Divine Misdemeanors

Chapter Thirty-one

We found Jordan in the stairwell leading down. He was sweating and pale, his skin clammy to the touch. I'd been afraid we'd missed him when he wasn't in the hallway, but he actually leaned on Galen going down the stairs, which meant he was in bad shape. Jordan wasn't the touchy-feely one of the Hart brothers.

He had the same short-on-the-sides, spiky-on-top hair as his brother, but his jacket was a reddish-brown tweed over the brown slacks, and his shirt was a tomato red. All the extra color must have looked good when Jordan started the day, but now it just emphasized the sick paleness of his skin.

We'd all dropped the glamour so when we stepped out into the sunlight there were cries of, "There she is!" "Princess!" "Princess Meredith, over here!" One reporter did actually ask a question about something else. "What's wrong with Hart? Why does he look ill?"

A female voice rang out, "Is the murder that gruesome?"

It was nice to know that the mass of humanity on the other side of the police barriers wasn't all here just for fairy-princess pictures. People were dead; that should have been more important.

A man in a suit stepped forward and yelled in a voice used to yelling above noise, "The princess and her people aren't authorized to answer any questions about the crime." He turned to a pair of uniforms near him, and they started walking toward us. I was betting that they were supposed to be our escort to our car. I glanced out at the crowd of reporters. They had spilled into the street until even if the police hadn't blocked off the road there wasn't room for a moped, let alone a car. We were going to need more uniforms.

Then there was movement across the road, almost a restless roll of the press, like water when you stir it with a big enough stick. Uther waded into the mob. Maybe we wouldn't need more uniforms. One nine-foot-tall Jack-in-Irons might just be enough.

It wasn't just Uther's sheer size that was impressive. His face was part human and part that of a boar, complete with tusks that curled up and out so big that they'd begun to do that spiral curl that only long years will give to tusks. The last time Uther had helped with crowd control the press had parted like the proverbial Red Sea, as some did now, too, but others turned to him, and started shouting questions at him, too. But they weren't about the murder, or me.

"Constantine, Constantine, when's your next movie coming out?"

Another reporter yelled out, "How big are you?"

"Did they just ask what I think they asked?" I asked.

Jordan's knees went out from under him, and Galen picked him up in his arms and carried him toward the edge of the barricades. Rhys touched his hand to the man's forehead. "He's in a bad way."

"What is wrong with him?" Sholto asked.

"Wizard's bane," Rhys said.

"Oh," Sholto said.

"What?" I asked.

"It's an old term for wizards who overextend themselves. I figured it was a quicker explanation to Sholto."

"Which I've just made longer," I said with a smile.

Rhys shrugged.

I saw Uther shaking his great tusked head, and even without hearing him I knew he was denying that he was this Constantine. Apparently Uther wasn't the only Jack-in-Irons in L.A., and whoever the other one was, he'd made a movie. I loved Uther as my friend and coworker but he didn't exactly have a face made for the movies.

One of the EMTs who had managed to get here before the crowd converged came up to us. He was medium height with blond hair that had streaks of color that humans didn't have, but he gave off that wave of competence that the best healers seem to have. "Let me look at him." He touched Jordan's face as Rhys had, but also took his pulse, and checked his eyes. "Pulse is okay, but he's in shock." As if on cue, Jordan began to shiver enough that his teeth started to chatter.

We ended up having to take him to the back of the ambulance. They put him on the gurney. He started panicking when they surrounded him, and he reached out to us. "I need to talk to you guys before it fades." I knew what he meant; Jordan, like a lot of psychics, could only hold on to his visions for a short time, and then details would begin to fade.

The EMT named Marshal said, "There isn't room for all of you in here."

As the physically smallest I crawled in, took his hand, and tried to stay out of the way. Marshal and his partner wrapped Jordan in one of the insulated blankets, and started making up an IV.

Jordan started pushing at them. "No, not yet, not yet."

"You're in shock," the EMT said.

"I know that," Jordan said. He grabbed my hand and stared up at me with his eyes too wide, showing too much white like a horse about to bolt. "They were so afraid, Merry, so afraid."

I nodded. "What else, Jordan?"

He looked past me to Rhys. "Him, I need him."

"If you let us put the IV in," Marshal said, "we'll let in your other friend."

Jordan agreed, they hooked him up, and Rhys crawled in with us. Galen did his bit by distracting the EMTs so we could talk. Saraid, her hair flashing like metal in the sunlight, joined him, smiling and at ease to distract. Cathbodua stayed by the open doors of the ambulance on guard. Sholto joined her. We just might have enough guards today.

