I turned in Frost's arms so that my face was framed by the fur of his coat. «None of us is contradicting my aunt's orders,» I said.
The look she gave me was just this side of insolence. Madeline had enjoyed the queen's favor for seven years now. Seven years of basking in the absolute power the queen had over beings who could have snapped Madeline in half with their bare hands. She felt safe behind the shield of Andais's power. Up to a point, she was right. Beyond that point—well, I was about to remind her of what that point was.
«We have a major press conference, Meredith.» She didn't even bother to use my title now that no other humans were around to listen. Her glance flicked from Galen's much loved, old brown leather jacket to Doyle's short black one, and finally to Kitto's Day-Glo parka. Her lip curled just a bit. «Some of the coats, some of the hair, and you are seriously not wearing enough makeup for this kind of photo opportunity. I have makeup and wardrobe outside.» She turned toward the door as if she'd fetch them.
I said, «No.»
She turned back, and the arrogance on her face would make any sidhe proud. «I can call the queen on my cell, but I promise you, Meredith, that I am following her orders.» She actually slipped a small phone out of the inner pocket of her blazer. A phone so tiny it hadn't disturbed the line of her jacket.
«You are not following her orders, not to the letter,» I said. I knew I looked small, near child-like, peeking from amid the ticklish fur of Frost's coat. And for the first time it didn't matter, not to people like Madeline. I could hide my power until we needed it. I didn't have to be forceful to win this one.
She hesitated with the phone open in her hand. «Of course I am.»
«Did my aunt tell you to dress us, and primp us, as soon as we came in out of the cold? Were those her express orders?»
She narrowed her carefully lined and shaded eyes. «Not in so many words, no.» She sounded uncertain, then gained her businessy tone as she continued, «But we have the press conference, and then you'll have to change again before the big party. We have a timetable here, and the queen doesn't like to be kept waiting.» She hit a button on her phone, put it to her ear.
I stepped out from the warmth of Frost's body and whispered in her other ear, «I am heir to the throne, Madeline, and you've always been nasty to me. I'd start trying to make nice if I were you and I liked my job.»
I was leaning so close that I heard my aunt's secretary answer the phone, but not what he said. Madeline said, «Sorry, hit the wrong button. Yes, they're here. We've got some challenges, but nothing we can't handle. Okay, okay, great.» She hung up and stepped back from me the way I'd seen people step back from Andais and Cel over the years, as if she was afraid.
«I'll wait out in the hall.» She licked her lips, glanced at me, but couldn't completely meet my eyes. She wasn't as good at court politics as some. There were those who had tried to kill me before, who would smile and nod to my face, acting as if we'd always been best friends. Madeline wasn't up to that level of duplicity. It made me think better of her.
She hesitated at the door. «But please, hurry. We really do have a rather tight schedule, and the queen did say, exactly, that she had outfits for everyone for the party tonight. She'll want everyone changed before the festivities begin.» She didn't look at me as she left, as if she didn't want me to see what was in her eyes.
When the door clicked firmly behind her, Galen asked, «What did you say to her?»
I shrugged and cuddled back against Frost. «I reminded her that as heir to the throne, I might have some say in who gets hired or fired.»
Galen shook his head. «She went pale. That wasn't just from the threat of being unemployed.»
I looked at him. «Exiled from faerie, Galen, not just unemployed.»
He frowned. «She's not elf-struck.»
«She's not addicted to us, no, but her reaction tells me that she doesn't want to lose her special place among us. She doesn't want to lose the chance of touching sidhe flesh even if it's only in passing.»
«Why does knowing that matter?» he asked.
«It means that we have leverage with Madeline that we didn't before, simple as that.»
«That's not simple,» he said.
