A Caress of Twilight

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  We weren’t missed in helping with the murders, because Peterson had forbidden anyone from the Grey Detective Agency from interfering with the case. Jeremy had been pissed enough that he told Teresa not to tell them what she’d seen, but Teresa is all about helping her fellow man. She went dutifully from the hospital to the police station and finally found a detective who would take her report.

  Teresa had felt the people suffocate, felt them die, and she’d seen the ghosts—white shapes, she said, sucking the life from them. The police had informed her that everyone knew ghosts didn’t do shit like this. Peterson had come in about then and thrown the report in the trash can in front of Teresa. Usually the police wait until someone’s left the room before doing that.

  Teresa had managed to drag her husband out before he got himself arrested for assaulting a police officer. Teresa’s husband used to play for the Rams back when they were the football team in L.A. Ray’s like a nicely maintained mountain, with a winning smile and a very firm handshake.

  We ended up with a lot of time on our hands. No, we did not just have sex all day. We pestered Sage. I had paid the price that Queen Niceven asked, but we had no cure. Why hadn’t Sage given us the cure last night? Why did Kitto becoming sidhe change everything for Sage? Did he really mean to imply that he needed to have sex with me to effect the cure? Sage didn’t want to answer any questions.

  He had flown around the apartment trying to escape our questions, but it was a small apartment, even if you were the size of a Barbie doll. Late in the day he launched himself from the windowsill and got a little too near Galen, who batted at him like you’d swat a mosquito. I don’t think he meant to strike him.

  Sage fell heavily on the floor. He lay very still, a tiny butter-colored thing with his bright wings like a fragile shield. He raised slowly onto one arm before I could finish kneeling by him. “Are you all right?” I asked.

  He looked at me with such hatred in those tiny doll eyes that I flinched. He stumbled a little in rising to his feet, but he fanned his wings and caught his balance. He refused the hand I offered him. He stood there, hands on hips, and stared up at us as we towered over him.

  “If I die, green knight, the cure dies with me. Best remember that, when you’re being careless.”

  “I didn’t intend to hurt you,” Galen said, but there was something in his eyes that was not kind, not gentle, not Galen. Perhaps, more than just his manhood had been damaged by the demi-fey.

  “Too close to a lie, that,” Sage said, rising into the air, his butterfly wings a blur. Butterfly wings just didn’t work like that. It was more the way a dragonfly moved. When he’d gained height enough to meet Galen’s gaze, the wing beats slowed and he hovered, the large wings fanning more slowly but still with enough force to stir the curls around Galen’s face.

  “I didn’t intend to strike you that hard.” Galen’s voice was low and warm with anger. There was a hardness there that I’d never heard before. Part of me mourned that tone; part of me felt a flare of hope. Perhaps even Galen could learn those harsh lessons that would be needed if he ever became King. Or perhaps he was just learning how to hate. That lesson I would have spared him if I could.

  I watched the two men glare at each other, both hating. Sage was still the size of a Barbie doll, but his anger wasn’t amusing anymore. That he could elicit such negativity from my smiling Galen was a little frightening.

  “All right, boys, play nice now.” They both turned and glared at me. So much for breaking the tension. “Fine, be that way, but what did you mean that if you die, the cure dies with you?”

  Sage rotated in midair, arms half crossed on his tiny chest as if he couldn’t quite cross them and fly at the same time. “I mean, Princess, that Queen Niceven left a present in my body. The healing for your man here is trapped in this tiny package.” He spread his arms wide as he said it, almost bowing as he hung, fluttering.

  “What does that mean, Sage?” Doyle said. “Exactly what it means, no prevaricating, just the truth, all of it.”

  He gave another turn in midair so he could look directly at Doyle. Sage could have simply glanced over his shoulder, but I think he wanted Doyle to know he was being looked at. “You want truth, Darkness, all of it?”

  “Yes,” Doyle said, his thick voice, lower, deeper, not angry, but a tone that had made many a sidhe pale.