Jordan looked at Rhys, his face wild with fear. "What did the dead tell you?"

"Nothing," Rhys said.

"Nothing?" Jordan asked.

"Whatever killed the brownie made it impossible to speak with the dead."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"I mean they took everything. There's no spirit, ghost, if you will, to talk to."

"Not all the dead like to talk to you," Jordan said, but he was calmer now, either from the fluids or from getting his way.

"True," Rhys said, "but this wasn't a choice. They're just gone. Both of them as if they never existed."

"You mean whatever killed them ate their souls," Jordan said.

"I won't debate semantics, but yeah, that's what I mean."

I said, "That's impossible, because that would mean they've been taken out of the cycle of death and rebirth. Nothing but a true God could do that."

"Don't look at me for answers on this one. I'd have said it was impossible, too."

Jordan let go of my hand and grabbed Rhys's jacket, wadding it in one fist. "They were so afraid, both of them, and then there was nothing. They were just snuffed out like a candle. Poof."

Rhys nodded. "That would be how it might feel."

"But you didn't say how afraid they'd be. Oh, my dear God, so afraid!" He looked up into Rhys's face as if looking for comfort, or confirmation. "There were wings, something with wings. Angels wouldn't do this, can't do this."

"Angels aren't my gig," Rhys said, "but there are other things with wings. What else did you sense, Jordan?"

"Something flew because she was envious. She always wished she could fly. I got that very clearly, as if it had been a wish since childhood, and beauty. She thought whatever was flying was beautiful."

"And the man?" Rhys asked.

"He's just fear, all fear, but fear for his wife more than himself. He loved her." Jordan said it like "loved" should have been in all capital letters.

"Did the woman know what magic they used against her?"

Jordan frowned, and had that distant look that I'd seen on his face before, as if he were looking at things I'd never see. "She thought beautiful and wings, and wished she could fly, and then her husband came in and there was love and there was fear. Such fear, but she died too quickly to fear for her husband much. They killed her first. There was confusion about the man. Two killers, two, one female, one male. They're a couple. Sex, lust, killing made them feel both, and love. They love each other, too. They don't know that what they're feeling isn't right. It's love for them, and out of that love they do horrible things, terrible things." He gave frightened eyes to both of us, looking from one to the other. "This wasn't the first time. They'd had this feeling together before, the power rush of the kill together before ... they've killed ... before."

His voice was trailing off, his eyes losing their franticness. His fist began to open, and he fought to hold onto Rhys's jacket. "Man, woman, couple ... killing. Power ... they want power ... magic. Enough to do something."

"To do what?" I asked.

His hand slid away from Rhys to flop boneless on top of the blanket. "To do ..." And he passed out.

Rhys called out, "Marshal, did you put something besides fluids in the IV?"

Marshal appeared at the doors of the ambulance, giving a longer-than-necessary look at Cathbodua all black and Goth and scary by the doors. Sholto looked much less scary, though I know he wasn't. He nodded. "I put something to calm him down. It's standard for psychic shock. They calm down, and the shock goes away. He'll be fine when he wakes up."

"He'll also have no memory of what he picked up from the murder upstairs," Rhys said.

"I had one psychic stroke out from severe shock. I know you lost some information, but it's my job to keep him alive and well, and I did my job."

Rhys was angry enough that he just got out of the back of the ambulance without another word. I think he didn't trust himself to talk to Marshal anymore.

"Could he really have hurt himself if this had continued?" I asked.

Marshal nodded. "The odds are against it, but I took that chance with one psychic and he's still in rehab learning how to tie his own shoes. I'm not going to let that happen to another person, not if I can help it. It's my job to keep everyone healthy, not to solve crime. I'm sorry if it made it harder on you guys."

I touched Jordan's face. The sweat was already drying on his skin. He was warmer, and his breathing had evened out into something like normal sleep. "Thank you for helping him."

"Just doing my job."

I smiled at him. "Will you transport him to the hospital?"

"I will if the crowd ever thins enough, and I'm told that that won't happen until you leave, Princess."

I nodded. "Maybe not, but he needs someone to ride with him to the hospital. His brother is upstairs. I'll call him, and I need your word that you won't transport Jordan until his brother is with him."

"Fine, I give you my word."

I shook a finger at him. "I'm a princess of faerie. We take the giving of our word very seriously. You seem like a nice guy, Marshal the EMT. Don't give me your word unless you really mean it."

