"Do you know how often I have dreamt of looking like them?" He motioned at the men at my back. "Agnes is right. I have dreamt of looking fully sidhe for so long, and now it is as you say, I have lost pieces of myself. I have lost arms, and more."
"The queen does not know this," Doyle said.
"Are you certain of that, Darkness? Beyond doubt?"
Doyle started to simply say yes, then stopped himself. "No, I am not certain, but she has not told us otherwise; nor have rumors to the contrary touched our court."
"Wars have begun over less than this, Darkness. Wars between the courts of faerie."
Doyle nodded. "I know."
"Agnes says that Andais had to have given Taranis her approval - even if just tacitly - or Taranis would not have risked it. Do you think my hag is right? Do you think the queen allowed this to happen?"
"The sluagh are too important to the queen, King Sholto. I cannot imagine a set of circumstances in which Andais would risk such hurt to the sluagh's vows to her court. I think it more likely that this was done, at least partially, in a bid to strip our queen of your might. Why didn't you tell the queen, the court?"
"I thought she must know. That she must have given permission. I agreed with the hags - I did not think even Taranis would dare to do this without Andais's knowledge."
"I cannot argue your reasoning, but I do not believe she knows," Doyle said.
"Why didn't you tell me, Sholto?" I asked. "You once said to me that only the two of us understand what it is like to be almost sidhe. Almost tall enough, slender enough, almost - but not quite pure enough to be accepted."
He almost smiled, almost. "We may have had that in common, but as I told you in Los Angeles, no man had ever complained about your body; only envious women."
I smiled at him. "About my br**sts, you were right." That earned me a smile in return, which, given that awful wound, made me breathe more easily. "But I am too short, too human looking for most of the sidhe, male or female, to let me forget it."
"I told you then: They were fools," Sholto said. He took my hand in his and raised it up for a kiss, but when he tried to bend over me, the pain stopped him in midmotion.
I pressed his hand to my cheek. "Sholto, oh, Sholto."
"I had hoped to hear tenderness in your voice, but not for this reason. Don't pity me, Meredith, I could not bear it."
I didn't know how to respond. I just held his hand against my face, and tried to think of anything I could say that wouldn't make him feel worse. How could I not feel pity?
"When did this happen, King Sholto?" Doyle asked.
Sholto looked past me to the other man. "Two days ago, just before your second press conference."
"The one during which two murders were committed," Rhys said.
Sholto looked at him. "You caught your murderer, though the human police don't know it yet. I hear you're trying to let him heal from the torture before showing him to the human police."
"Our queen made a mess of him," Rhys said.
"He is guilty?" Sholto made it a question.
"We believe so," Doyle said.
"But you are not certain?"
"What was done to your stomach, Queen Andais did to every inch of Lord Gwennin."
Sholto winced, and nodded. "One would do much to stop such pain."
"Even confess to something you did not do," Doyle said.
I looked at Doyle then. "Do you think Gwennin is innocent?"
"No. Nor do I believe he acted completely alone. Andais was using his own intestines as a leash on him, Meredith. He would have been a fool not to confess."
Sholto pressed my hand to his face. Segna tried to interfere but Agnes stopped her, and the other two guards moved between Sholto and the hags. I caught a glimpse of one of the guard's faces. Oblong eyes full of nothing but color, thin lipless mouth, and a face that was a strange mix of humanoid and nightflyer. They were like Sholto, but no one would have ever have mistaken them for sidhe. The eyes, though - the eyes were goblin eyes. The guard stared at me with his face that looked only half formed, the nostrils mere slits. I did not look away. I stared, memorized his face, for I had never seen another quite like it.
"You do not find me ugly." The guard's voice held that edge of twittering - almost bird-like, but deeper.
"No," I said.
"Do you know what I am?"
"The eyes are goblin blood, but the face is nightflyer. I'm not sure about the rest," I said.
"I am half-goblin and half-nightflyer."
"Ivar and Fyfe are my uncles on my father's side," Sholto said.
The second guard spoke for the first time. His voice was deeper, more "human." He gave me the full gaze of his face. His eyes were the same oblongs of color, a deep rich blue, but he had more nose, more lower jaw. If he'd been taller, he might have passed for a goblin. But the skin wasn't quite the right texture. "I am Fyfe, brother to Ivar." He gave the hags an unfriendly look. "Our king felt the need of some male guards, who were not conflicted about what to do with his body. We guard it, and that is all."
"This insult was not for lack of our ability to guard," Agnes said. "You, too, will be helpless when he chases his next bit of sidhe flesh. He won't want an audience, and he will go with her alone."
"Enough, Agnes. Enough, all of you." Sholto pressed my hand tighter against his face. "Why didn't I tell you, Princess? How could I admit that Seelie did this to me? That I was not warrior enough to save myself? That I fell into their trap, because they offered me what you had promised? Agnes is right in one thing: I am near blinded by my desire to be with another sidhe, so blinded that I let a Seelie woman bind me. So blinded I believed her lie that she was fascinated with my bits, but afraid of them, too." He shook his head. "I am King of the Sluagh, and even bound I should have had enough magic to save myself from this." He let go of me, stepped back.