A Caress of Twilight

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  He began to pull away and I tightened my grip. He could have forced me away from him, but he didn’t. He just stood there and dropped his hands from mine. “Merry, please.” His voice was so soft.

  “No,” I said, holding him tight, tight against me. “Let me contact Queen Niceven.”

  He shook his head, sending his braid spilling against my face. The scent of his hair was sweet and clean. I remembered when his hair had draped to his knees like most of the high-court sidhe. I’d mourned when he cut it.

  “I will not let you put yourself in that creature’s debt,” he said, and his voice held a solemnity that was so unlike him.

  “Please, Galen, please.”

  “No, Merry, no.” He tried to push me away again, but I wouldn’t let go.

  “And what if there is no cure without Niceven’s help?”

  He put his hands on my arms, not to caress this time but to pry them apart so he could move away. Galen was a sidhe warrior; he could punch holes through the sides of buildings. I could not hold him if he would not be held.

  He moved into the mouth of the narrow kitchen, out of my reach. He would not look at me with his pale green eyes. He studied the painting on the dining room wall: a picture of butterflies in a grassy meadow. Did the butterflies remind him of the demi-fey, or did he even see the painting? Or was it simply better to look anywhere than at me?

  I’d been begging Galen’s permission to go to Queen Niceven and find out what she’d done to him. He’d forbidden it. He didn’t want me to put myself in her debt just to help him. I’d tried pleading, crying, which I think on anyone else would have worked, but he had held firm. He would not be responsible for me owing Niceven and her demi-fey a debt.

  I stood there staring at him—that beautiful body that I had loved since I was a child. Galen had been my first crush. If he was healed, we could cool the heat that had been between us since I hit puberty.

  I realized suddenly that I’d been going about this all wrong. Kitto had told me that Doyle thought I was just going to fuck everyone and not use the power I’d gained. He wasn’t just referring to the goblins. Was I the future queen of the Unseelie or not? If I was to be queen, what was I doing asking anyone’s permission for anything? Who I put myself in debt to was none of Galen’s business. Not really.

  I turned away from Galen, back into the room. The rest of the men were watching us. If they’d been human, they would have pretended not to watch, been reading magazines, or pretending to, but they were fey. If you did something in front of the fey, they watched. If you wanted privacy, you wouldn’t be doing it where they could see you; that was our culture.

  Only Kitto was missing, and I knew where he was, in his oversize, fully covered cloth dog bed. It was like a small, snug tent. It sat in the far corner of the living room positioned so he could watch the television, which was one of the few technological wonders that Kitto seemed to appreciate.

  “Doyle,” I said.

  “Yes, Princess.” His voice was neutral.

  “Contact Queen Niceven for me.”

  He simply bowed and went for the bedroom. It was the largest mirror in the apartment. He would try to contact the demi-fey first through the mirror as you would contact another sidhe. It might work, it might not. The demi-fey didn’t stay inside the faerie mounds very much. They liked the open air. If they weren’t near a reflective surface, the mirror spell wouldn’t work. There were other spells to try, but he would start with the mirror. We might get lucky and catch the little queen flying by a still pool of water.

  “No,” Galen said. He took two quick strides, not to me, but to Doyle. He caught the other guard’s arm. “No, I won’t let her do this.”

  Doyle met Galen’s eyes for a second, and Galen didn’t flinch. I’d seen gods flinch from that look on Doyle’s face. Either Galen was braver than I’d thought, or stupider. I was betting on the latter. Galen simply didn’t understand politics, personal or otherwise. He would grab Doyle’s arm, prevent him from leaving the room, even though that might mean a duel between the two of them. I’d seen Doyle fight, and I’d seen Galen fight. I knew who would win, but Galen wasn’t thinking. He was reacting, and that, of course, was Galen’s great weakness, and why my father had given me to another. Galen didn’t have it in him to survive court intrigue; he just didn’t.

  But Doyle didn’t take offense. His gaze slid from Galen to me. He arched an eyebrow, as if asking what to do.

