A Caress of Twilight

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  She looked puzzled. “Had no one asked before?”

  “They asked,” I said.

  The expression on her face was enough to urge me on, but I didn’t finish the thought. I avoided letting her turn around the conversation, because I wanted to know why she’d been exiled. If she’d kept her silence for a hundred years, then I couldn’t trust that she’d easily break it now.

  “By the time I came along, people had stopped asking.”

  “What happened to my allies at court?” It was a very direct question, and I couldn’t pretend not to understand anymore.

  “The king killed Emrys,” I said. “After that, everyone was afraid to ask after your fate.”

  It was hard to tell, but I think she paled under that golden tan. Her eyes went wide before she dropped her gaze to her lap. She started to take a drink and found the tumbler empty.

  She yelled, “Nancy!”

  The maid appeared, almost but not quite as if by magic. She had a tray with a tall dark glass of rum, a pair of white-rimmed sunglasses folded beside the drink. She’d also brought three swimsuits draped on her arm. They were all expensive, lovely, and tiny. Most of the underwear I owned covered more than those suits, and I owned a lot of lingerie.

  They looked like ordinary, if elegant swimsuits, but appearance could be deceiving. Things can be done to clothes so the spell takes over only when the garment is worn. Nasty spells, some of them. For the first time I wondered, not if Maeve wanted to join our court, but if there were people at the Seelie Court who wanted me dead. Would my death be enough to undo her exile? Only if the king himself wanted my death. To my knowledge, Taranis didn’t like me, but he didn’t fear me, so my death should mean nothing to him.

  Maeve had stopped talking. She was staring out at the pool, but I don’t think she truly saw it. She was quiet for so long that I filled the silence. “Why the swimsuits, Ms. Reed?”

  “I said to call me Maeve.” But she never looked at me, and the phrase had a rehearsed quality, as if she wasn’t truly listening to her own words.

  I smiled. “Fine, why the swimsuits, Maeve?”

  “I thought you might want to get more comfortable, that’s all.” Her voice still sounded flat, like dialogue that she’d planned to say but no longer cared about.

  “Thank you, but I’m fine as I am.”

  “I’m sure I can find suits for your gentlemen, too.” She finally looked at me while she spoke, but her voice was still muted.

  “No, thank you.” And I put enough force into the thank you that I thought she’d take the hint.

  Maeve set the empty glass on the tray, slipped the sunglasses on, and only then took the new drink in hand. She drained a quarter of it in one long swallow, then looked at me. The glasses were large and round with fat white rims, and they were mirrored so that I could see a distorted reflection of myself as she moved her head. Her eyes and a large part of her face were completely hidden. She didn’t need glamour now; she had something else to hide behind.

  She pulled the robe closer to her neck and sipped the black rum. “Even Taranis would not dare to have Emrys executed.” Her voice was low, but clear. I think she was working on not believing me. She’d given herself enough time with her rehearsed bit about the swimsuits that she’d thought about what I’d said. She didn’t like it, so she was going to try to make it not true.

  “He wasn’t executed,” I said, and again I watched her, waited for her to ask for more. You often learned more by saying less.

  She looked up from her drink, making those mirrored glasses glint in the sun. “But you said Taranis had had him killed.”

  “No, I said he killed Emrys.”

  It was hard to tell behind the large sunglasses, but I think she frowned. “You are playing word games with me, Meredith. Emrys was one of the few among the courts that I might truly have called friend. If he was not executed, then what? Are you hinting at assassination?”

  I shook my head. “Not at all. The King challenged him to a personal duel.”

  She jumped as if I’d struck her, sloshing some of the rum over the white of the robe. The maid offered her a linen napkin. Maeve handed the drink to the woman and began to wipe at her hand, but not like she was paying attention to what she was doing.

  “The King does not take personal challenges. He is too valuable to the court to risk on a duel.”

  I shrugged, watching my image imitate me in her glasses. “I just report the news, I don’t explain it.”