"Are you threatening me?" he asked.

"No, but magic works around me sometimes, even here in L.A., and that magic takes your word of honor very seriously sometimes."

"You're saying that magic works around you whether you want it to or not?"

I wanted to take it back, because I didn't want the press to get hold of that fact, but Marshal had helped my friend, and he seemed like a nice guy. It would be a shame to have him hurt just because he didn't understand what his word was supposed to mean to the power of faerie.

"Talk to the reporters and I'll say you made it up, but yes, sometimes. You seem like a nice guy. I'd hate for you to have a problem with some stray bit of magic. So you have to stay here until Julian, his brother, gets here."

"Or something bad could happen to me?" He made it a question.

I nodded.

He frowned as if he didn't believe me, but finally nodded. "Okay, call the brother. I think the crowd won't thin out too fast."

I slid out of the ambulance. Cathbodua fell in at my side in that practiced bodyguard move that I'd begun to take for granted. Sholto mirrored her on the other side. I used my cell phone to call Julian. He'd want to know that his brother was doing this poorly anyway; of course, I'd forgotten that both brothers were powerful psychics.

He picked up his phone about the time I saw him through the crowd of cops. He was already on his way to his brother's side. I flipped the phone closed and waved at him. He waved back, pocketing the phone he'd been about to answer. They were psychics. They didn't need telephones.

Chapter Thirty-two

Uther joined us at the barriers along with our uniformed escorts. This pair of policemen was male, one young and African American and the other on the far side of fifty and Caucasian. In fact, he looked like he'd been dropped on the scene by a casting agent who'd filled the order for an older white cop, a little overweight, a little jaded, and very world-weary. His eyes said he'd seen everything and been impressed by none of it.

His partner was a rookie, and seemed bright and shiny in comparison. The young officer was Pendleton; the older one was Brust.

Pendleton stared up at the nearly giant-sized fey. Brust gave Uther the same dull look he'd given everything else, and said, "You coming with the princess?"

"Yes," Uther said in a deep, rumble of a voice that sounded perfect for his size. He'd taken voice lessons to get rid of the speech impediment that the tusks had given him so that he could sound like he was speaking the queen's English when he wanted to. He did it mostly because it hurt people's heads to hear someone who looked like him speaking like a college English professor. It amused him, and most of the rest of us.

"I think with four guards and us we've got this," Brust said.

I moved in smiling. "I'm sure you do, Officer Brust, but Uther is also a coworker and we need to discuss the case with him."

Both officers looked the big guy up and down. I'd seen the looks before, and so had Uther. He said, "Would you prefer that I quote Keats, Milton, or the football scores? What works for you so you don't think I'm as stupid as I look?"

Pendleton said, "We don't ... I mean, I don't ... We didn't say anything like that."

"Save it, Penny," Brust said, and looked up at Uther. He said in a voice as dry and serious as any I'd heard, "So you're saying you're not just another pretty face?"

"Brust," Pendleton said, and sounded offended on Uther's behalf. It made me shave years off Pendleton's age, or he'd joined the force later than he looked. His offense was civilian businessman offense, not cop offense.

Uther laughed his rumbling chuckle. "No, I'm not just another pretty face."

Brust actually gave a little smile. "Then by all means help us move these fine citizens back."

Pendleton looked from one man to the other, puzzled that they'd somehow bonded. I understood it. Uther knew what he looked like, and he hated it when people pretended that he didn't. He liked people who honestly weren't bothered by his appearance, but the ones who were bothered but pretended they weren't always made his hackles rise.

"Come on, big guy," Rhys said, "let's see if we can clear out some of this crowd for the nice policeman."

Uther smiled down at him. "I don't think you're going to be much help, little man."

Rhys grinned up at him. "One of these days I've got to take you into a mosh pit."

Galen made a happy sound. "Only if I get to go," he said.

"What is a mosh pit?" Saraid asked.

Cathbodua surprised us all by answering. "It's an area at a music concert where people dance oddly and often get hurt." She gave a small smile of her own. "I think Uther in one of them would be worth seeing."

"I didn't know you liked modern music," I said.

"I doubt you know much of anything that I like, Princess Meredith."

I could only agree. Uther moved out in front of us and the reporters did back up, because he was simply that physically intimidating, but some of the reporters started asking him questions. Again, they seemed to believe he was this Constantine person.

