A Caress Of Twilight

Chapter 2

The windows of my office showed a nearly faultless sky, like somebody had taken a single blue cornflower petal and stretched it to fill the air above us. It was one of the most perfect skies I'd ever seen over Los Angeles. The buildings of downtown sparkled in the sunlight. Today was one of those rare days that allows people to pretend that L.A. sits in an eternal summer where the sun shines constantly, the water is always blue and warm, and everyone is beautiful and smiling. Truth is that not everyone is beautiful; some people are downright grumpy (L.A. still has one of the highest homicide rates in the country, which is pretty grumpy if you think about it); the ocean is more grey than blue; and the water is always cold. The only people who go into Southern California waters without a wetsuit in December are tourists. We actually do get rain occasionally, and the smog is worse than any cloud cover I've ever seen. In fact, this was the prettiest, most truly summery day I'd seen in over three years. It must happen more often than that for the myth to survive. Or maybe people just need some magical golden place to believe in, and Southern California seems to be that for some people. Easier to get to and less dangerous than faerie, I guess.

I actually hated to waste such a beautiful day inside. I mean, I was a princess; didn't that mean I didn't have to work? Nope. But I was a faerie princess; didn't that mean I could just wish for gold and it would magically appear? I wish. The title, like so many royal titles, came with very little in the way of money, land, or power. If I actually became queen, that would change; until then, I was on my own. Well, not exactly on my own.

Doyle sat in a chair by the windows almost directly behind me, as I sat at my desk. He was dressed as he'd been last night, except he'd added a black leather jacket over the T-shirt and a pair of black wraparound sunglasses. The brilliant sunlight sparkled in all those silver hoops and made the diamond studs in his earlobes positively dance, sending tiny rainbows across my desk. Most bodyguards would have worried more about the door than the windows. We were twenty-three stories up, after all. But the things Doyle guarded me against were as likely to fly as to walk. The creature that had left its tiny pawprint on my window had either crawled like a spider or flown.

I sat at my desk with sunlight pressing warm against my back; a rainbow from Doyle's diamond sat on my clasped hands, bringing out the green in my fingernail polish. The polish matched my jacket and the short skirt that was hidden under the desk. The sunlight and the emerald green cloth brought out the red in my hair so that it looked like spun rubies. The color also brought out the green and gold of my tricolored irises, and I'd chosen eye shadow to bring out more of the green and gold. The lipstick was red. I was all color and joyous light. One of the good things about not having to pretend to be human was I didn't have to hide the hair, the eyes, the luminous skin. I was so tired my eyes burned, and we still had no clue what, or who, had come to my window last night. So I'd dressed up for the office, just a little extra makeup, a little extra sparkle. If I died today, at least I'd look good. I'd also added a small, four-inch knife. It was strapped to my upper thigh so the metal hilt touched my bare skin. Just the touch of steel or iron could make it harder for any fey to do magic against me. After last night Doyle had thought it wise, and I hadn't argued.

I had my legs politely crossed, not because of the client sitting across from me, but because a man was under my desk, hiding in the cave that it made. Well, not man, goblin. His skin was moonlight white, as pale as my own or Rhys's, or Frost's, for that matter. The thick, softly curling black hair cut short was the perfect blackness of Doyle's hair. He was only four feet tall, a perfect male doll, except for the stripe of iridescent scales down his back, and the huge almond-shaped eyes a blue as perfect as the day's sky, but with striped elliptical pupils like a snake's. Inside his perfect cupid-bow mouth were retractable fangs and a long forked tongue that made him lisp unless he concentrated. Kitto wasn't doing well in the big city. He seemed to feel best when he could touch me, huddle at my feet, sit in my lap, curl against me while I slept. He'd been banished from my bedroom last night because Rhys wouldn't tolerate him. Goblins had taken Rhys's eye a few thousand years ago, and he'd never forgiven them for it. Rhys tolerated Kitto outside the bedroom, but that was about all.

Rhys stood in the far corner near the door where Doyle had ordered him to stand. His clothing was almost completely hidden under an expensive white trench coat just like Humphrey Bogart used to wear, except that it was made out of silk and was more for looking at than keeping off the weather. Rhys loved the fact that we were private detectives, and he usually wore either the trench coat or one of his growing collection of fedoras to work. He'd added his daywear eye patch. This one was white to match his clothes and his hair, with a pattern of tiny seed pearls sewn into it.

