“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?”
“Why 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.
Her whole face lit up, not with magic, but with happiness that he’d run to her, not me. She’d been spending as much time with him as she could in the last few days, and just like that, he was running to her more. A tightness I hadn’t realized was there eased as I watched him pull her forward.
One nanny was diapering Gwenwyfar on the changing table. Alastair was in his crib with most of the dogs crowded around it, and him. Liam’s nanny, Rita, was in one of the two rocking chairs, holding Bryluen, and that was where the little boy led Maeve. Rita’s dark head was bent low, giving only a glimpse of her smile, as she gazed down at the baby. Rita was short for Margarita, and she was a pretty, dark, older woman, very shy. She rarely spoke and when she did, she didn’t like to hold eye contact. I wasn’t sure if she was just naturally that shy, or if it was being in the presence of Hollywood stars and princes and princesses of faerie. Danika, the second nanny, was as tall as Maeve with thick blond hair that fell to the tops of her shoulders. She did a serious yoga workout every day, and used the weights when the guards weren’t in the room. She hadn’t bulked up, just made her curves more firm. She moved with a physicality that reminded me of the guards. Apparently she’d gone through college on an athletic scholarship, and the habit of it hadn’t left her. Rita was only a few inches taller than me, in her early forties, and had given up the fight for the gym a few years ago, so she was just comfortably round. She’d been a nanny when she was Danika’s age, but a divorce had forced her out to work again. It had also made her interested in live-in positions like this one.