  She put the napkin on the tray, but refused the return of her drink. She leaned forward, still holding the robe closed at neck and thigh. “Swear to me, your solemn oath, that the King slew Emrys in a duel.”

  “I give you my oath that this is true.”

  She leaned back suddenly, as if all the energy had drained from her. Her hands were still feebly clutching at the robe, but she looked half-swooned.

  The maid asked, “Are you all right? Is there anything you need?”

  Maeve gave a weak wave. “No. I’m fine.” She’d answered the questions in reverse order, a bit of a slip, because she was obviously not all right.

  “So, I was right.” Her voice was very soft as she said the last.

  “You were right about what?” I asked, voice equally soft. I eased down to the foot of my own lounge chair so she would be sure to hear me.

  She smiled then, but it was weak and not at all humorous. “No, you won’t get my secret that easily.”

  I frowned, and it was genuine. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Her voice was more solid, more certain of itself as she spoke. “Why did you come here today, Meredith?”

  I sat back a little. “I came because you asked me.”

  She sighed loud and long, not for effect this time, but I think just because she needed to. “You risked Taranis’s anger simply to visit with another sidhe? I think not.”

  “I am heir to the Unseelie throne. Do you really think Taranis would risk harming me?”

  “He challenged Emrys to a personal duel for merely asking why I had been exiled. You yourself were beaten as a child for asking about my fate. Now, here you sit speaking with me. He will never believe that I have not told you the reason for my exile.”

  “But you’ve told me nothing,” I said, and I tried to keep the eagerness out of my body language, though I think I failed.

  She gave another slight smile. “He will never believe that I have not shared my secret with you.”

  “He can think what he likes. To harm me would mean war between the courts. I don’t believe that any secret you have is worth that.”

  She laughed, derisive again. “I think the king would risk war between the courts for this.”

  “Fine, the king might risk a war where he could sit safely behind the front lines, but Queen Andais would be within her rights to challenge him to one-on-one combat. I don’t believe Taranis would risk that.”

  “You are the heir to the dark throne, Meredith. You have no idea what power resides in the light.”

  “I’ve seen the Seelie Court, Maeve, and I agree that once you’ve fallen afoul of it, you’re afraid of the light; but everyone fears the dark, Maeve, everyone.”

  “Are you saying that the high king of the Seelie Court is afraid of the Unseelie Court?” Her voice held an amazing amount of outraged disbelief.

  “I know everyone at the Seelie Court fears the sluagh.”

  Maeve sat back in her chair. “Everyone fears them, Meredith, at both courts.”

  She was right. If the Unseelie Court was all that was dark and frightening, then the sluagh was worse. The sluagh was home even to the things that the Unseelie feared. It was a dumping ground for nightmares too terrible to contemplate.

  “And who holds the reins of the sluagh?” I asked.

  She looked uncertain, but said, at last, “The Queen.”

  “The sluagh can be sent to punish certain crimes without a trial or a warning. One of those crimes is kin slaying.”

 
; “That is not often enforced,” she said.

  “But if Taranis killed the queen’s heir, don’t you think she’d remember that little law?”

  “Even Andais would not dare send the sluagh after the king.”

  “And I say again, that even the king would not dare slay Andais’s heir.”

  “I think you are wrong on that, Meredith, for this he might dare.”

  “And for that crime, Andais might loose the sluagh on him. Even the King of Light and Illusion would have no choice but to run from them.”

  She took the drink off the tray that the maid still held near at hand. She took a deep drink before saying, “I do not believe that the King would think that clearly about this. I … I would not be the cause of war between the courts.” She took another drink. “I have wished for Taranis’s arrogance to be punished over the years, but not by the sluagh. I would not wish that on anyone, not even him.”

  Having been chased by the sluagh myself, I could agree that they were terrible. But they weren’t as bad as all that. At least the sluagh would simply kill you—maybe eat you alive—but you’d be dead. There would be no torture, no long, slow death. There were worse deaths than to fall to the sluagh.