Kitto smoothed a hand over my hose-clad ankle. He wasn't trying to be overly friendly; he just needed the comfort of touching me. My first client of the day sat across from me, from us. Jeffery Maison was just under six feet tall, broad shouldered, narrow waisted, and designer suited, with blunt-fingered hands manicured and brown hair perfectly coifed. His smile was that bright perfect whiteness that only expensive dental work can create. He was handsome, but in an unremarkable bland sort of way. If he'd paid for surgery, he'd wasted his money, because it was the kind of face you recognized as attractive but you'd never remember it. Two minutes after he walked out the door you'd have a hard time remembering any one feature. If he'd been wearing less-expensive clothing, I'd have said he was a wanna-be actor, but wanna-bes couldn't afford perfectly tailored designer-name suits.

The perfect smile never faltered, but his eyes flicked behind me, and the eyes weren't smiling. The eyes were worried. His gaze kept flicking to Doyle, and it seemed an effort not to look behind him at Rhys. Jeffery Maison was very unhappy about the two guards being in the room. It wasn't just the feeling that most men got around my guards, the feeling that if it came to a fight, they'd lose badly. No, Mr. Maison talked about privacy; after all I was a private detective, not a public one. He'd been so unhappy that it was tempting to have Kitto bounce out from the beneath the desk and yell "Boo." I didn't do it. It wouldn't have been professional. But I amused myself with the thought while I tried to get Jeffery Maison to stop harping on the guards and actually mention something that might be job related.

Only when Doyle had said in his deep rolling voice that it was an interview with either all of us or none of us had Maison gone quiet. Too quiet, he'd sat and smiled but told me nothing.

Oh, he'd talked. "I've never seen anyone whose true hair color was Sidhe Scarlet. It's like your hair is made of rubies."

I'd smiled, nodded, tried to get down to business. "Thank you, Mr. Maison, but what brings you to the Grey Detective Agency?"

He opened that perfectly detailed mouth and tried one last time. "I was instructed to speak with you in private, Ms. NicEssus."

"I prefer Ms. Gentry. NicEssus means daughter of Essus. It's more a title than a name."

The smile was nervous, and the eyes looked self-deprecating, golly shucks ma'am. It had the feel of a look he practiced in the mirror. "Sorry, I'm not accustomed to dealing with faerie princesses." He flashed me the full smile, the one that filled his eyes with good, clean humor, and a deeper flash of something else, something I could pursue or ignore. That one look was enough. I was pretty sure how Jeffery was paying for the designer suits.

"Princesses are rather rare these days," I said, smiling, trying to be pleasant. But truth was, I hadn't gotten much sleep and I was tired. If we could just get Jeffery to go away, maybe we could have a coffee break.

"The green of your jacket brings out the green and gold in your eyes. I've never seen anyone with tricolored irises before," he said, and the smile warmed.

Rhys laughed from his corner, not even bothering to try to turn it into a cough. Rhys was as versed in surviving at court as I was. "I've got a tricolored iris, but you haven't told me how pretty I am." Rhys was right; it was time to stop being polite.

"I didn't know I was supposed to." He looked confused, a genuine, unpracticed look at last.

I uncrossed my legs and leaned forward, hands clasped on my desk. Kitto's hand slid up my calf, but he stopped at my knee. We'd had a talk about what the limits were if he hid under the desk, and the limits were my knees. Above that line and he had to go home. "Mr. Maison, we've delayed our day and rearranged a number of appointments to accommodate you. We have been polite and professional, and complimenting me on my beauty is neither polite nor professional."

He looked uncertain, but his eyes were probably the most sincere they'd been since he stepped through the door. "I thought it was considered polite to compliment the fey on their appearance. I was told that it was a deadly insult to ignore a fey when they are obviously trying to be attractive."

I stared at him. He'd finally done something truly interesting. "Most people don't know that much about fey culture, Mr. Maison. How is it that you know?"

"My employer wanted to be sure that I would give no offense. Was I supposed to compliment the men, as well? She didn't tell me I was supposed to do that."

She. I knew his employer was female. It was the most information I'd gotten from him the entire time he'd been sitting across from me. "Who is she?" I asked.