  Sage laughed, a joyous tinkling sound that nearly drew a smile from me. He was very good at glamour, better than I thought any demi-fey could be. “Oh, you’ll be angrier than that when you hear what my dear queen has done.”

  “Just tell us, Sage,” I said. “Quit drawing out the story.”

  He turned to me, hovered close enough for the breath of his wings to caress my face. “Say please.” His tone made it an insult.

  Galen tensed, and Rhys laid a hand on his shoulder. I think I wasn’t the only one who didn’t quite trust Galen around the demi-fey.

  “Please,” I said. I had a lot of faults, but false pride wasn’t one of them. It cost me nothing to say please to the tiny man.

  He smiled, obviously happy. “Since you asked nicely.” He grabbed his tiny crotch through the filmy skirt he wore. “The cure is trapped here, where Queen Niceven laid it.”

  I felt my eyes widen.

  “How does Meredith retrieve the cure?” Doyle asked. His voice held emptiness, no tone at all.

  Sage smiled, and even on a face not much bigger than my thumb, I recognized a leer when I saw it. “The same way the queen gave it to me.”

  “Niceven is not allowed intercourse with anyone but her husband,” Doyle said.

  “Ah, but there are exceptions to every rule. You should know that, Darkness, better than most.”

  Doyle seemed to blush, though through the pure night of his skin, it was hard to be sure. “If Queen Andais knows she has broken her marriage vows, it will go badly for your queen.”

  “The demi-fey never held to such rules until Andais grew jealous of Niceven’s children. Three children she has, three pure-blood demi-fey. Only one belonged to Pol, but Andais chose that match to be permanent. Andais envies Niceven her babes, and all the court knows it.”

  “I would be careful who I told that to,” Rhys said. There was no teasing in his voice, just truth.

  Sage brushed it away with his tiny hands. “You requested a cure for your green knight, and there is only one cure for it. She had to lay with me to lay the spell within me. Andais agreed that the green knight must be cured at all costs. She didn’t seem too concerned what those costs might be.”

  I shook my head. “No, no intercourse, not with you.”

  Sage rose into the air. “Then your green knight stays unmanned.”

  I shook my head again. “We’ll see about that.” I felt the first stirrings of anger. I didn’t let myself get angry often. In the courts it was an indulgence that only the most powerful could afford. I had never been that powerful. Maybe I still wasn’t, but we’d see.

  “Doyle, call Queen Niceven. We need to talk.” The anger had leaked out into my voice.

  Sage came hovering close enough that the wind from his wings fanned my face. “There is no other way, Princess. The cure has been given for this curse, and cannot be given twice.”

  I glared at him. “I am not every man’s meat to feast upon, little man. I am Princess of Flesh, and heir to the Unseelie throne. I do not whore for Niceven.”

  “Only for Andais,” Sage said.

  I came very close to swatting him, but I wasn’t sure how hard I would have hit, and I didn’t want to hurt him that badly, not by accident. No, if I hurt Sage that badly, I wanted it to be on purpose.

  “Doyle, contact Niceven, now.”

  He didn’t argue, just went for the bedroom door. I followed him with the others trailing behind. Sage kept talking as we went. “What do you plan to do, Princess? What can you do? Is one night with me such a high price to pay for your green knight’s manhood?”

  I ignored him.

  Niceven
was already in the mirror when I entered the bedroom. She wore a black dress today, utterly sheer so that her pale body seemed to gleam through the dark cloth. Discreet touches of black sequins sparkled at neck and sleeve. Her white hair fell loose around her body. The hair fell almost to her tiny ankles, but it was thin, thin and strange looking, almost like it wasn’t hair at all. All I could think of was a spiderweb blowing in the breeze. Her pale wings framed her like a white curtain. Her three ladies-in-waiting stood behind her chair, but each was clad only in a tiny silken robe, as if they’d been roused from bed. Each robe still matched each set of wings, rose-red, daffodil-yellow, and iris-purple. The hair that flowed loose around their faces was sleep-tousled the way real hair should be.

