A Shiver of Light

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  He came to me then, took my hand in his, and smiled down at me, his green eyes filling with that warmth they’d always held. “You look sad, my Merry. I would do anything to chase that look from your eyes.”

  How could I tell him that it was his new resolution that made me sad? I couldn’t; we were all being changed by the events of the last year. We were parents now, and that would change us more.

  “Kiss me, my green knight, and it will wipe the sadness from my eyes.”

  I was rewarded with that brilliant smile of his, the one that had been making my heart skip a beat since I was fourteen, and then he leaned over, bending that six feet of muscle down to lay his mouth upon mine. The kiss was chaste by our standards, but the ambassador finally cleared his throat.

  I had to break away from the kiss and explain, “Throat clearing is a human way of expressing awkwardness, or impatience with something sexual, or romantic.”

  Galen glanced at the ambassador. “That wasn’t sexual by court standards, not by Unseelie standards anyway.”

  “I’ve been told that sexuality is freer among the sidhe,” he said.

  “If you try the throat-clearing routine with my aunt, the queen, either it will prompt her to say something scathing, or she will be more vigorous at whatever is bothering you.”

  “It was not the kiss, but the fact that I think you are changing the subject from the princess having extra security from our government, that made me want to interrupt. I think of myself as fairly bohemian.”

  “Bohemian,” Rhys said, “that’s not a term I’ve heard in a while.”

  Benz looked at him, and there was intelligence in all the charm, which was good; he’d need it. “Is it the wrong word to use?”

  “No, but to thrive at the Unseelie Court, you’ll need to be a little bit more than bohemian.”

  “What would you suggest?”

  “Profligate, perverse, but perhaps not.” Rhys looked at Galen and me.

  “You’ve thought of something,” Galen said.

  “I was just thinking that the queen never allows the human media to see her at her most flagrant. I was wondering if a human ambassador to our court might have a … calming effect.” His eye was full of humor at the very mildness of his word choice. If Queen Andais had to behave for human sensibilities, then torture as dinner entertainment might be over. It was always mild torture, by her standards, and it wasn’t common, but her love of true torture might have to be more controlled if Benz was visiting our court—if she could control herself and hadn’t gone so far into her own madness that nothing would help her regain herself. That was actually the question that stood in the way of her visiting the babies. Was she truly mad or just aiming her grief at her own court because she could? If she had to find other outlets for her grief, I wondered if I could talk her into grief counseling. She’d gone to human fertility specialists; maybe she’d do therapy.

  Rhys came to join Galen, adding his arms to the other man’s so he had an arm around both my waist and Galen’s. “Now it’s you who’ve thought of something interesting, our Merry.”

  I nodded. “We’ll discuss it later.”

  “When I’m not here to listen in,” Benz said.

  I glanced at him. “Yes,” I said.

  He laughed then, and said, “You know that most humans would have denied it, just to be polite.”

  “It’s too close to a lie, and a lie that you would know was one. Why should I bother?”

  “Ah, Princess Meredith, I think I am going find being ambassador to you a very interesting, even educational, experience.”

  “Which means it could be good, or bad,” I said.

  He nodded. “I don’t know which it will be myself, yet.”

  “Be careful, Ambassador Benz,” Rhys said, “or we’ll make you too honest to be a diplomat out among the humans.”

  He looked surprised then, before he could stop himself, and then he laughed out loud, head back. It was the most unprotected and real expression I’d seen from him.

  “Oh, Lord Rhys, a diplomat who cannot lie would be useless indeed out among the humans, but for a time I think a little brutal honesty might be a nice change. Now, about adding some diplomatic security agents to the princess’s detail …”

  We let him talk, and I hoped that the “brutal honesty” wouldn’t be too brutal on Ambassador Peter Benz, or on us, for that matter. I couldn’t trust my aunt, Queen Andais, to be safe and sane around our babies, but I also wasn’t entirely sure we could keep telling her no. How do you tell someone who has been the ultimate power of life and death for more than two thousand years that she can’t come visit her great-nieces and nephew? That was always the trouble with dealing with the immortal; they were so used to getting their way.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  DETECTIVE LUCY TATE was tall, dark haired, and dressed in the female version of the plainclothes detective pantsuit, black with a white dress shirt this time. It seemed only color varied for the detectives of the homicide bureau. When Lucy had first come through the door I’d thought she had a murder she wanted a fey perspective on, but she’d had a trio of small teddy bears in her hands, and I was pretty certain that made it a friendly visit, not business. I’d been half right.

  “Merry, it’s reasonable for the local police to be worried that Maeve Reed’s estate isn’t safe. The bastard kidnapped you from there.”

  “I can’t go into a safe house with the babies,” I said. The room was almost empty now. Most of the flowers had gone to other people in the hospital, as had most of the toys. We’d kept flowers and presents from actual friends, or people whose gifts it would be impolitic not to keep, and just that had filled up a second SUV, leaving room only for a driver. Lucy’s bears, two pink and one blue, had been newborn safe, and were tucked into the things we were keeping.

  Doyle said, “This isn’t a homicide issue, Detective; why are you here?”