  “You act as if you are already king, Galen,” I said, and it sounded harsh even to me, because I knew he was thinking no such thing. But I had to get him under control before Doyle stepped in. I had to lead here, not Doyle.

  The look of astonishment on Galen’s face as he turned to me was so genuine, so Galen. Almost any other of the Queen’s Ravens would have been able to guard their expression better than that. His emotions had always been painted on his face.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” And he probably didn’t.

  I sighed. “I gave one of my guards an order, and you have stopped him from carrying out that order. Who but a king would supercede the orders of a princess?”

  Confusion chased across his face, and his hand fell slowly away from Doyle’s arm. “I didn’t mean it that way.” His voice sounded young and unsure of itself. He was seventy years older than me, yet politically he was still a child, and always would be. Part of Galen’s charm was his innocence. It was also one of his most dangerous flaws.

  “Do as I bid, Doyle.”

  Doyle gave me the lowest and most courtly bow he’d ever given me. Then he went for the bedroom door and the mirror beyond.

  Galen watched him go, then turned back to me. “Merry, please don’t put yourself in that creature’s power because of me.”

  I shook my head. “Galen, I love you, but not everyone is as inept politically as you are.”

  He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means, my sweet, that I’ll negotiate with Niceven. If what she asks is too great a price, I won’t pay it. But trust me to take care of things. I won’t do anything stupid, Galen.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t like this. You don’t know what Niceven’s become since Queen Andais has been losing some of her hold on the court.”

  “If Andais lets her power slip, then others will hurry to grab it up. I know that, Galen.”

  “How? How do you know that, when you’ve been away while it’s all been happening?”

  I sighed again. “If Andais’s power has slipped so that her own son, Cel, would plot around her, if her power has deteriorated to the point where the sluagh are being used to police her court instead of being the ultimate threat that they should be, then everyone must be scrambling to pick up the pieces. And they will do their best to keep the pieces they grab.”

  Galen looked at me, uncomprehending. “That’s exactly what’s been happening for three years, but you haven’t been there. How did you …” A look of astonishment showed, and then, “You had a spy.”

  “No, Galen, I had no spy. I don’t have to be there to know what the court will do if the queen is weak. Nature abhors a vacuum, Galen.”

  He frowned at me. He had no desire for power, no political ambitions. It was as if that part of him was missing; and because it was totally lacking in him, he did not understand it in others. I’d always known this about him, but I’d never realized just how profound his lack of understanding was. He couldn’t conceive of me seeing all the puzzle without having seen all the pieces first. Because he couldn’t have done it, he couldn’t understand someone else doing it.

  I smiled, and it felt sad. I went to him, touched his face with my fingertips. I needed to touch him to see if he was real. It was as if I’d finally realized just how profound his problem was, and knowing it, it seemed as if I’d never really known him at all.

  His cheek was just as warm, as real, as ever. “Galen, I will negotiate with Niceven. I will do it because to leave one of my guards so crippled is an insult to me a
nd all of us. The demi-fey should not be able to unman a sidhe warrior.”

  He flinched at that, gaze sliding away from me. I touched his chin, moved him back to look at me. “And I want you, Galen. I want you as a woman wants a man. I won’t mortgage my kingdom to cure you, but I will do my best to see you whole.”

  A faint flush climbed up his face, darkening the green cast to his skin so that it was almost orange, instead of red. “Merry, I don’t—”

  I touched my fingertips to his lips. “No, Galen, I will do this, and you will not stop me, because I am the princess. I am the heir to the throne, not you. You are my guard, not the other way around. I think I forgot that for a while, but I won’t forget again.”

  His eyes looked so worried. He took my hand from his lips and moved it palm up. He laid a slow, gentle kiss upon my palm, and that one touch made me shiver.

