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rather than a true dye. Her artful makeup complimented a slender face, and though she was a few inches
taller than me, she was small for a full-blooded human.
"It looks like a problem," the major said.
I wondered what I'd done to deserve someone with the rank of major being in charge of my police
security. Was the queen keeping as many secrets from us as we were from her? Looking up into the
major's serious face, I thought, Maybe.
Madeline smiled and tried to win him over, even putting a hand on his forearm. His eyes didn't thaw; in
fact, he stared at her hand until she took it away. "Do you know the old saying about the duck?" he
asked in a voice that was still utterly serious.
She looked puzzled for a second, regained her smile, and shook her head. "Sorry, can't say that I do."
"If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it's a duck," he said.
Madeline looked puzzled again, which didn't mean she was. She capitalized on being small and cute, and
only at odd moments did you realize just how shrewd and business-like she really was.
I'd never had much patience with women who hid their intelligence. I thought it set a bad precedent for
the rest of us. "He means if it looks like a problem, sounds like a problem, and acts like a problem, then
it's a problem," I said.
The major, whose nameplate said WALTERS, turned his cold grey eyes on me. It wasn't just the normal
unreadable cop eyes, either; he was mad about something. But what? His eyes thawed a little, as if he
liked that I'd stopped playing games, or as if he wasn't mad at me. "Princess Meredith, I'm Major
Walters, and I'm in charge of this detail until we cross over onto sidhe territory."
"Now, Major," Madeline said, "you and Captain Barinthus are both in charge, that's what the queen
agreed to."
"You can't have two leaders," the major said, "not and get anything done." He glanced at Abloec, then at
Barinthus, and the look said he didn't like the way Barinthus was running his men. What Major Walters
couldn't know, and none of us would ever admit outside the sidhe, was that if things weren't running
smoothly, it was almost always Queen Andais's fault, or her son's. But since Prince Cel was still locked
safely away, it had to be something that the queen had done.
For the life of me I couldn't think why she'd have allowed Abloec to be seen in front of as much media
presence as was likely to be in the press conference. He was addicted to everything, drink, cigarettes,
drugs. You name it, Abe liked it. Once he'd been the greatest libertine of the Seelie Court, a lover and
seducer par excellence. He was cast out of the Seelie Court for seducing the wrong woman, and Andais
would only allow him into the Unseelie Court on one condition. He had to join her guard, which meant
that Abe went from being one of the busiest lovers of the sidhe to being celibate. He'd taken to drink,
and when stronger drugs were invented he took those. Unfortunately for him it was almost impossible for
a sidhe to become completely impaired by alcohol or drugs. You could get drunk, but never to the point
where you passed out. Never to the point where true oblivion could ease your pain. The best Abe could
do was take the edge off and become addicted to damn near everything. My father had kept him far
from me, and my aunt despised him, thought him weak. So he'd been hidden away on small duties for
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centuries, an embarrassment to us all. So why was he here, now, in such a public forum? It made no
sense. Not that everything Andais did made sense, but in public she always came off as the perfect
queen. A drunken guard was not good press. A drunken guard entrusted with the life of a princess and
heir to a throne was worse than simply bad press, it was careless. Andais was many things, but careless
was not one of them.
"I earned the right to be here, Darkness, trust me on that," Abe said. His smile was gone, and there was
something very sober in his charcoal-grey eyes.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Walters asked.
Neither the guards nor I had to ask. If he'd earned it, then he'd done something that he'd hated but had
pleased the queen. It usually involved sex, or sadism, or both. The guards kept their secrets about what
humiliations the queen demanded of them. There's an old saying that you'd crawl over broken glass for
someone, or something. Apparently that wasn't just a saying with the queen. What would a person do to
end hundreds of years of celibacy? What wouldn't he do?
It must have shown on at least some of our faces, because Walters looked even grumpier and said,
"What aren't you telling me?"
Barinthus and Doyle gave him their empty faces, honed to unreadability by centuries of court politics. I
turned in against Frost's body so that my face was hidden from the major. I just didn't give good blank
face anymore.
Frost slid one arm across my shoulders, but opened his coat so that I was snuggled inside it. Most
people would have thought that he was trying to get me closer to his body, but I knew better: He was
opening his coat so he could go for his gun, or knives if he needed to. Hugging was fine, but for the
guards, duty had to come first.
Since it was my life they were protecting, I never got my feelings hurt about it.
"To my knowledge, Major," Barinthus said, "we are not concealing anything from you that will impact
your ability to perform your job."
Walters almost smiled. "You're not going to deny that you're withholding information from me, from the
police?"
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