked at him, then back to me. “If that were true, then she would have lost her control at a press conference decades ago, but she never has; if she can control herself to that degree then she is not truly insane, she is simply cruel. Never mistake someone who cannot control their murderous impulses from someone who simply has no one to tell them, ‘Stop, behave yourself.’ I find that most cruel people, no matter how awful their actions, once faced with punishment, or someone stronger, behave. Mean is not crazy, it is merely mean.”
I thought about what Penny had said, really thought about it. “She’s right. My aunt has never lost control of herself in front of the media. If she were truly serial killer crazy, she’d have lost it at least once, but she never has, not that I remember.” I looked at Rhys and then at Galen.
They looked at each other, and then back at me. “Well, I’ll be damned,” Rhys said.
“Penny is right, isn’t she?” Galen asked.
I nodded. “I think she is.”
“The king also has never lost control in front of the media.”
“He attacked our human lawyers and us once before he kidnapped me,” I said.
“But there was no media to record it, Princess Merry. It is still a matter of witnesses, but no video or pictures.”
“I think that the king was honestly insane during that attack,” Rhys said. “His guard had to physically jump him, bury him under their bodies to keep him from continuing the attack.”
I shivered and cuddled into Rhys. Taranis had almost killed Doyle in that attack, and my Darkness was not an easy kill.
“If that is true, then a television show may not protect us from the king.”
One of the other demi-fey flew upward on tiny white wings with little black spots on them. She was even tinier than Penny’s Barbie doll size, as if she were trying harder to ape the butterfly she resembled. It was a Cabbage White, an American butterfly, which meant she’d likely been born here.
Her voice was high and musical, as if a trilling bird’s song could be words. “My sister is still in the Seelie Court. She told me that the king was enraged that you had slipped his seduction magic. He’d never had a woman except for the queen of the Unseelie Court escape from his spells.”
“Which is why he came for me later,” I said, softly.
The little faerie flew closer and laid a hand no bigger than the nail of my little finger on my hand. “But even then his magic did not work; he had to hit you with brute force like any human. He knows now that his magic does not work on you.”
“Did your sister hear him say that?” Rhys asked.
She nodded so hard that her pale blond curls bobbed.
“We think the king will not try magic again,” Penny said.
“We, you mean the demi-fey?” I said.
“I do,” she said.
The little one patted my finger, as I might have patted someone’s shoulder. “We are all sorry that he hurt you, Princess Merry.”
“That is much appreciated,” I said.
The little one flew up higher, her butterfly wings a blur of white as she hovered, but also showing agitation, nerves.
“Tell her, Pansy,” Penny said.
“Many speak in front of us as if we are dogs and can neither understand nor report to others,” Pansy said.
I nodded. “You are some of the best spies in all of faerie because of it.”
She smiled. “The king has decided that it was his magic you found objectionable, and he plans to try to woo you as a regular man might.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It might mean that he would behave for the cameras as nicely as the queen,” Penny said.
“How long have you known this bit of information?” Rhys asked.
“Pansy only heard from her sister recently, and the gossip came up. Her sister did not realize the importance of it, or the use we might make of the information.”
I found the “we” interesting. Penny didn’t mean just demi-fey, but us, her, me, all of us fey living at the estate in Holmby Hills. It was rare for one type of fey to include themselves with others not of their kind. But then I’d accepted any fey who came into exile with us, or were already here in California in an exile older than my own. With a few exceptions, everyone was welcome.
There was a knock at the door, and the guard opened the door and peeked in, saying, “The ambassador is back.”
I sighed, and said, “Send him in.”
Peter Benz walked through the door smiling, his handsome face set in easy lines, his hand already out to shake. His dark blond hair was cut short and neat; his suit was tailored to his five-foot, eight-inch frame so he looked taller, and it showed off that he exercised and ate carefully enough that he was in shape. He was vain enough that he’d paid for his suit to fit, rather than hide his body. The last ambassador had been vain, too, and Taranis had played on that vanity for all he was worth.