“What are you thinking?” I asked him.
“Not just him,” Rhys said.
“No, not just him,” Galen said. He shivered, rubbing his arms as if he was cold, too. “For once I know what the bad news is before anyone says it.”
“Then fill me in,” I said.
“If only the queen can make time change inside the sithen, and Merry was able to do it…” Galen said, and left it unfinished.
“Once upon a time,” Doyle said, his voice seeming deeper, as if the low-growling echoes needed to fill all the small room, “even if you fought your way to the throne, or were elected by all the other rulers as high king, or high queen, you still could not rule a faerie mound. You could not sit on the throne of a specific sithen unless the sithen itself accepted your right to rule.”
“I haven’t heard that story,” I said.
“It is a forbidden story,” Frost said, looking at Doyle.
“Why would it be forbidden?” Galen asked.
I made the logic leap this time. “Andais wasn’t chosen by the sithen,” I said.
“She was in Europe,” Doyle said, “but when we arrived in America, the new faerie mound did not.”
“What do you mean ‘new’?” I asked.
“Faerie is not just a physical location. The moment Andais stepped into the new mound here, it should have been the same, but it wasn’t.”
“We all assumed it was because of the third weirding, the one that the American government forced on us before they would allow us to move here,” Rhys said. “So many of us lost so much power that we—” he shrugged—“sort of looked the other way about the sithen not cuddling up to Andais.”
“She did allow the nobles to enter the sithen and have us watch them one by one,” Frost said. “If the sithen had reacted to any of them more than to her, she had agreed to step aside.”
“My aunt agreed to let the throne go to any noble the sithen chose?” I said.
“Hard to believe, I know,” Rhys said, “but she did. We all assumed that the last weirding had taken too much of her power for her to rule us. Then the worst happened.”
“The sithen knew none of them,” Doyle said.
“Okay, I understand how that would be bad, but why is it forbidden to talk about it?” I asked.
“Did Prince Essus ever explain to you how the various faerie courts came into being?” Doyle asked.
I started to say yes, of course he had, but he hadn’t. “I know that once the sidhe were not simply two courts, Seelie and Unseelie, but dozens, with different kings and queens, like the goblin court and the sluagh, but more independent.”
“So independent that we fought among ourselves, until we all agreed that we needed a high king,” Rhys said. “Once there was only one sidhe high ruler, not two.”
“I know this one,” I said. “The first Unseelie sidhe ruler was cast out of the Seelie Court, but he refused to leave faerie. He went from court to court and asked for entrance, but they feared the sidhe, and so finally the only fey court left was the sluagh. The most frightening and least human of all the fey. They took him in, and from that time on any sidhe who was cast out of other courts could petition to join the sluagh.”
“Very good,” Rhys said, “but do you know when the Unseelie became a sidhe court, separate from the sluagh?”
“When there were enough sidhe who didn’t want to be called sluagh,” I said.
“Almost,” Doyle said.
“Why almost?” I asked.
“At one time, a fey of a certain kind would simply become powerful enough, magical enough, for the very stuff of faerie to acknowledge them, and create a kingdom for them. One of the sidhe who had joined the sluagh was our first king. Faerie created a place for him to rule, and the sidhe left the sluagh’s court and made one of our own.”
“Okay,” I said.
“We’re all afraid to say it,” Rhys said, “because we’ve all managed not to say the part that is most likely to get us in trouble.”
“What part?” I asked.
“A court without a ruler begins to fade,” Nicca said.
They all looked at him as if surprised he’d had the courage to say it. It took me a moment to understand the implications.
It was Galen who had said it out loud. “Goddess save us, that’s what’s been happening to our court. We had no true ruler, so the sithen was dying. Our slice of faerie has been dying.”
“Not just ours,” Doyle said.
“Who else?” I asked.
“Our bright cousins follow a king whose sithen did not know him.”
“Their sithen didn’t know any of their nobles either?” I asked.
“Rumor has it, and it’s only rumor, that instead of welcoming sidhe who the sithen recognized, he exiled them,” Rhys said.
“It’s not rumor,” Doyle said.
We all looked at him. “Who?” I asked.
“Aisling,” he said.
Something on Frost’s face told me that he had known. The rest looked as shocked as I felt. “They had a true king and Taranis exiled him?”
Doyle and Frost nodded.
“But that is monstrous,” Nicca said. “Even Andais was willing to give up her throne if a true queen could have been found.”
“Does his court know?” I asked Doyle.
“Most, no.”
“But some?” I asked.
“Some,” he said.
“How can they support him? The Unseelie had no choice but to fade, but he had a new king to sit on the Seelie throne. They didn’t have to fade.”
“Did our sithen recognize Aisling when he came here?” Galen asked.
“No,” Doyle said.
“Why not?” he asked.
Doyle shrugged, and I guess that was answer enough, or the only answer he had.
“The bath is ready,” Kitto said, his voice as neutral and empty as a servant’s.
I touched his shoulder, and he gave me a small smile. Something occurred to me. “Did the goblin mound know Kurag when you came to this country?”
“I am not important enough to know such things. I do not know.”
“The goblins are less faded than the sidhe. They are still what we left them.”
“But wait,” Galen said, “the Seelie sidhe are less faded in power than we are. Why is that? Shouldn’t both courts be fading at about the same rate?”
“They should be,” Doyle said.
“But they aren’t,” I said.
“They don’t seem to be,” Rhys said.
“You’ve thought of something,” Doyle said.
“What made Taranis desperate enough to help release the Nameless, one of our most dangerous magicks, into the human world to kill Maeve Reed? She’d been exiled from faerie for more than a century. It couldn’t have just been Merry’s visit to her. That could have gotten him to send someone to assassinate Maeve, but not to release the Nameless.” Rhys shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I can’t make it make sense.”
“Like his inviting Merry to his ball,” Galen said. “That makes no sense either. He’s hated her all her life.”
“Not hated, Galen, you have to think more of a person to hate them, and my uncle doesn’t think anything of me. I was more a nonentity at the Seelie Court than here at the Unseelie Court.”
“So why is he so hot to see you? Why now?”
“None of us have liked this sudden invitation,” Doyle said, “but we have had our discussions, and we are going to accept.”
“I still think it’s too dangerous for Merry,” Galen said.
“We will be there to protect her,” Doyle said.
“You know, it would be really interesting to take Aisling as one of my honor guard.”
“I do not believe that Taranis would allow him to pass into his court,” Doyle said.
“If he refuses any of my guard it is within my rights to take insult and refuse the invitation,” I said.
They all looked at one another. “It has possibilities,” Rhys said.
Galen nodded. “I like anything that keeps Merry from having to attend this ball.”
“How can you say that?” Frost asked. “You saw what just the touch of Aisling’s power did to Melangell. Taranis has negotiated that only the guards who have visited Meredith’s bed may accompany her to the ball.”