  And I knew something that Maeve could not know. The sluagh’s king, Sholto, Lord of That Which Passes Between, called Shadow-spawn, but never to his face, had no great loyalty to Andais, or to anyone else for that matter. He kept his word, but Andais had let her politics slide for a few years, and now she depended heavily, too heavily, on the threat of the sluagh. They’d been meant to be the threat of last resort. I’d learned in talking with Doyle and Frost that the sluagh had become a much-used weapon. That was not what they were meant for, and it showed great weakness on Andais’s part that she used them too often.

  But Maeve did not know this. No one at the Seelie Court knew, unless there were spies, which, come to think upon it, there probably were; but Maeve didn’t know it.

  “Do you really think that the King will learn that we spoke together? ” I asked.

  “I don’t know for certain, but he is a god, or was once. I fear he will discover us.”

  “Fine, I want to know why you were exiled—but you want something from me, as well. You want something that you would risk your very life for. What could that be, Maeve? What could be that important to you?”

  She leaned forward, robe still closed tight. She leaned forward until I could smell the cocoa butter from her skin and the harsh rum on her breath. She whispered against my ear, “I want a child.”

  Chapter 13

  I STAYED LEANING IN, SHOULDERS ALMOST TOUCHING WITH Maeve, because I didn’t want her to see my face. A child? She wanted a child? Why tell me? I’d thought of a lot of things Maeve Reed could want; a baby had not been on the list.

  I finally looked at her. “What would you have of me, Maeve?” That was the question.

  She sat back in her chair, settling with a small wriggling movement that reminded me of her old teasing. “I have told you what I would have of you, Meredith.”

  I stared at her, frowning. “I know what you said, Maeve, but I don’t see …” I tried again. “I don’t know how I can help you.” I put a little emphasis on the I because I had thought of one thing I had that she might need. I had the men.

  She looked around at the men, all the men, her bodyguards included. “You can understand now why I would want privacy for this discussion, can’t you?” There was a small thread of pleading in her voice.

  I sighed. I wanted to be politically savvy. I wanted to be cautious. But I did understand why she desired privacy. Some things supersede politics, your side, my side, and one of those is the plea of woman-to-woman. Maeve had given that plea, silently, but it was still there. Mother help me, but I couldn’t pretend ignorance.

  “All right,” I said.

  Maeve put her head to one side. “All right to what?”

  “Privacy.”

  I felt both Doyle and Frost move behind me. They didn’t truly move, not a step, but they tensed so hard it was almost a jump.

  “Princess,” Doyle began.

  “It’s all right, Doyle. You and the rest of the men can sit under the umbrella while we have our girl talk.”

  Maeve frowned, her pale pink lipsticked mouth pouting prettily. She was definitely regaining her composure. Or maybe she’d spent so many years as Maeve Reed, sex goddess, that she didn’t know how else to behave.

  “I was hoping for a little more privacy than a few yards.”

  I smiled at her, no pouting, no pretense. “You’ve shown that you’re willing to persuade me with magic. It would be stupid of me to trust you completely.”

  The pout vanished, replaced by thin, almost angry lips. “You’ve proven you can best me at magic, Meredith. I am not so stupid as to try my luck for a second time.”

  Again, I was pretty certain that I had not bested Maeve at magic. It was more that she’d thrown her magic in my metaphysical face and my natural abilities had been awakened. It hadn’t been deliberate on my part; in fact, I wasn’t 100 percent certain that I could have duplicated it if I’d tried. But Maeve believed that I could do it at will, and I wasn’t going to dissuade her. Let her believe that I was wonderfully powerful, and paranoid. Because I wasn’t going anywhere completely out of sight of the men. Powerful and paranoid—it was a recipe for royalty.

  “My guards can sit in the shade while we talk out here. That is as much privacy as I’m willing to give you, even for girl talk.”

  “You don’t trust me,” she said.

  “Why should I?”

