"Yes, but your steak doesn't have feelings and emotional baggage; people, even the sidhe, do."
I nodded. "I can't argue that. The lesser fey treat it more sensibly."
"I think you'll find, Princess, that the lesser fey treat sex with the sidhe sensibly, because they expect it to be a onetime thing, or a fling. Very few non-sidhe ever become a marrying match for the sidhe."
"My grandmother did," I said.
"Your grandfather wanted to end his curse, and only willing marriage to another fey would do that."
"At least the curse didn't demand a love match. My grandfather wasn't called Uar the Cruel for nothing; he'd have never found someone to love him."
"How are his sons, your uncles?"
"They've seen modern doctors and nothing seems to be able to stop the venom from dripping out of the pores of their fingers, but modern plastic gloves have helped. They don't accidentally poison people now."
"Good, they did nothing to earn their curse. I always thought it was unfair that Uar's curse manifested in all his children being born with that birth defect," she said.
"Agreed, but then are curses ever fair? I mean, most of the fairy tales have a grain of truth, and so many of them talk about a curse on the prince, or princess, spreading to everyone in the castle, or kingdom."
"I've never actually known that to happen. I think the human fairy tales were supposed to be a warning to rulers to be fair and just, or their kingdom suffered, but most kings didn't see themselves in such stories."
"Really, so there's no truth to 'Sleeping Beauty,' or 'Beauty and the Beast'?"
"'Sleeping Beauty' is the old sleeping warrior idea, and that's real enough, but 'Beauty and the Beast' isn't based on anything that I'm aware of."
"There are Raven warriors asleep under the Tower of London," I said.
She looked at me, eyes narrowing. "How do you know that? The queen did not tell you, and I know Taranis didn't. She felt it unjust that only her people were used, and he was too cowardly to offer up his own guard as sacrifice at the end of the last great human and fey war."
"The Goddess showed me in a vision that some of the Queen's Ravens sleep an enchanted rest underneath the human tower. They're the ravens the legend refers to, not the birds."
"When the last Raven leaves the tower, then England will fall," Maeve said.
I nodded.
"If England is ever in danger of truly being conquered, then the Ravens are to wake and defend the country, that's really what it means."
"Why didn't they wake during World War Two?"
"If the Germans had touched English soil they might have."
"Who is trapped under there?"
"You mean names?"
"Yes."
She shook her head and all her smiles were gone as she looked at nothing, her eyes full of remembering. "We do not speak their names, and will not until they rise again to fulfill a bargain that should have been shared between the two high courts of faerie. That our king refused to sacrifice any of his golden throng should have told us all what kind of man he was. Instead the story was put about that the warriors sealed up were all monsters that even the dark court was happy to be rid of, when in truth they were some of the best warriors among the sidhe, and no worse men than the rest."
"But you will not speak their names?"
"I will not, for Taranis made all of us at the Seelie Court vow never to speak their names until they rise to complete the treaty between human and fey."
"Was it very hard to pretend to be a starlet back in the fifties when you had all those centuries behind you, inside you?"
She gave me a look, a considering look, and let me glimpse the fine burning intelligence that she usually hid. She didn't pretend to be stupid, but she didn't show everything either.
"That is a very good question. One that in all the decades of interviews I've never been asked."
"I found it hard to pretend I wasn't Princess Meredith when I came to L. A. Even I found all my secrets hard to keep, hard not to share with someone."
"I told some of my secrets to Gordon. I wish he'd lived to see Liam. I think he's going to grow up to look like that handsome man I first met."
By the time I'd met Maeve's late husband he'd been riddled with the cancer that would claim his life, and the man who had been young in the sixties wasn't young three, almost four decades later. He had been a dying shell of the handsome director who had won Maeve's heart, but her dearest wish had been to have his child. Galen and I had done a fertility rite and the Goddess had blessed us with the energy to give Maeve and Gordon Reed their last wish as a couple. He'd died months before Liam was born, but he'd gotten to hear the heartbeat, see sonograms, and know for certain he had a son.
"I'm sorry that you lost Gordon."
"You gave us our son, Meredith; you have nothing to be sorry for."
"Shall we visit the nursery and the children?"
She smiled. "Yes, let's. If I'm going to remind Liam that I'm Mommy, I need to see him more."
"Am I supposed to apologize again for Liam's behavior?"
"If you had been raised in faerie courts and never left them, you would never have said that."
"Not apologized, or not felt like I should apologize for something that isn't my fault?" I asked.
"Both," she said, and smiled softly, but it was sad around the edges and left her eyes almost haunted.
I took her hand in mine, squeezed it. "I am sorry that you have had to spend so much time away from your son."
"If you hadn't said that, and meant it, I probably wouldn't say this: The movie I just finished filming is an amazing chance for me to stretch myself as an actress. If you and the others hadn't been here for Liam I wouldn't have taken it, or I might have tried to take him and a nanny with me, but he was better here at his home with his family. I just need to figure out how to be a bigger part of that family."
"I am very glad you think of us as family, Maeve."
"You have brought me back to faerie, or brought faerie back to me, after centuries of thinking I had lost it forever."
