Jeremy had been furious that none of us were coming back to the office, until he found out that Kitto had nearly died.
He was silent for a long time, long enough for me to say his name softly.
"I'm here, Merry, just bad memories. I've seen fey fade away before. Do what you need to do to take care of him. We'll muddle through at the office. They're going to keep Teresa overnight for observation. She's sedated, so I don't know how much they're going to be observing."
"Is she going to be all right?"
He hesitated. "Probably. But I've never seen her like she was today. Her husband yelled at me for endangering her. He doesn't want her doing any more crime scenes. I can't blame him."
"You think Teresa will agree with him?"
"I don't know if it matters, Merry. I've made an executive decision. The Grey Detective Agency no longer does police work. I'm a good magician, but I had no clue what did that today. I could feel the remnants of a spell, but that was all. I told Detective Tate what I'd felt, but Lieutenant Peterson didn't want to hear it. He's determined that it's something mundane. Extraordinary, but mundane." Jeremy sounded tired.
"You sound like you need to go to bed and cuddle up to somebody, too.
"You volunteering?" He laughed. "Greedy ol' Merry wanting to take up all the fey men in L.A."
"If you need to come over and be held, you'd be welcome."
He was quiet for a moment. "I'd almost forgotten that."
"Forgotten what?"
"That it's okay to be held by your friends in ways that humans consider sexual. That it would be all right for me to come and cuddle close to you while we slept."
"If you need it."
"I've been out among the humans too long, Merry. I don't think entirely like a trow anymore. I don't know if I could go to bed with you and not have it turn sexual."
I hadn't known what to say to that.
When I woke, the light against the drapes was fading to dusk. I was still spooned around Kitto's body, and he was still pressed against me as tight as he could get. It was as if neither of us had moved all day. I lay there for a moment feeling how stiff my body was from simply being immobile for so long. The shoulder ached distantly, ignorable. Kitto's breathing was still deep and regular. What had woken me?
Then a soft knocking sounded at the door again. It opened before I could say anything. Galen peered through. He smiled when he saw me awake.
"How's Kitto?"
I moved enough to prop myself up on one elbow and look down at the goblin. He made a small sound and cuddled in against me so that there was again no space between his body and mine.
"He looks better, and he's warm." I combed my ringers through his curls. His head moved to cuddle in against the movement of my hand, but he never woke.
"Is anything wrong?" I asked.
Galen made a face that I couldn't quite read. "Well, not exactly."
I frowned at him. "What is it?"
He came into the room, gently closing the door behind him. We talked in low voices, so as not to disturb Kitto.
Galen came to stand at the end of the bed. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt whose pale green color brought out the green tint in his skin, intensified the darker color of his hair. The pants were just faded blue jeans washed until they were almost white. There was a hole in the middle of his thigh where white threads gave hints of the pale green skin underneath.
I realized he'd said something and I hadn't been paying attention. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"
He grinned, flashing white teeth. "Queen Niceven's representative is here. He says he has strict orders to collect the first payment before he tells us the secret of how to cure me."
My gaze went back to the hole in his pants, then traveled up his body until I met those grass green eyes. The heat in his eyes matched the tightening in my body.
Kitto stirred beside me, opened his blue, blue eyes. Talking, doors opening, and my moving hadn't stirred him; but the tightening of my body in response to Galen, that had woken him.
I explained briefly that Niceven's man was here. Kitto had no problem with the demi-fey coming into the room. I'd known he would have no problem. I'd asked for politeness' sake. The queen wouldn't have asked, but I think it was more that she didn't care what someone thought, rather than her knowing they wouldn't mind.
Galen went back to the door and opened it wide. A tiny figure fluttered in. The body was about the size of a small Barbie doll. His wings were larger than the rest of his body, and mostly rich butter yellow with lines and bars of black and spots of blue and orangey-red. He hovered over the bed, above me. His body was a slightly paler version of the rich yellow of his wings. He wore a filmy yellow skirt, or kilt, as his only clothing.
"Greetings to Princess Meredith of the Unseelie from Queen Niceven of the demi-fey. I am known as Sage, most lucky fey to be chosen as our royal majesty's ambassador to the Western Lands." His voice was like the sound of tinkling bells, a laughing sound. It made me smile, and I knew instantly it was glamour.
I tsked at him. "No glamour between us, Sage, for that is a kind of lie."
He pressed tiny perfect hands to his chest, his wings beating faster, sending a breath of air against my face. "Glamour, I? Would a humble demi-fey be able to do glamour to a sidhe of the Unseelie Court?"
He had been careful not to deny the charge; he simply skirted the issue. "You can drop the glamour, or it can be stripped from you. You can put it all back, but for our first meeting I want to see what, or whom, I am truly dealing with."
He flew closer, close enough that the wind from his wings played in the strands of hair around my face. "My lovely maiden, you wound me. I am as fair as you see me here."
"If that is true, then light upon me and let me test the truth of your words. For if you are truly as you appear, then touching my flesh will not change you, but if you play me false, then the mere touch of my skin will show your true self." The very formality of the words was a type of spell. I had spoken truly and believed utterly what I had said; thus it was true. When he touched my skin, he would be forced to appear as he truly was.
I sat up so I could extend a hand. The sheets slipped down, pooling at my waist. Kitto curled himself closer around me, his large eyes staring at the fluttering fey. He watched the tiny figure like a cat fascinated by a bird. I knew that the goblins were not above cannibalizing other fey. The look on Kitto's face said that, perhaps, demi-fey were a delicacy.
"Are you all right, Kitto?"
He blinked and looked up at me. His gaze slid from the fluttering fey, across my bare breasts, and the look of hunger changed but a very little. That one look frightened me. Something must have shown on my face because Kitto hid his own face against my bare hip, snuggling under the sheet.
"The taste of flesh has made our little goblin bold." Doyle was in the doorway.
The little fey turned in midair to give a small bow. "The Queen's Darkness, I am honored."
Doyle gave the barest of bows, a mere nod to courtesy. "Sage, I must say that I am surprised to see you here."
The tiny flying man rose upward so that he could come close to seeing Doyle eye to eye; but he stayed out of reach, like the shy insect he resembled.