Rhys turned from where he was standing by the mirror and said, “Frost and Doyle look like bookends, light and darkness, balanced at your side, Merry.”
I glanced up and back at the two men and could only agree. It was in moments like this that I still marveled that these two men, the ones who had seemed the most remote, untouchable by any emotion I understood, were now my greatest loves and fathers to my children.
Rhys was in white as well, but whereas most of the men had chosen medieval dress or some older fashion, he was in modern dress pants with a pale blue T-shirt loose over them, and his cream-colored trench coat; he’d even added his white fedora pulled down at a rakish angle over his long white curls. He was wearing a new eye patch in a pale blue that complemented his remaining eye and made all three of the different shades of blue brighter and deeper.
“You look good, Rhys,” Galen said as he went to take his place beside the chair, “but I can’t tell if you’re doing Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon or a sexy ice cream man.”
Rhys grinned. “Well, I always go for sexy, and who doesn’t like ice cream, but film noir is where I get most of my clothing inspirations.”
Galen grinned back. “I just wear what I’m told to put on.” That wasn’t entirely true, because he had colors he preferred, but he was probably one of the least picky beyond that. He’d had less than a hundred years of my aunt choosing clothes for her guards, and he had never been a favorite, or far enough out of favor, for her to pay special attention to his appearance. That had given him freedom that the other guards had not had to find their own personal sense of style. Rhys’s style was personal, but he’d only been able to indulge his film noir kick here in California with me; before that the queen had dressed him to show off his muscles, somewhere between a p**n ographic warrior and disco. I’d always thought she did it to humiliate Rhys, or that she didn’t know what to do with him.
Galen was in pale green pants, untucked dress shirt, and a darker green tailored jacket. His pale curls with the one long braid always looked green, but his skin often looked just white; in the colors he’d chosen today his skin, eyes, and hair were all green. Only his soft tan dress shoes spoiled the solidarity of his color. He looked good in the outfit, but he didn’t look spectacular. Had he not cared? Had he thought the queen would pay more attention to everyone else, as she always had? Or perhaps he had chosen green defiantly, because it made it impossible not to think “pixie,” which was what his father had been—a pixie who had seduced one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, back before she’d exchanged them for gentlemen-in-waiting.
The queen had executed Galen’s father for his audacious seduction. How dare a lesser creature of faerie touch the sidhe of her court—and then the lady had come up pregnant and it turned out the queen had killed half of a fertile couple. Galen had been the only child born into the Unseelie sidhe once they arrived on American soil. She would not have killed Galen’s father if she had known in time. Her temper coupled with her absolute power had cheated her court out of more babies, as her temper and power had cheated her out of being welcomed into our home to see our babies like a normal aunt.
Now Galen was the father of royal triplets, and he’d dressed to remind the queen of his father. Galen wanted her to remember what her anger and arrogance had cost her, and him, once. It was both brave and smart of him. Brave because he was rubbing the queen’s nose in her mistake, and smart because it might remind her that a mistake here and now might cost her more.
It was very unlike Galen, so much so that I had to ask, “Who chose your clothing tonight?”
He walked toward me, smiling. “I did.” But again there was a new look in his eyes, harsher, more sure of itself. I had mourned it earlier, but now I welcomed it. I needed all the help I could get negotiating with the queen.
I raised my hand and Galen took it, raising it to kiss first my hand, and then lowering his tall frame to kiss me gently on the lips. We didn’t want to muss my bright red lipstick. He drew back with lipstick on his mouth, like a scarlet shadow of my smaller mouth between his lips.
“You’ll want to rub that off,” I said.
He shook his head. “I’ll wear your lipstick proudly, my Merry. Let her see that I am in your favor, and that I am one of the Greenmen who prophecy said would bring life to the court.”
“And remind her that your father might have brought more life to the courts if she hadn’t killed him,” I said, still holding his hand.
“That, too,” he said. He squeezed my hand and stepped back because everyone else was spilling into the room at once. The prearranged time for the call was close, and we needed everyone in place so we could look impressive for our queen.
Mistral came first, looking impatient and tugging at his tunic. It was dark burnished gold with brighter gold and silver thread worked into the puff sleeves and cuffs, and in a more elaborate pattern across the chest. The pants were a color between tan and gold and bloused over the rich dark brown leather of his knee-high boots. The boots and pants he’d worn before, but the tunic had spent many long years put away, because it was a reminder of the power and magic he had lost. As he walked into the room it was as if lightning reflected down his long, unbound hair. Strands of it had turned gold, yellow, silver, a white so bright it nearly glowed. Some of that was a permanent color change, just a single strand here and there among the gray, but the flashing, reflected light that moved through all his hair came and went like lightning does.