Rhys and Galen stayed wedged on either side of me, with Brust in front, Pendleton in back, and Saraid and Cathbodua to the sides and back of all of us. Sholto stayed at my side as Julian did on the way up, but there was still no hand holding, not until we were clear of the crime scene.

Uther finally came to a stop, because the press was so thick that it was either stop or start stepping on people. Brust used his shoulder mic, probably calling for more help to clear the crowd. I was going to be persona non grata at crime scenes after this, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Uther tried to make things better. "I am Uther Boarshead. I work for the Grey and Hart Detective Agency. I do not make films."

One female reporter shoved a recorder at him, and said, "Your tusks are bigger than his, more curved. Does that mean that other things are bigger, too?"

I asked Rhys in a low voice, "What kind of movies does the other guy make?"

"Porn," he answered.

I stared at him.

Rhys grinned, and nodded. "Yep."

"Recent films?" I asked.

"Apparently the films are popular. The big guy has been getting asked for autographs and propositioned when he's in public."

I stared at him in horror, because Uther was a very private person. I couldn't think of many things that would bother him more. I also couldn't think of a way for it to stop. Most people would just see the outer packaging, and this Constantine was probably the only other Jack-in-Irons in L.A. It was like being the body double for Brad Pitt. People wanted it to be him, and so they didn't believe you when you said that it wasn't.

"I take it his costar is fey, not human," I said, moving in close to Rhys so the reporters just feet away wouldn't hear.

"His main leading ladies, yes, but he's done some with humans."

I looked at Rhys, and his one eye sparkled with appreciation of my surprise. I said, "Rhys, I couldn't be with Uther and not be hurt, and I'm only part human."

"My understanding is that the humans are more fluffers and foreplay."

Galen leaned in and said, "I don't know, I thought the fey-on-fey films were more shocking. Watching all that go on in such a small place ..." He made a face. The sidhe are not easily squicked, so the fact that he made that face said a lot about the squick factor of the film.

"You watched them?" I said.

"Uther wanted to see them, and he didn't want to watch alone. He invited the men at the agency over to sort of hold his hand."

I wanted to call and tell Lucy what we'd learned from Jordan but I didn't dare do so this close to running recorders and sharp-eared reporters.

Sholto drew me in against his body abruptly. Saraid's hand just appeared and was holding the arm of a man with a tape recorder in his hand. "Please, do not touch the princess," she said, in a voice that did not match her brilliant smile.

"Sure, sorry," he mumbled.

She let go of his arm, but he stayed so close to Galen that if we did get to move forward he'd have to move so Galen could step forward at all. The reporter said, "Princess Meredith, what do you think of the reporters going through the window of your cousin's deli?"

"I hope no one was hurt."

A woman screamed from just in back of him, "Meredith, did you ever sleep with Uther?"

I just shook my head.

A wave of policemen moved in and began pushing them back, helping us move forward. Sholto kept me pressed against him. Shielding me from as much of the cameras as he could. I was happy to be moving, and happier not to be trapped with the questions. I was used to sex questions about me and the men in my life, but Uther and the other detectives at the agency, except for Roane, whom I'd actually dated, were off that list. I liked it better that way.

Chapter Thirty-three

Uther rode in the far back of the Suv with his knees tucked to his chin and his upper body bent until his head was almost between his shins. He looked squished and totally uncomfortable. Jeremy had driven him to the scene in the van, where he fit in the back, but the boss man had to stay behind and continue to try to help the police. I sat in the middle seats with Galen on one side and Sholto on the other. Saraid rode in the small jump seat that was the last seat in the back, which was one of the reasons Uther was wedged so close. Cathbodua rode in front with Rhys. I turned as far as the seat belt would let me so I could see Uther.

He looked like what he was, someone impossibly tall shoved into a normal-size space. But the unhappiness on his face wasn't about the fit; he was used to trying to fit into a world made for smaller folk.

"How did I miss this whole Constantine problem?" I asked.

He made an umph sound. "You and I once discussed you helping me lift my long fast. You said no, and I respect that. If I started talking to you about pornographic movies featuring another Jack-in-Irons, I feared you might misconstrue my motives."

"You thought I'd take it as flirting?" I asked.

He nodded, settling his lips around the curve of his curling tusks the way another man might settle a toothpick. It was a thinking gesture for him.

"Bragging perhaps, or even seduction. I've had more human women proposition me since Constantine's movies than ever in my life." He crossed his big arms over his chest.

Galen turned beside me so he could see the big man, too. "And why is that a problem?" he asked.