He looked at Rhys, at me, eyes flicking to Doyle, and then finally back to me. "I am under express orders to tell only you, Ms. Gentry. I… I don't know what to do."

Well, that was honest. I felt a little sorry for him; Jeffery was obviously not good at thinking on his feet. And that was being charitable.

"Why don't you call your employer," Doyle said. Jeffery jumped at the sound of that deep, rich voice. I didn't jump; I shivered. His voice was tremblingly low, a sound that made my insides quiver. I let out a low breath, as Doyle said, "Tell your employer what's happened, and maybe she can come up with a solution."

Rhys laughed again. Doyle gave him a less-than-friendly look, and Rhys stopped laughing, though he had to cover his face with his hand and cough. I didn't care. I had the feeling that if we made fun of Jeffery, we'd be here all damn day.

I turned the desk phone around to face him. I pressed the code to get him an outside line and handed the buzzing receiver to him. "Call your boss, Jeffery. We all want to get on with our day, right?" I'd used his first name deliberately. Some people respond to the respect of titles, Mr. and Ms., but some people need bullying to get them moving, and one way to bully is to use their first name.

He took the receiver and punched buttons. He said, "Hi, Marie, yes, I need to talk to her." A few seconds of silence, then he sat a little straighter, and said, "I'm sitting across from her right now. She has two bodyguards with her, and they refuse to leave. Do I talk in front of them or just leave?"

We all waited as he made small hmm noises, yes, no; finally he hung the phone back up. He sat back in his chair, hands folded in his lap, a slightly worried look on his handsome face. "My employer says I may tell you her request but not her name, not yet anyway."

I raised eyebrows and made a helpful face. "Tell us."

He gave one last nervous glance at Doyle, then let out a long breath. "My employer is in a rather delicate situation. She wishes to talk with you but says that your. ." He frowned, groping for an appropriate word. It looked like it might take a while so I helped him.

"My guards."

He smiled, obviously relieved. "Yes, yes, your guards would have to know sooner or later, so sooner it is." He seemed inordinately pleased with himself for that one small sentence. No, thinking wasn't Jeffery's forte.

"Why doesn't she just come into the office and speak with us?"

The happy smile faded, and he looked perplexed again. Puzzling Jeffery slowed things down; I wanted to speed things up. The trouble was, he was so easily puzzled, I couldn't figure out how to avoid it.

"My employer is afraid of the publicity surrounding you, Ms. Gentry."

I didn't have to ask him what he meant. At that very moment a pack of reporters, both print and film, was camped out in front of the office building. We kept the drapes closed at the apartment for fear of tele-photo lenses.

How could the media resist a royal prodigal daughter coming home after being given up for dead? That alone would have earned some uncomfortable scrutiny, but add a huge dose of romance, and the media couldn't get enough of me, or should I say, us? The public story was I'd come out of hiding to find a husband among the royal court. The traditional way for a royal of the high court to find a spouse was to sleep with them. Then if she became pregnant, she married; if not, she didn't. The fey don't have many children; the royals have even fewer, so a pairing, even a love match, that doesn't produce children isn't good enough. If you don't breed, you don't get to martyr.

Andais had ruled the Unseelie Court for over a thousand years. My father had once said that being queen meant more to her than anything else in the world. Yet, she'd promised to step down if either Cel or I would just produce an heir. Like I said, children are very important to the sidhe.

That was the public story. It hid a lot, like the fact that Cel had tried to kill me and was even now being punished for it. There was lots the media didn't know, and the queen wanted it kept that way, so we kept it that way.

My aunt told me that she wanted an heir of her own bloodline, even if that blood was tainted like mine. She once tried to drown me as a child because I wasn't magic enough and thus, to her, I wasn't really sidhe, though I wasn't really human either. It was good to keep my aunt happy; her happy meant fewer people died.

"I can understand your employer not wanting to get caught up in the media circus outside," I said.

Jeffery gave me that brilliant smile again, but his eyes were relieved not lustful. "Then you'll agree to meet with my employer someplace more private."

"The princess will not meet your employer alone anywhere," Doyle said.

Jeffery shook his head. "No, I understand that now. My employer simply wants to avoid the media."

"Short of using spells that are illegal against the media," I said, "I don't see how we could possibly avoid them all."