  The white mouse was back at her side complete with bejeweled collar. For Niceven to wear no crown, no jewels, meant she had been in true haste to answer our call.

  “Princess Meredith, to what do I owe this unexpected honor?” Her voice held just a trace of peevishness. Apparently, we had awakened her entire court from their beds.

  “Queen Niceven, you promised me the cure for Galen if I fed your servant. I have lived up to my bargain, but you have not lived up to yours.”

  She sat up a little straighter, hands folded in her lap, ankles crossed. “Sage has not given you the cure?” She sounded truly puzzled.

  “No,” I said.

  Her gaze left my face and found the tiny man who had alit upon the edge of the dresser so he could be easily seen from the mirror. “Sage, what is this about?”

  “She refused the cure,” he said, spreading his hands out as if to say not my fault.

  Niceven looked back at me. “Is this true?”

  “Did you truly think I would accept him in my bed?”

  “He is a wonderful lover, Princess.”

  “To one of your height perhaps, but to one of mine, it grows a little ridiculous.”

  “Or rather doesn’t grow enough,” Rhys said, from the back of the bedroom.

  I shot him a hard look. He shrugged, almost an apology, then turned back to the mirror.

  “If size is the only problem, that can be remedied,” Niceven said.

  “Your majesty,” Sage said, “I do not think this is wise. Only Meredith swore a solemn oath not to reveal our secret.”

  “Then let them all swear,” she said.

  I shook my head. “We swear nothing,” I said. “If you do not give the cure for my knight now, then I call you oath breaker. Oath breakers do not have long political careers among the fey.”

  “The cure is there for the taking, Princess. It is not my fault if you will not partake.”

  I stepped closer to the mirror. “Sex is a greater boon than sharing blood, and well you know it, Niceven.”

  Her face seemed to become even thinner, her pale eyes glittering with anger. “You overstep yourself, Meredith, forgetting my title.”

  “No, it is you who overstep yourself, Niceven. You retain your title as queen at Andais’s sufference, and well you know that. I will have you up before my aunt as an oath breaker if Galen’s cure is not forthcoming immediately.”

  “I will not be turned from my course by anger, no matter how much you taunt me, Meredith,” Niceven said. “Reveal yourself, Sage.”

  “My queen, I think this unwise.”

  “I did not ask what you thought, I said only to do it.” She leaned forward in her chair. “Now, Sage.” You didn’t need a translator to hear the threat in those two words.

  Sage’s wings slicked tight together, then he flung himself off the edge of the dresser, not flying, as if he meant to plunge to his death, but he didn’t fall. He grew. He was suddenly tall, taller. He was nearly as tall as I was, four feet eight, nine. The wings that had been lovely when tiny were like stained glass, artwork worn across the back of his body. Muscles showed under his butter yellow skin, and when he turned to look at me over his shoulder, the black eyes were the shape of almonds, and his red lips were moist and full. There was something terribly sensual as he stood there, his wings nearly filling one side of the room.

  “Is he not lovely, Meredith?” Niceven said, her voice full of longing.

  I sighed. “He is lovely to the eye, but in his present size sex is an even greater boon, for whosoever gets me with child will be King.” I had to step to one side to see her clearly past Sage’s wings. “Is it a bid for the Unseelie throne, Niceven? Is that your goal? I wouldn’t have thought you that ambitious.”

  “I bid for no throne,” she said.

  “Liar and oath breaker,” Doyle said. He had never moved out of the mirror’s sight, as if he wanted her to remember, always, that he was by my side.

  She turned a flat and very unfriendly gaze to him. “Mind your manners, Darkness.”

  “Give Meredith the cure as you swore you would.”

  “Queen Andais said the green knight was to be cured at all costs.”

  Doyle shook his head. “She could not have dreamt this cost. There have always been rumors that some of the demi-fey could grow larger, but rumors, fables, no truth until now. The Queen would think ill of a demi-fey king, especially one who is your puppet in all things.”

  She hissed at him, and in that one movement she seemed very alien, as if I’d figure out what she truly was if I thought hard enough, and it wouldn’t be human. The white mouse had crouched away from her as if it feared her temper.