  “She’s a friend, Doyle,” I said.

  “She is, but they sent her because they thought a friend could persuade you where the others had failed, isn’t that right, Detective Tate?” He looked at her with that black-on-black gaze; his face was unreadable, blank so that it was almost threatening in its absolute neutrality. The way a wild animal will look at you: It doesn’t want to hurt you, but if you crowd it, it will defend itself. If you don’t crowd it, then you can depart in peace, but the warning is there. Back off, or things will go badly.

  Lucy reacted to it by taking a half step back, one foot in front of the other in a stance that let her move if she needed to. I doubted she was even fully aware of what she’d done, but the cop in her had seen the implied threat and reacted accordingly. Doyle wouldn’t attack and she wouldn’t do anything to push that neutrality, but it was still unsettling to watch my friend and my love face off. I didn’t want unsettling, I wanted settled. I wanted to just be happy with the babies and the loves of my life, but my family was going to make sure this milestone was as traumatic as they’d made every other important event in my life. My father had protected me from them as much as he could, but once he died it had just been me trying to survive. I was tired of this shit, so tired of it.

  “I’m not going into a safe house, Lucy. I appreciate the thought, but human cops would just be cannon fodder if the king attacks us. Read the police report on what his power did to Doyle, and think what that would have done to a human being.”

  “I’ve seen the reports,” she said.

  “That’s how they persuaded you to come down,” I said.

  She nodded. “He can turn light into heat and project it from his hand; that’s like crazy.”

  “He is the King of Light and Illusion; he can do many things with light, especially daylight,” Doyle said.

  “Like what else can he do with light?” Lucy asked.

  Doyle shook his head. “I’m hoping he hasn’t regained all his old abilities; if he has, then it could go badly no matter where Merry is.”

  “Well, aren’t
you just a bundle of cheer,” she said.

  “Instead of being able to spend time with Merry and our children, I have spent the last day and night negotiating with one high court of faerie or another. The king’s courtiers have assured me that he will wait until the DNA tests come back. If they show that none of the babes are his, then he will acknowledge he has no claim on them, or Merry.”

  “Merry was already pregnant when he …” She stopped as if afraid she’d said too much.

  “It’s okay, Lucy, but the geneticist has informed us that it may not be that simple. The king is my great-uncle, and the sidhe of both courts have been intermarrying for centuries; we could share a lot of genetics. It’s probably not enough to prove paternity, but enough to confuse the issue if my uncle wishes not to give up his claim.”

  “He won’t give up,” Doyle said.

  “Is it true that if he’s not able to have children, then he has to relinquish the throne?” she asked.

  I fought to keep my face neutral. I hadn’t known that the human police knew that, or any human knew that.

  “The blank face from both of you is answer enough,” she said.

  I cursed softly inside my head—sometimes in trying so hard not to give something away, the very effort screams your answer. The big question was: Did the police know that it wasn’t a matter of stepping down from the throne, but execution, for having cursed his court with infertility a century after Taranis knew he was infertile? The old idea that your health, prosperity, and fertility came from your king, or queen, was very true in faerie. Taranis was fighting for his very life. Did Lucy know that?

  “What happens if he steps down?” she asked.

  “He ceases to be king,” Doyle said.

  “That part I figured, but is he exiled from faerie?”

  “No, why do you ask?” I said.

  She shrugged. “Because exile would explain why he’s so desperate to prove one of the babies is his.”

  “I think it’s simpler than that, Lucy. I think he just can’t stand the thought of not being absolute ruler of the Seelie Court after all these centuries. I think he’d do anything to keep his throne.”

  “Define anything,” she said, and I didn’t like the very shrewd look in her brown eyes. She was smart and very good at her job.

  One of the babies made a sound from the cribs. Lucy had ignored them except for a brief glimpse at the cloth-wrapped bundles. She was here on business, not to see babies, but the noise made us turn to find out which baby was waking up.

  It was Bryluen, moving fitfully in her basket like a crib within a crib. Doyle picked her up with his big, dark hands. The baby looked even tinier. Some of the fathers had been awkward holding them, but Doyle held our daughter with the same physical ease and grace with which he did everything. Bryluen’s eyes were open enough to gleam in the light like dark jewels.

  “May I hold her?” Lucy asked, and the request surprised me.

  Doyle looked to me, and I said, “Of course. We’re waiting for the nurse to bring the wheelchair; they won’t let me walk out, and most of the other men are helping load the gifts.”

  Lucy didn’t seem to hear me as Doyle laid Bryluen in her arms. Lucy didn’t know how to hold the baby, which said she’d never really been around them. Doyle helped move her arms into place, and once she had the baby tucked into the crook of her arm she just stared down. Lucy’s face got this happy, almost beatific glow to it, as if the world had narrowed down to the baby in her arms.

  I hadn’t expected Lucy to be that entranced with babies, but maybe she was having that “I’m in my midthirties and the clock is ticking” moment.

  “Detective Tate,” Doyle said.

  She never reacted, just started humming softly and rocking Bryluen gently.

  “Detective Tate,” he said again, with a little more force to his voice.