  He was so hopeless at the politics that to make him king would be almost a death sentence. It would be disastrous not just for Galen personally, but for the court, and for me. No, I could not have Galen as my king, but I could have Galen. For a brief time before I found my true king, I could have Galen in my bed. I could quench the fire that had been burning between us, quench it with the flesh of our bodies. As he lowered my hand from his mouth, the look in those pale green eyes was enough to make me want for a moment to mortgage my kingdom. I wouldn’t do that; but I would do much to have those eyes looking down at me while I lay underneath him.

  I gave his knuckles a quick kiss, because I didn’t trust myself to do anything more. “Go, finish setting the table. I think the bread should be cool enough by now.”

  He smiled suddenly, a flash of his old grin. “I don’t know … it feels pretty hot from here.”

  I shook my head and pushed him half-laughing toward the kitchen. Maybe I could just keep Galen as the royal mistress, or whatever the male equivalent was. The sidhe had been around for several millennia, and surely there was court precedent for a royal lover somewhere in all that history.

  Chapter 16

  OVER DINNER WE DISCUSSED WHAT TO DO WHEN NICEVEN called back. Doyle had left a message that would let her know who had called. He was sure she’d be intrigued enough to call back, and he was also sure she’d know what we wanted. “Niceven has been anticipating this call. She has a plan. I don’t know what that plan will be, but she will have one.” Doyle was sitting on my right so that his body blocked me from the window. He’d made me draw the drapes, but allowed the window to be opened for the breeze.

  It was December in California, and the wind through the window was delightfully cool, like late spring or very early summer in Illinois. By no stretch of imagination did it feel cold or wintry in the least.

  “She is an animal,” Galen said, pushing back his chair. He took his empty bowl to the sink and began to run water into it, his back to us.

  “Do not underestimate the demi-fey because of what they did to you, Galen. They used teeth because they enjoyed it, not because they don’t have swords,” Doyle said.

  “A sword the size of a straight pin,” Rhys said, “not much of a threat.”

  “Give me a blade no bigger than a pin and I could slay a man,” Doyle said, deep voice soft.

  “Yes, but you’re the Queen’s Darkness,” Rhys said. “You’ve studied every weapon known to man or immortal. I doubt Niceven’s crew has been as thorough.”

  Doyle stared at the pale-haired man across the table from him. “And if it were your only weapon, Rhys, wouldn’t you study how it could be used on your enemy?”

  “The sidhe are not the enemies of the demi-fey,” he said.

  “The demi-fey, like the goblins, are tolerated, and barely that in the courts. And the wee-fey do not have the goblins’ fierce reputation to protect them from the slings and arrows of mischance.”

  For some reason mention of the goblins made it hard not to look at Kitto. He hadn’t sat at the table but had crouched underneath. He’d eaten his stew, then crawled to his oversize doggie bed. He seemed shaken by the afternoon at Maeve Reed’s pool. Too much sun and fresh air for a goblin.

  “No one harms the demi-fey,” Frost said. “They are the queen’s spies. A butterfly, a moth, a tiny bird can all be demi-fey. Their glamour is almost undetectable even by the best of us.”

  Doyle nodded around a mouth full of stew. He sipped a little of his red wine, then said, “All that you say is true, but the demi-fey were once much more respected in the courts. They were not merely spying eyes, but truly allies.”

  “With the wee-ones,” Rhys said. “Why?”

  I answered, “If the demi-fey leave the Unseelie Court, then what remains of faerie will begin to fade.”

  “That is an old wives’ tale,” Rhys said. “Like if the ravens leave the Tower of London, Britain will fall. The British Empire has already fallen, and yet they still clip the poor ravens’ wings and stuff them full of food. The damn things are as big as small turkeys.”

  “It is said that where the demi-fey travel, faerie follows,” Doyle said.

  “What does that mean?” Rhys asked.

  “My father said that the demi-fey are the most closely allied with the rawness that is faerie, the very stuff that makes us different from the humans. The demi-fey are their magic more than any of the rest of us. They cannot be exiled from faerie because it travels with them wherever they go.”