I looked into his so-honest face, and the near pain it caused him to watch me outthink him, outmaneuver him. I might never need the knowledge that Madeline valued her job enough to be nice to me; but then again, I might. Every bit of knowledge, every bit of weakness and strength, pettiness, cruelty, or kindness, of everyone, could be the very piece of information you needed to survive. I had learned not to undervalue anyone's allegiance, even if it was allegiance simply from the need to cover all bets. It wasn't that Madeline would be cruel to Cel when he was freed, but she'd be nice to both of us now, and that was a start.
CHAPTER 21
«Well handled,» Barinthus said, with a smile, «but the publicist is right about one thing. Time grows short.» He motioned another guard forward.
He was tall, slender, and looked tanned to a lovely brown, but it wasn't a tan. Carrow always looked like a summer-browned hunter with his brown hair streaked with summer gold like any human who'd been outdoors day after day. His hair was cut short and simply. He looked very human until you reached his eyes. They were both brown and green, but not hazel, no. They were green like a forest stirred by the wind, so that one breeze turned the world to sparkling green and another deep and dark.
With most of the sidhe I'd had to ask what kind of deity they'd been, but like Barinthus, Carrow screamed what he had been. I looked up into the face of one of the great hunters.
Carrow's smile brought one of my own. He had been the guard whom my father entrusted to teach me the ways of bird and beast. When I'd entered college for my biology degree, Carrow had actually visited me and sat in on some of my classes. He'd wanted to know if they'd learned anything new since last he checked. In most classes, no, but he'd been fascinated by microbiology, parasitology, and Introduction to Genetics. He was also the only sidhe to ask me what I'd do with my degree if I hadn't been Princess Meredith.
No one else had cared, or rather they couldn't conceive of anything but court politics. When you can be a princess, why would you want to do anything else?
Carrow started to drop to one knee, but I caught his arm and drew him into a hug.
He gave his easy laugh and hugged me tight.
«I was surprised to hear you were a detective in a big city.» He drew back enough to see my face. «I thought you'd run away to the wilderness and play with the animals, or at the very least a zoo.»
«I'd need at least a master's degree for wildlife biology, and most zoos, too.»
«But a detective?»
I shrugged. «I thought the queen would check anyplace I could use my degree. I didn't even tell anyone I had a biology degree at the detective agency.»
«I hate to interrupt old home week,» a new voice said, «but has the ring reacted to Carrow, or not?»
I turned and found a guard I was not pleased to see. «Amatheon,» I said and I couldn't hide, even in that one word, how unhappy I was to see him.
«Don't worry, Princess, I'm just as unhappy to see you as you are to see me.» He turned his head, and the winter sunlight drew copper and gold highlights from his red hair. The shoulder-length waves bounced as he strode toward me.
«Then why are you here?» I asked.
«The queen ordered it,» he said, as if that explained everything.
«Why?» I asked, because it explained nothing.
He moved gracefully in the tailored leather coat. It fit his upper body like a glove but flared out around his hips and legs so it was like a leather robe. The black leather made his hair richer, brighter, like copper flame. When he was close enough for me to see his eyes, I had that moment of dizziness that his eyes always gave me. His pupils were petaled layers of red, blue, yellow, and green, like a multicolored flower.
«You're lovely to look at, Amatheon. To say anything else would be lying.»
His handsome face smirked at me.
«But pretty is as pretty does, and you are Cel's friend, last I knew. I don't think he'd take kindly to you protecting me, let alone anything else.»
Doyle had moved in front of me, just enough to keep Amatheon from closing the distance between us. Frost had moved up on the other side of me, as if there were any question of Amatheon getting past Doyle. Amatheon ignored them both, all his attention meant for me. «Prince Cel does not rule the Unseelie Court, not yet. Queen Andais has made that clear to me.» The smirk was gone when he said that, and the arrogance slipped a bit. I wondered how Andais had chosen to make her point so terribly clear to him. I trusted Aunt Andais to choose a painful method, and for once I was glad at the thought of one of the guards suffering. Petty, but then Amatheon had been one of the sidhe who'd made my childhood unpleasant.