His hair had changed in the last twenty-four hours, as if something had returned more of his power to him. He’d been holding Gwenwyfar, rocking her to sleep, when we’d noticed the first flash of light in his hair.
Now he strode into the room tugging at the tunic, and the colors in it brought out the strands of color in his hair, but I didn’t really think it showed off the flash of light. I thought solid black clothing might showcase the lightning display more, but we’d think about that for another night when we wanted to be impressive, or frightening.
Kitto came in, wearing his metal thong. He was smiling and said, “Nicca and Biddy are watching the babies.” That meant we could concentrate on meeting the queen without worrying that the babies would cry and need us, which was especially good since the pink dress was not a dark color. If the babies cried, any of the babies, sometimes my milk came down and the nursing bra wasn’t enough to stop it from staining. It was a mark of the blessing of the Goddess that I could nurse my children, but it was not convenient for looking serious and in charge.
Kitto went down on the floor so that my feet in their purple and pink flats could rest on his bare back. I’d felt that acting as my footstool had been degrading to him, but now that I felt him solid under my feet it just felt right, as if he grounded me, centered me. I felt less of an impostor dressed up to play queen, and more … queenly.
Sholto was the last of the fathers to stride in through the door, and he was in black, an outfit almost identical to the one he’d worn in the hospital when he wanted to be certain to be seen as a king. His white-blond hair was unbound around all the blackness and gleaming jewelry, so he looked both beautiful and frightening, which was the effect he wanted.
Behind Sholto came the guards, who were now just guards for me. We had all discussed it and decided that though our customs didn’t force me to limit my sexual attentions to the fathers of my children, there were already too many of them and not enough of me. So not every handsome face, beautiful body, dangerously armed guard, male or female, who came through the door was my lover. Honestly, most never had been, but sometimes it’s good to finalize the rules of a relationship, even one with a group as large as ours.
They fanned out around the room in their warrior garb, some in actual armor, but most in modern clothing with body armor under or over the clothing. Though in truth if the Queen of Air and Darkness wanted you dead, armor wouldn’t save you. Her name was not an idle title but named her two main powers. She could travel through the dark to anywhere else that was dark, and hear her name spoken in the dark. She could see in the dark without any light to aid her. The air she could make heavy, thick, until you could no longer breathe it and it felt as if your chest were being crushed by the weight of her magic. Andais was truly the Queen of Air and Darkness.
What good was armor against such magic? But they wore it all the same, because sometimes it’s not about whether it will actually stop the bullet or the blade, but more about drawing a line in the sand at your enemy’s feet. We hoped it would show Andais that we meant to fight rather than submit. All of us were exiles from her court, and almost all of us had suffered at her hands, some more than others. There were a handful of guards that Doyle had decided would not stand with us tonight, because he feared that their memories of what Andais had done to them would make them unable even to stand their ground, let alone fight if the need arose.
We had found therapists for the most damaged of our refugees from faerie. They had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. I wouldn’t have been surprised if most of us had a touch of it. You don’t have to be the one being cut up to be traumatized; watching it is enough sometimes. Those who were most fragile were barred from the room and given duties elsewhere. They could help keep the amazing crush of media from climbing the wall around Maeve’s estate, or help patrol the grounds looking for each new bit of faerie that appeared. It was as if the old lands were emerging in puzzle pieces in this bit of America where they had never existed, though faerie wasn’t a place you could reliably find on a map. It was more an idea, or ideal, of wild magic that had a mind and will of its own. Faerie moved at its own whim, and that of the Goddess and Her Consort. So the grounds were patrolled, searching for each bit of wild magic as it manifested. Already the lands inside the walls were much larger than ordinary senses said the walls could contain, which was wonderful, but Taranis had stepped through on the new lands, and so might the queen. The danger of that meant guards had to be posted, to warn the rest of us if either of them was seen. I think we all felt that we would lose a pitched battle against either the king or the queen, but if the alarm was given first, then even if the guard who discovered the breach died, there would be more warriors coming to defend us. And when I said “us,” I didn’t mean just my babies and me. Maeve and one other of our female guards had given birth here in this new Western kingdom of faerie. We’d run away from faerie to save our lives, and now faerie was coming to us, building itself around us. Doyle and I had given up our crowns to the Unseelie Court to save our Killing Frost, but the Goddess and the land of faerie itself wasn’t done. If we could not rule the Unseelie, it seemed likely we’d get a chance to rule something else, something new, something here.
I hadn’t refused Detective Lucy Tate’s offer of a safe house just because I thought it would get the nice policemen killed. I had refused because wild magic was everywhere around me and the fathers of my babies. In a human safe house surrounded by human police, we wouldn’t be able to hide just how much of the old powers were returning. What would the police have done if they’d woken up with their safe house growing an extra room overnight, or a new door that led to a forest that had never existed on the West Coast of America?