  Galen leaned against the counter at the end of the kitchen, arms crossed over his now bare chest. He’d put the apron away, I think to save me embarrassment. I don’t know why his bare chest wasn’t as eye-catching as his chest peeking through all that sheer cloth, but I couldn’t eat and sit across from him while he wore the apron. The second time I missed my mouth with the stew, Doyle asked him to take the apron off.

  “That doesn’t work for most of the rest of the smaller fey. The rule is, the smaller you are, the more dependent you are on faerie, and the more likely you are to die when away from it. My father was a pixie. I know what I’m talking about,” Galen said.

  “How big a pixie?” Rhys asked.

  Galen actually smiled. “Big enough.”

  “There are many different kinds of pixies,” Frost said, either missing the humor or ignoring it. I loved Frost, but his sense of humor wasn’t his best feature. Of course, a girl doesn’t always need to laugh.

  “I’ve never known another pixie who wasn’t a member of the Seelie Court,” Rhys said. “Did you ever learn what your father did to earn exile from Taranis and his gang?”

  “Only you would refer to the glittering throng as Taranis and his gang,” Doyle said.

  Rhys shrugged, grinned, and said, “What’d your daddy do?”

  The smile faded, then grew, on Galen’s face. “My uncles tell me that my father seduced one of the king’s mistresses.” His smile faded. Galen had never met his father, because Andais had had him executed for the audacity of seducing one of her ladies-in-waiting. She never would have done it if she’d known there was going to be a child. In fact, the pixie would have been elevated to noble rank and there would have been a marriage. It had happened with stranger mixes. But Andais’s temper made her a little too quick on the death sentence, and thus Galen never met his father.

  If any humans had been in the room, they would have apologized for bringing up such a painful subject, but there weren’t any and we didn’t bother. If Galen was in pain, he’d have said something, and we’d have taken care of it. He didn’t ask and we didn’t pry.

  “Treat Niceven as a queen, an equal. It will please her and catch her off guard,” Doyle said.

  “She is a demi-fey. She can never be the equal of a sidhe princess.” This from Frost, who sat on the other side of Galen’s empty chair. His handsome face was as severe and haughty as I’d ever seen it.

  “My great-grandmother was a brownie, Frost,” I said. My voice was soft, so he wouldn’t think I was chiding him. He didn’t take well to that. Frost seemed impervious to so much, but I’d learned that he was really one of the m
ost easily wounded of the guards.

  “A brownie is a useful member of faerie. They have a long and respected history. The demi-fey are parasites. I agree with Galen: they are animals.”

  I wondered what else Frost would say that about. What other members of faerie would he dismiss out of hand?

  “Nothing is redundant in faerie,” Doyle said. “Everything has its purpose and its place.”

  “And what purpose do the demi-fey serve?” Frost asked.

  “I believe that they are the essence of faerie. If they were to leave, the Unseelie Court would begin to fade even faster than it already is.”

  I nodded, getting up to put my own bowl in the sink. “My father believed it was so, and I haven’t found much that my father believed turn out to be false.”

  “Essus was a very wise man,” Doyle said.

  “Yes,” I said, “he was.”

  Galen took the bowl from my hands. “I’ll clean up.”

  “You made dinner. You shouldn’t have to clean up, too.”

  “I’m not much good for anything else right now.” He smiled when he said it, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  I let him take the bowl so I could touch his face. “I’ll do what I can, Galen.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said softly. “I don’t want you to put yourself in debt to Niceven, not for me. It’s not a good enough reason to owe that creature anything.”

  I frowned and turned to the room at large. “Why call her creature? I don’t remember the demi-fey’s reputation being this bad before I left the court.”

  “Niceven’s court has become little more than the queen’s errand runners, or Cel’s. You cannot retain respect if you have been relegated to a threat and nothing more.”

  “I don’t understand. What threat? You’ve all been saying that the demi-fey are no threat.”

  “I have not said that,” Doyle said, “but what the demi-fey did to Galen was not the first time it has been done, though this time was more … severe. More flesh was taken than I’d seen before.”