"You watched the films. No human woman could survive."

"Now, that's bragging," Saraid said, turning toward him.

"It isn't," he said. "It's truth. I've seen what my brethren can do to a human woman. It was one of the worst things I'd ever seen done to a human by a fey, and that includes the nightflyers of the sluagh." He remembered Sholto too late and gave a glance his way. "I mean no offense, Lord Sholto."

"None taken," Sholto said, managing to turn so he could both see the big man better and have an excuse to touch my thigh through my hose. Was it nerves, and if so, why? Why did the conversation make him nervous?

Sholto continued, "I, too, have seen what the royals of the nightflyers do to human women. It is ..." He simply shook his head. "It is the reason I forbade them from seducing outside our kingdom."

"Seduction, you call it," Saraid said, and gave him a less-than-friendly look. "There are other names for it, Shadow Lord."

His triple yellow and gold eyes gave as cold a look as her blue, which is harder with a warmer color, but Sholto managed. "I am not a product of rape, if that's the story that the Unseelie sidhe tell."

There was a tightening around the eyes that said he'd hit the mark, but all she said out loud was, "You were a babe. How do you know how your birth came about?"

"I know who my father was, and he was not one to take his pleasure unwilling."

"So he says." Saraid glared at him.

His fingers began to rub back and forth on the hose that stood between him and my skin. I knew why he needed touch now. "Said, for he died before ever we came to this country. There are pleasures among the nightflyers that do not exist elsewhere."

She made a face, the face Sholto had been seeing on sidhe women from the moment he couldn't hide the tentacles and extra bits. That old pain was still there etched in his handsome face. He could truly be sidhe now and have it just as a tattoo, but he didn't forget how he'd been treated when he could do no more than hide it with glamour.

I laid my hand on the side of his neck. He actually startled at the touch, and then seemed to realize that it was me and relaxed into it.

"I do not think there are many among even the Unseelie who would take one of you, spine and all, and call it pleasure," Saraid said.

"Sholto's father was not one of the royals, so the spine wasn't there to be an issue," I said. I curved my hand around his neck so my fingers could rest at his hairline and the warmth of the back of his neck under his ponytail.

"So he says." Saraid glared at him again.

Galen's voice was mild as he said, "So any sidhe woman who would bed a nightflyer would be a pervert of the worst sort?"

She folded her arms across her chest and nodded. "To sleep with any of the sluagh is one of the few evils."

"I'm a pervert then," I said.

She looked startled, raising her eyes to me. "No, of course not. He is no longer the Queen's Perverse Creature. He can be as sidhe as any other with his new magic."

I laughed then, and said, "Have all of you female guards been imagining him coming to my bed only with his sidhe body and none of his nightflyer parts?"

Saraid was surprised again and didn't try to keep it off her face. "Of course."

I leaned into Sholto, cuddling against his body as much as my seat belt and the turning in the seat would allow. "There are things that his extra bits can do that usually takes four men to accomplish, and even then the arms and legs get in the way."

Saraid looked ill.

Sholto wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close, his head resting against my hair. I didn't have to see his face to know he was wearing a satisfied expression.

Galen put a hand on the other man's shoulder. I felt Sholto tense a little, and then he relaxed again, though I knew he was puzzled. Galen had never shared a bed with the two of us. In fact, none of the other men had. Sholto wasn't close enough friends with any of the other men to be that comfortable with them.

"Sholto saved our lives by getting us to Los Angeles before Cel could come after Merry," Galen said. "No one else among all the sidhe still have the power of transporting that many others by magic except for the King of the Sluagh. He helped Merry take vengeance for her grandmother's murder."

"After he killed the grandmother," Cathbodua said, finally joining in from the front seat.

Rhys said, "You weren't there. You didn't see the spell turn poor Hettie into a weapon to kill her own grandchild. If Sholto hadn't killed her, Merry might be dead now, or I'd have had to kill my old friend. He saved me from that, and he saved Merry. Don't talk about something unless you know what you are talking about." His voice was as grim as I had ever heard it. He had been a frequent visitor at my Gran's bed-and-breakfast, and had helped keep her company the three years I had had to hide away from even her.

"If you say it is the truth, then I will believe you," Cathbodua said.

"I will take oath on it," Rhys said.

"That won't be necessary," she said, but she glanced back at all of us, and said, "I apologize, King Sholto, but perhaps Saraid or I should tell you why we have such a hatred of the nightflyers."