  “You have a choice here, Queen Niceven,” I said. “You can either give me the cure for Galen as you swore you would, or I can tell Queen Andais about your plotting.”

  Niceven looked at me, eyes narrow. “If I give you the cure, you will not tell Andais about all this?”

  “We are allies, Queen Niceven. Allies protect each other.”

  “I have not fully agreed to an alliance merely for an offering of blood once a week. Have sex with Sage and I will be your ally.”

  “Give me the cure for Galen, take your blood offering once a week, be my ally, or I tell Aunt Andais what you tried to do here.”

  Niceven didn’t look angry anymore, she looked frightened. “If I had not had Sage show you his secret, then you would not have had anything to blackmail me with.”

  “Perhaps, or perhaps even a little seed in the wrong place can cause a large problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Galen’s father was a pixie, and that’s not much bigger than Sage in his true form. There have been odder mixes in the courts. I think Andais would see your demand that one of your men fuck me as a grave breach of trust.”

  She spat, and the mouse scrambled out of sight; even her ladies-in-waiting backed up. “Trust, what do the sidhe know of trust?”

  “About as much as the demi-fey,” I said.

  She gave me a truly evil look, but I was expecting it, or something like it. I smiled at her around the curve of Sage’s wings. “I’d asked for an alliance so you and yours could spy for me.” I looked at Sage, nearly as tall as I was. “But here is proof that you have other talents. Your swords are not merely the pinpricks of bees but something much more.”

  She shifted in her chair, a small movement, but she was nervous. “I do not know what you mean, Princess Meredith.”

  “I think you do. An alliance I still want, but your contribution to the alliance will go beyond spying.”

  “To what? Sage is but one man. You have other and larger swords at your back.”

  I touched Sage’s shoulder. He jumped as if it had hurt, but I knew that it hadn’t. I leaned in against the back of his body. He tensed. “Is what the queen says true, Sage? Is your sword so small?” I looked at Niceven as I said it.

  She gave me angry eyes. “That is not what I meant and well you know it.”

  “Do I?” I asked, running my fingertips down Sage’s arm. He shivered under my touch. I watched jealousy flare across her face before she could catch it back. “Niceven, Niceven, do not give up to others what you hold most precious.”

  Her face was angry, blank. “I don’t
know what you mean.”

  I touched Sage’s hair, and the hair was soft as spider silk, or downy feathers, softer than any hair I’d ever touched. “Never offer to give up that which you cannot afford to lose.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t understand you, Princess.”

  “Be stubborn then, but know this. I offer you alliance, true alliance in exchange for a blood offering once a week. You cease to spy for Cel and his people.”

  “Prince Cel may be locked away, Princess, but Siobhan is not, and she is more frightening to some than Cel will ever be.”

  I noticed her phrasing. “More frightening to some, but not to you.”

  Niceven bowed her head. “I find Cel’s brand of madness more frightening than Siobhan’s ruthlessness. You can plan around a ruthless man, but a madman throws all your plans to the wind.”

  I nodded. “Your wisdom does you credit, Queen Niceven.”

  “For a chance for one of my men to be King of all the Unseelie, I would have risked all, but for mere blood, I will have to think upon it.”

  “No, an alliance now, or the queen will know of your ambition.”

  Niceven gave me a look of pure venom.

  “I will do it, Niceven, do not mistake me on this. Alliance, or answer to Andais.”

  “I have no choices left then,” she said.

  “No,” I said.

  “Alliance then, but I think both of us will regret it.”

  “Perhaps,” I said, “but now the cure for Galen and our business can be done for today.”

  Niceven turned her attention to Sage. “Give the princess the cure, Sage.”

  He frowned. “How, my queen, if I am not allowed to give it to her as you gave it to me?”

  “Though I gave it to thee through more intimate contact, it only needs your body to enter hers to be given.”

  “No sex,” I said.

  She gave me a long-suffering look. “A kiss, Meredith, a kiss and you are free to take no pleasure from it.”