"I can't imagine losing it for so long. Three years of exile was hard enough for me," I said.
"But you truly are an American faerie princess, Meredith, so very American in your ideals. Like letting your guards have a choice when it comes to their lovers."
"I think that was what my father hoped when he sent me to public school and encouraged me to have friends outside the fey community."
"I never really knew Prince Essus, but he seems very wise. Not a single guard will say a bad thing about him."
"Have you tried to get them to?" I asked.
She made a waffling gesture halfway between a nod and a shrug. "A bit. I wanted to see if they were just speaking nicely for his daughter, but it seems as if he truly was as good as his press."
"Why would you care if my father was as good as he seemed?"
"Honestly?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Your uncle on your grandfather's side beat me and exiled me for refusing to marry him. Your grandfather was Uar the Cruel, and he earned that name. Your mother is narcissistic to the point of being delusional, and your uncle is the same. Your aunt on your father's side is a sexual sadist and a sociopath, or maybe even a psychopath; her son, your first cousin, was worse than his mother. He'd have been a sexual serial killer if the women of his bodyguards hadn't been immortal and able to heal nearly any injury. I've taken more lovers from among them than you have, and they hate the late Prince Cel with a fine and burning passion."
"We all knew that Andais was tormenting her guards and others of the court. She was very public about most of it, but I didn't know what Cel was doing with his guards. He was much more private about it."
"I think he hid it from his mother."
"She enjoys torturing people," I said.
"I've had more pillow talk about some of the horrors he did to the women, and I believe he was discreet because Andais might have stepped in and
interfered with his fun."
"What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander," I said.
She shook her head. "No, Meredith, what Cel did to some of his private harem ... I'm so glad you've found them a therapist."
"I'm glad they were willing to go."
"They didn't think they had a choice when they started."
"What?"
She smiled. "They thought you ordered them to go to therapy, and by the time they realized you hadn't meant it that way, most of them were benefiting from it, so they kept going."
"I would never order someone to go to therapy. I mean, you can order them to go the appointment, but you can't make them actually work their issues."
"You ordered them to talk to the therapist, and after what Cel did to them if they disobeyed him, or Andais did to anyone who disobeyed her, they worked their therapy as if their lives depended on it."
I shook my head and sighed. "They are all so much more damaged than I knew. Wait, is that why some of the female guards stopped going to therapy a few weeks ago?"
"Yes, they finally realized that you hadn't meant it as an order. A few of them tested to see if you meant it as a suggestion and when you didn't get angry about it, a few more stopped going."
"Most of them haven't stopped going," I said.
"As I said, Meredith, they worked hard at their therapy for fear of what you'd do to them if they didn't, and it worked strangely well for many of them."
"I didn't think you could force someone to do therapy like that."
"Neither did I, but it seems to be working for them."
I frowned, puzzling, and finally shook my head. "If it's working, it's working."
"You are surprisingly practical about very impractical things."
"Do I say thank you, or is that a problem?"
She smiled. "Neither, but the same guards who speak of Cel in hate-filled tones say wonderful things about your father. I think most of them are still in love with him, both as a good leader and as a man."
"I was actually thinking earlier that my family has more crazy than sane in it. Though you forgot that my grandmother was wonderful and caring, as were her parents, my great-grandmother and -grandfather."
"You're right, I did forget. Because your grandmother was half human and half brownie I counted her as less, but I shouldn't have, because it seems like the insanity comes from the sidhe side of things."
"We're not the most stable people," I said.
"I think it's living for so long, Meredith. Our bodies don't age, but maybe our minds do."
"Are you saying that Taranis and Andais have a version of dementia?"
"Maybe, though Cel wasn't that old by sidhe standards."
"I think Cel was always weak and twisted, but his mother indulged him, let him think he could do no wrong, and that cemented his crazy."
She studied me again as if looking for a flaw, or a hint, or something I couldn't guess at. "You are your father's daughter, and that is a good thing."
"I am my grandmother's, too, and that's a good thing as well."
"Yes, yes it is." She brushed off her hands as if brushing the topic away. "Let's go see the newest babies--though with Nicca and Biddy's daughter, Kadyi, and Liam, there are a lot of babies."
"Did you hear that Cathbodua and Usna are expecting?"
She looked startled, and then she laughed again. "No, I hadn't heard; that's wonderful and just fun, that the cat and the bird are having a baby."
"Andais said something similar, the cat and the crow."
Maeve's face sobered. "I would not be compared to the Queen of Air and Darkness in any way."
"I didn't mean to upset you."
She shivered, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. "It's all right, you didn't ... it's just so many of us seem to go mad as the centuries pass, it makes me worry."
"Worry about what?" I asked.
"About my own sanity, I suppose."
"You have never shown any sign of the madness that haunts some of the noble lines of faerie."
"Oh, it's not just the noble lines, Meredith; some of the lesser fey are just as unpredictable, they just don't have the power of life and death to indulge their insanity."
It was my turn to study her. "What makes you say that?"
"The Fear Dearg, for one; you know we have one of them living here in Los Angeles."
"I've met him," I said.
She shuddered. "I remember the wars against them. It was like their entire race was as bad as Andais, Taranis, and Cel combined. It's why we took their magic away."