Jeffery was back to frowning again. I sighed. I just wanted Jeffery to go away at this point. Surely the next client of the day would be less confusing, Goddess willing. My boss Jeremy Grey had a nonrefundable retainer. We had more business than we knew what to do with. Maybe I could just tell Jeffery Maison to go home.

"I'm not allowed to say my employer's name out loud. She said that would mean something to you."

I shrugged. "I'm sorry, Mr. Maison, but it doesn't."

His frown deepened. "She was very sure that it would."

I shook my head. "I am sorry, Mr. Maison." I stood up. Kitto's hand slid down my leg so that he could hide himself completely in the little cave that my desk made. He didn't melt in sunlight, contrary to folklore, but he was agoraphobic.

"Please," Jeffrey said. "Please, I'm sure it's because I'm not saying it right."

I crossed my arms under my breasts and did not sit back down. "I'm sorry, Mr. Maison, but we've all had a long morning, too long a morning to play twenty questions. Either tell us something concrete about your employer's problem, or find another private detective firm."

He put his hand out, almost touching the desk, then let his hand fall back to his well-tailored lap. "My employer wishes to see people of her own kind again." He stared at me as if willing me to finally catch on.

I frowned at him. "What do you mean, people of her own kind?"

He frowned, clearly out of his depth, but doggedly trying. "My employer isn't human, Ms. Gentry, she's. . very aware of what high-court fey are capable of." His voice was hushed but sort of pleading, as if he'd given me the biggest hint he was allowed to give me, and he hoped I'd figure it out.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I had figured it out. There were other fey in Los Angeles, but other than myself and my guards, there was only one high royal — Maeve Reed, the golden goddess of Hollywood. She'd been the golden goddess of Hollywood for fifty years now, and since she was immortal and would never age, she might be the golden goddess of Hollywood a hundred years from now.

Once upon a time she'd been the goddess Conchenn, until King Taranis, the King of Light and Illusion, had exiled her from the Seelie Court, exiled her from faerie, and forbidden any other fey to speak with her ever again. She was to be shunned, treated as if she had died. King Taranis was my great-uncle, and technically I was fifth in line to his throne. In reality I wasn't welcome among the glittering throng. They'd made it clear at an early age that my pedigree was a little less than ideal and that no amount of royal Seelie blood could overcome being half Unseelie.

So be it. I had a court to call home now. I didn't need them anymore. There'd been a time when I was younger that it had meant something to me, but I'd had to put away that particular pain years ago. My mother was a part of the Seelie Court, and she had abandoned me to the Unseelie to further her own political ambitions. I had no mother.

Don't misunderstand, Queen Andais didn't like me much either. Even now, I wasn't completely sure why she'd chosen me as heir. Perhaps she was just running out of blood relatives. That tends to happen if enough of them die.

I opened my mouth to say Maeve Reed's name, but stopped myself. My aunt was the Queen of Air and Darkness; anything said in the dark would eventually travel back to her. I didn't think King Taranis had an equivalent power, but I wasn't 100 percent sure. Caution was better. The Queen didn't care about Maeve Reed, but she did care about having things to negotiate with, or hold against, King Taranis. No one knew why Maeve had been exiled, but Taranis had taken it personally. It might be worth something to him to know that Maeve had done the forbidden. She'd contacted a member of the courts. There's an unspoken rule that if one court banishes someone from faerie, the other court respects the punishment. I should have sent Jeffery Maison running back to Maeve Reed. I should have said no. But I didn't. Once, when I was young, I asked one of the royals about Conchenn's fate. Taranis overheard. He beat me nearly to death; beat me the way you'd strike a dog that got in your way. And that beautiful, glittering throng had all stood and watched him do it, and no one, not even my mother, had tried to help me. I agreed to meet with Maeve Reed later that day because for the first time I had enough clout to defy Taranis. To harm me now would mean war between the courts. Taranis might be an egomaniac, but even his pride wasn't worth all-out war.

Of course, knowing my aunt, it might not be war, at first. I was under the Queen's protection, which meant that anyone who harmed me had to answer to her personally. Taranis might prefer a war to the Queen's personal vengeance. After all, he'd be a King in the war, and Kings rarely see frontline action. If he pissed off Queen Andais enough, Taranis would be the front line all by his little lonesome. I was trying to stay alive, and they don't say knowledge is power for nothing.