  When she didn’t react this time, I moved closer to her and said, “Lucy, can you hear me?”

  She never reacted, as we hadn’t spoken.

  “Lucy!” I said it sharply this time.

  She blinked up at me as if she were waking from a dream. She stared at me, trying to say something, but she had to blink twice more to finally say, “What did you say?”

  “I need to get Bryluen ready to go downstairs.” I took the baby from her arms, and she was reluctant to let her go, but once she wasn’t holding the baby Lucy seemed to recover herself. She shook visibly, like shaking off a nightmare, and said, “Wow, I just had that sensation like someone walked over my grave.”

  I nodded. “It happens.”

  She shivered again, and when she looked at me her eyes looked normal. Detective Tate was in there again.

  “I’m sorry, Lucy, and I hope it doesn’t get you in trouble with the higher-ups in your department, but we need to take more precautions against my uncle, and Maeve Reed’s estate is more magically guarded than any safe house would be.”

  “We’ll have police wizards on the detail, Merry.”

  “The last time you and I worked together, one of the bad guys was one of those wizards,” I said.

  “That’s not fair, Merry.”

  “Perhaps not, but it’s still true.”

  “You’re saying that you don’t trust the police?”

  “No, I’m saying that no matter how safe you think you are, you’re probably wrong.”

  “That sounds pretty hopeless,” she said.

  “I thought it sounded realistic.”

  She smiled, but it wasn’t entirely a happy one. “We’ll put extra patrols in your neighborhood. Call and we’ll be there.”

  “I know that,” I said.

  “Promise if anything goes wrong you’ll call the police and not try to handle it yourselves.”

  “I can’t promise that.”

  “Because you’re not allowed to lie,” she said.

  I nodded.

  “You’ll handle this internally, if you can, won’t you?”

  I nodded again, cuddling Bryluen to me.

  She turned to Doyle. “Don’t you or any of the people she loves play hero and get killed when we could have prevented it, okay?”

  “We will endeavor not to,” he said.

  “I mean it. Merry loves you, and I don’t want to hold her hand while she mourns you, or Frost, or Galen, or any of you guys. We’re the police; it’s our job to risk our lives to protect and serve.”

  “It is our job, as well, where Merry and the babes are concerned.”

  “Yeah, but Merry won’t be devastated if we get hurt, and police dying in the line of duty won’t lose the babies their dads.”

  He gave a small bow from his neck. “I will remember what you said, and thank you for putting our lives above yours for Merry’s sake.”

  “I don’t want to die, none of us do, but it’s our job to stop this bastard from hurting her again.”

  “And ours,” he said.

  She frowned and made a little push-away gesture. “You’re going to do what you’re going to do; I’ll tell them I tried.”

  “We really do appreciate you coming down, Lucy.”

  She smiled at me. “I know you do. I just really want to get this guy.”

  I realized that Lucy had taken my rape more personally, because we were friends. It made me care for her even more, and say with real feeling, “Thank you, Lucy.”

  She smiled a little wider. “I’ll leave you to get the little tykes ready to leave, and go join the cops helping to keep back the crowd.”

  “I assume the press,” I said.

  “And just people wanting to see the little prince and princess; it’s not every day that America gets newborn royals.”

  “True,” I said, and smiled at her.

  She smiled back and then left us with, “I’m not usually into babies, but she’s a cute one.”

  We thanked her, and once the door closed behind her, Doyle and I looked at each other. He came to stand beside me, and we both looked down at Bryluen.

  “Mustn�
��t bespell the humans,” I said to her.

  She blinked those exotic-looking eyes at me. The little knit cap was tucked over most of her red curls and completely hid the horn buds. She was tiny and perfect, and already magical.

  “Do you think she understands?” I asked.

  “No, but that answers one question.”

  I looked up at him. “What question?”

  “Maeve Reed has a human nanny for her baby, but we cannot risk human caregivers.”

  “You mean we can’t risk the human caregivers being ensorcelled by the babies.”

  “Yes, that is what I mean.”

  I looked down at our little bundle of joy. “She’s part demi-fey, or part sluagh, one has the best glamour in all faerie, and the other is some of the last of the wild magic left in faerie.”

  “There is wild magic about, my Merry.” He motioned at the tree and the wild rose vines.

  I smiled. “True, but I’ve never seen a baby bespell someone that quickly and that well. Lucy has a strong will, and was likely wearing some protections against faerie glamour just as a precaution. Most police that deal with us do.”

  “Yet Bryluen clouded her mind and senses as if it were nothing,” Doyle said.

  “It was very quick and well done. I’ve known sidhe with centuries of practice who couldn’t have done it.”

  He placed his hand gently on top of her head, so very dark against the multicolored cap. Bryluen blinked up at us. “They are going to be very powerful, Merry.”

  “How do we teach them to control their powers if they have them this early, Doyle? Bryluen can’t understand right from wrong yet.”

  “We will have to protect the humans from them until they are old enough to learn control.”

  “How long will that be?”

  “I do not know, but we know now that they have come into the world with instinctive magic and there is no waiting until puberty for their powers to manifest.”