"The Fir Dhaeg said the sidhe also took their females, so though they live forever they're dead as a race."
She nodded, rubbing her arms again. "We could not work a spell to kill them, or destroy their evil entirely, but we destroyed what we could of them."
"The Fir Dhaeg said that I could give him back his name. That the curse the sidhe placed upon them could be cured by a royal chosen by Goddess and faerie."
"I do not know the details of the curse, but all curses must have a cure; it's part of the balance. Nothing is truly forever, nothing is that is made cannot be unmade, and that which is unmade has the possibility of being reborn."
"What happened to the Fir Dhaeg females? Doyle would not tell me details after we met the one here in L. A."
"We could not destroy them, Meredith, for they were as much a part of faerie as the sidhe, but we were able to kill them at a price."
"What price?" I asked.
"That we would take in their essence, absorb them. We would tie the Fir Dhaeg to the sidhe forever, so that if they reincarnated they would come back as one of us. The hope was that our bright blessings from the Goddess and Her Consort would cleanse their evil, but I wonder sometimes if the opposite happened."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"I wonder sometimes if the Fir Dhaeg contaminated the sidhe with their darkness."
"Taranis and Andais were already king and queen by then; you can't blame their evil on the Fir Dhaeg."
"I suppose not, but I remember the day that it was done. The females didn't die; they faded and the energy went somewhere, Meredith. What if it went not into the land, or sky, or plants, or water, but into the ones that did the cursing? Andais was part of that spell; your father was not."
"You're saying that in cursing the Fir Dhaeg, Andais may have ... what, become one herself?"
Maeve shrugged. "Maybe, or maybe she was mad even then and we just hadn't realized it."
"Faerie chose her to be queen of the Unseelie Court, so she was fit to rule once," I said.
"She was a great war leader, so yes, she was fit once."
"Have you discussed your theory with anyone else?"
"No, by the time I thought of it I was in exile. I had a lot of time to think upon old things while I was alone."
"I'll share your theory with Doyle and see what he thinks."
"Remember that he was a part of the spell, too."
"Doyle is not evil," I said.
"I didn't say he was, but being around evil changes a person, even if you're killing it on the battlefield."
I tried to read her face and couldn't. "Why tell me this?"
"I don't know; perhaps I've wanted to tell someone my idea for a very long time."
"You lived in the high court of faerie for centuries, Maeve, and then in Hollywood for decades; you don't say things without understanding how it will affect people, or how you hope it will affect people, so what's your point? Why tell me? Why now?"
"I don't know, and that is the honest answer; it just seemed time."
I shook my head. "I wish I believed that."
"I would never mean to make you doubt Doyle."
I laughed then. "I don't doubt Doyle; nothing you could say would make me do that."
She controlled her face, but for just a moment I saw she was unhappy. Why would she want to divide me from Doyle? Out loud I said, "Do you have an old grudge against Doyle?"
"Wh
y would you say that?"
"He's been the left hand of the queen for centuries, and their court was often at war with yours, so just answer the question. Do you have a grudge against him?"
"If I had to choose a king to follow I would prefer the energy of sunlight and life, not darkness and death."
"Doyle was who faerie crowned as my king."
"Your Unseelie king," she said.
I nodded. "And faerie crowned me Sholto's Queen of the Sluagh."
She couldn't hide her distaste. "They are the stuff of nightmares."
"True, but the Goddess saw fit to make me their queen all the same."
"I would wonder who faerie would choose for you if it were the Seelie throne you were sitting upon, or a new throne of faerie. Who would be that king for you, Meredith?"
"Since we gave up the crowns that faerie offered us, and I can't go back to visit Sholto's kingdom for fear of Taranis, I don't think it matters. I think I've turned down too many thrones for the Goddess to offer me another."
The first pink rose petal fell from empty air and floated down between us. We watched it fall slowly to the floor.
"You are surrounded by miracles, Meredith."
"The Goddess blesses me with Her presence."
"I think She's happy to have someone worth blessing again."
Rose petals began to fall like a flurry of candy-colored snow. I stood in the center of it holding my hands up, raising my face toward the fall of petals. I thanked the Goddess for Her attention and Her blessing, and the rose petals fell faster until it was a blizzard of cotton candy petals.
Maeve Reed, the Golden Goddess of Hollywood, once the goddess Conchenn, fell to her knees and began to weep.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
BY THE TIME Maeve recovered herself, the rose petals had almost stopped falling. Only a few of them trailed me to the nursery, like pink snow flurries. Two of the new Diplomatic Security Services, or DSS, guards had trailed us from outside Maeve's bedroom to here; now they stood at the door in bodyguard pose, one hand holding a wrist, or just arms free, but strangely at attention. They were on duty while all the rest of the guards were at blade and hand-to-hand training. The human guards had tried to participate, but the difference in strength and speed had made it ... awkward. Though some of the humans had persisted.
It also meant that the only people left to tend the babies were human. Liam came running to us as we entered the triplets' nursery. "Mommy! Come see, babies!" he yelled, and grabbed Maeve's finger so he could drag her farther into the room.