"I know that Prince Cel had made friends of a sort with one of the dispossessed royal nightflyers." He pressed his face into my hair as he spoke, as if it were too awful to look straight at.

"You knew the prince was using him to torture us." Saraid's voice was outraged, and her anger translated into a flash of warmth as her magic began to rise.

"I killed him when I found out," Sholto said.

"What did you say?" Saraid asked.

"I said, when I found out, I killed the nightflyer who was helping the prince torture you. Did you not wonder why it stopped?"

"Prince Cel said he was rewarding us," Cathbodua said.

"He stopped because I killed his playmate and made of him an example so that no one else among us would be tempted to try to replace him in Cel's fantasies. He told me before he died that the prince had made for himself a spine of metal so they could tear and rape together." The slightest of tremors went through his body, as if the horror of it was still with him.

"Then we owe you a debt, King Sholto," Cathbodua said.

A sound escaped Saraid. I turned in Sholto's arms and found tears gliding down her face. "Thank Goddess, Dogmaela was not here to find out that our prince's kindness was not a softening of him, but the action of a real king." Her voice never showed the tears I could see. If you'd just heard the voice you wouldn't have known.

"It was that kindness, that promise of never doing that again to her, that helped him persuade Dogmaela to participate in a fantasy that required cooperation," Cathbodua said.

"Do not tell," Saraid said. "We swore to never tell such things. It is enough that we endured them."

"There are things the queen made us do," Rhys said, as he turned onto a side street, "that we never speak of either."

Suddenly Saraid was sobbing. She put her hands in front of her face and cried as if her heart would break. Between sobs she said, "I am so glad ... to be here ... with you, Princess ... I could not do it ... could not endure ... I had decided to let myself fade." Then she simply wept.

Uther laid an awkward hand on her shoulder, but she didn't seem to notice. I touched her hand where it lay against her face, and she turned and held my fingers with hers, still hiding her crying from our sight. Galen reached across and touched her shining hair.

She wrapped her hand more tightly around mine, and then she lowered her other hand, her eyes still closed with her weeping. She held out that weeping hand. It was a moment before Sholto and I realized what she was doing. Then, slowly, hesitatingly, he reached out and took her hand.

She grabbed onto him and held both our hands tightly as she shook and cried. It was only as the weeping began to quiet that she stared up at us, at him, with eyes shining blue and stars with tears. "Forgive me for thinking that all princes and all kings are like Cel."

"There is nothing to forgive, because the kings and princes are like that at the courts still. Look what the king did to our Merry."

"But you are not like that, and the other men are not like that."

"We have all suffered at the hands of those who were supposed to keep us safe," Sholto said.

Galen stroked her hair as if she were a child. "We've all bled for the prince and the queen."

She bit her lip, still clinging to our hands. Uther patted her shoulder. "You all make me glad that Jack-in-Irons are solitary faerie and beholden to no court."

Saraid nodded.

And then Uther said, "I'm the only one who can reach you for a hug. Will you take it from someone as ugly as me?"

Saraid turned to look at him, and Galen had to move his hand away so that she could. She looked surprised, but she looked into his eyes and saw what I'd always seen: kindness. She simply nodded.

Uther slid his big arm across her shoulders. It was as careful and gentle a hug as I'd ever seen, and Saraid let herself fold into that hug. She let him hold her, and buried her face against his wide chest.

It was Uther's turn to look surprised, and then he looked pleased. His kind might be solitary faeries, but Uther liked people, and solitaire wasn't his favorite game. He sat in the back, crammed into the tight space but he got to hold the shining, beautiful woman. He got to wrap her tears in his strong arm and hold her against a chest that was as deep, with a heart that was as big, as any I'd ever known.

He held Saraid the rest of the way home, and in a way she held him right back, because sometimes and especially for a man, being able to be someone's big strong shoulder to cry on helps you not need to cry so very much yourself.

On that drive Uther wasn't alone, and neither was Saraid. Sholto and Galen held me. Cathbodua even put a friendly hand on Rhys's shoulder. The sidhe had lost the knack of comforting each other with touch. We'd been taught that that was something for the lesser fey, a sign of their weakness and the sidhe's superiority. But I'd learned months ago that that was just a story to mask the fact that the sidhe no longer trusted each other enough to touch like that. Touch had begun to mean pain instead of comfort, but not here, not for us. We were sidhe and lesser fey, if you could call a nine-foot-tall man lesser, but in that moment we were all just simply fey and it was good.