  She smiled. “You shouldn’t. You most certainly shouldn’t.” She shook her head and sipped her rum, then gazed at me over the rim of her glass. “You’ve refused all refreshment. You fear poison or magic.”

  I nodded.

  She laughed, a delighted burst of sound. I’d heard that selfsame laugh on the movie screen more than once. “I give you my most solemn oath nothing here shall harm you a-purpose.”

  Adding that last bit was nicely tricky. It meant that if I did come to harm, it wouldn’t be her fault, but it also meant that I could come to harm. I had to smile. Such double-talk was so much a part of the court, where your word of honor was something you’d fight to the death to defend.

  “I want your word of honor that no thing, no person, no animal, no being of any kind will harm me while I am here.”

  The pout was back. “Now, Meredith. Such a solemn oath? I will give my word to protect your safety to the best of my ability.”

  I shook my head. “Your word that no thing, no person, no animal, no being of any kind will harm me.”

  “While you are here,” she added.

  I nodded. “While I am here.”

  “If you had left that last little bit off, I’d have been responsible for you always, everywhere you go.” She shivered, and I don’t think it was pretense. “You go to the Unseelie Court, and that is not a place I would wish to have to guarantee your safety.”

  “Everyone seems to feel that way, Maeve. Don’t feel bad.”

  She frowned, and again I think it was real. “I do not feel bad, Meredith. It is not within my purview to guard your safety within those dark, shadowed corridors.”

  I shrugged. “There is light and laughter within the darkling throng, just as there is darkness and sorrow among the glittering throng.”

  “I will not believe that the Unseelie Court holds the joyous wonders that await one at the Seelie Court.”

  I looked over my shoulder at Doyle and Frost. I made it a long look, then turned slowly back to Maeve, allowing their beauty to fill my eyes. “Oh, I don’t know, Maeve, there are joys to be had at the dark court.”

  “I have heard tales of the debauchery that exists at Queen Andais’s court.”

  That made me laugh. “You have lived too long among the humans if you say debauchery with such distaste. The joys of the flesh are a blessing to be shared, not a curse to be guarded against.”

 
“As your wayward guard and my sweet Marie should know.” She looked past me, smiling. Rhys and Marie were walking toward us. Rhys’s white curls fell free to his waist again. His boyishly handsome face was its usual clean-shaven self. The pearl-studded eye patch was back in place. He was smiling, pleased with himself to the point of nearly laughing, as if he knew some new joke.

  Marie trailed behind him. Her hair was a little less than perfect, and her white shirt was untucked. But she didn’t look happy.

  If Maeve’s hint was true, then Marie would be smiling. Rhys had his faults, but not putting a smile on a girl’s face was not one of them. You couldn’t really take him as seriously in, or out of, bed as some of the other guards, but he was a lot of fun in bed.

  I found myself frowning again. If he had done something sexual with Marie, how did I feel about that? He was, after all, mine. Exclusively mine, according to the queen.

  I tried to be hurt, jealous, or even miffed that he might have been playing slap and tickle with Marie, and I just wasn’t. Maybe it was because I was sleeping with the other men. Maybe to be truly jealous you have to have some pretense of monogamy. I didn’t know why, but it simply didn’t bother me. If he’d had intercourse with her, that would bother me, because I was the one that we needed pregnant, not some assistant to some star. Other than that, I didn’t seem to care.

  Rhys dropped to one knee in front of me, which crowded Kitto a little; but the fact that he was willing to touch the little goblin was actually a very good sign. He raised my hand to his lips, grinning.

  “The lovely Marie offered me her favors.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “And?”

  “And it would have been rude to have ignored such an offer.” By fey standards, he was right.

  “She’s human, not fey,” I said.

  “Jealous?” he asked.

  I shook my head, smiling. “No.”

  He came to his feet in one smooth movement, planting a quick kiss on my cheek. “I knew you were more fey than human.”

  Marie was kneeling by Maeve. She kept her face turned away from us but shook her head, and Maeve turned a very frowny face to us. “Marie said you refused her advances, guard.”