Half an hour later we were standing on a dais with three microphones standing in the middle of it. Madeline had rallied and gone back to her normal pleasure in being able to boss around some of the most powerful beings left on the planet. Of course, if Madeline Phelps were intimidated by the powerful, or even the scary, she'd never have survived seven years working for Queen Andais. Doyle and Barinthus had finally reminded her that we were on a tight schedule, and allowed her to exchange Galen's much-loved leather jacket for a tailored suit jacket. I'd known Kitto's Day-Glo coat would have to go, but I hadn't realized that jeans and a polo shirt were not acceptable. The problem in Los Angeles was that Kitto was too broad-shouldered for most boys' fashions, but not tall enough for most men's, so his shopping choices were limited. Apparently the queen had thought of that, and to complement the black slacks that we had been able to find, she supplied a jewel-tone long-sleeved silk shirt, but the black jacket she had sent did not fit. It was too broad through the shoulders and long in the arm. Madeline had finally admitted that the jacket looked worse than the shirt by itself. The other men, she had to admit, grudgingly, looked fine. Actually, there wasn't a man among them who ever just looked fine. Fabulous, handsome, amazing, but not fine.

I, on the other hand, needed a shorter skirt. She supplied one that was a fringe of black pleats that barely covered my upper thighs. My penchant for wearing thigh-high hose under any skirt meant that when I moved, the lacy tops flashed. If I wasn't careful how I walked on the raised dais, I'd flash a hell of a lot more than the tops of my hose. I was glad that I'd worn nice black underwear, with no peekaboo lace or holes. If I flashed, at least all they'd see would be solid black satin. Of course with a different skirt, I needed different shoes. Madeline had brought a pair of four-inch spike patent-leather heels. I'm good at it, walking in heels, but I made her promise that I could change before I went out into the snow. Spike heels are not made for snow, unless you want to break an ankle.

I stood on the dais against the wall with Frost on one side and Doyle on the other. The rest of my guards ranged on either side. It was a little like standing in line before a firing squad—though the police stood in a semicircle at the base of the dais, to make sure that it didn't become a real firing squad. Truthfully, unless the queen was keeping big secrets from us, I think the police were there mainly to keep the reporters from rushing the stage. Or maybe that was just my level of discomfort with this many media in one room. It was a near-claustrophobic sensation, as if they were breathing too much of my air.

I'd been doing events like this since I could remember, but ever since my father's death, and the press coverage of his assassination, I'd not been as comfortable with the media. During the most painful event of my life, they had kept asking me, How do you feel, Princess Meredith? My father, whom I adored, had been slaughtered by unknown assassins. How the hell did they think I felt? But the queen didn't allow me to say that to anyone. Not the truth. No, Queen Andais, with her own brother dead, had made me face the media and be royal. I don't think I'd ever hated the fact that I was a princess more than during that year. If you're royal, you aren't allowed to mourn in private. Your pain is paraded across the evening news, the tabloids, the daily papers. Everywhere I looked I saw my father's picture. Everywhere I looked I saw his dead body. In Europe they'd published pictures that the American papers wouldn't touch, and it had been bloody. My father's tall, strong body, reduced to a red ruin. His hair spilled out across the grass like a black cloak, the rest of him nearly unrecognizable.

I must have made some sound, because Doyle touched my arm. He leaned in and whispered, «Are you well?»

I nodded, licked my freshly lipsticked mouth, and nodded again. «Just remembering the first press conference I ever saw this full.»

He did something in public that he had never done as the Queen's Darkness: He hugged me, albeit one-armed, so he still had some chance of getting to his weapons. I leaned in against his leather jacket and the solid warmth of him underneath. I ignored the burst of flashbulbs, tried not to think that the image was being captured in every medium known to man, or woman. I needed the hug, so I took it, and tried to let go of my gloom. We were here to discuss my search for a husband, a prince, a future king. It was a happy occasion, and the queen would want us smiling.

Madeline took the first question while I was still leaning against Doyle. It was for me, of course.

Doyle gave me a last squeeze, and I sashayed, smiling, on my four-inch spike heels. The question was one I'd had before; most of them would be. «Princess Meredith, have you chosen a husband?»

«No,» I said.

The next reporter stood up to ask his question. «Then why this visit home? What have you come to announce?»

The queen had told me how much truth I could tell. «My uncle, the King of Light and Illusion, is throwing a ball in my honor.»

«Will you be taking your guards?»

That was a tricky question. If I just said yes, then they could print that I didn't feel safe in the Seelie Court without bodyguards. Which was actually the truth, but we couldn't let them know that. «My guards go everywhere with me —» I hesitated, and Madeline came in close enough to whisper, «Steve,» to me. I finished, «— Steve. It is a dance, after all, and I wouldn't leave my best partners home twiddling their thumbs, would I?» Smile, smile, and move on.

A woman asked, «Queen Andais announced that there will be a dance tonight in your honor at her court. When will you be going to the Seelie Court?»

«It's planned for two nights hence,» I'd added planned for in case something awful happened and we decided it was too dangerous to go. The hence was because the media liked it if we put in an archaic word now and then, or even just a word that they thought was archaic. I was a faerie princess, and some people were disappointed that I talked like a Midwestern native. So occasionally, I tried to sound the way people wanted us to sound. Most of the men still held at least an edge of their original accent. It was just me who sounded like the American girl next door. Well, me and Galen.

«Are the courts going to reconcile?»

«To my knowledge the courts aren't feuding, unless you know something I don't, Maury.» I actually remembered his name on my own. Smile, cock my head to one side, give them a glimpse of how young I can still look when I need to. It was my version of Bambi eyes: See how harmless and cute I am, don't hurt me.

I got laughter for the cute act, and more flashbulbs, until I was nearly dazzled blind by them. I answered the next question with spots dancing through my vision. I'd have worn sunglasses if my aunt hadn't sent word that I couldn't. Sunglasses weren't friendly. We wanted to look friendly. She'd allowed the guards who had brought sunglasses to wear them. Nearly a first. It meant that she was worried, more worried than the last time I'd been home. And still none of us knew why.

I had to admit with most of them in dark glasses, they did look like backup singers. Merry and her Merry men. That's what the media had coined for us. Not quite the name of a rock group, but I'd heard worse.

«Which of your guards is the best in bed?» This from a female reporter.

I shook my head enough to make my hair swing, and the emerald earrings catch the light. «Oh, now—» Madeline whispered the woman's name in my ear. «— Stephanie, a lady doesn't kiss and tell.»

«But you're not a lady,» a man's voice piped up from the back of the room. I knew the voice. He'd spoken loud enough that the room had gone quiet, so that his next shout was very clear: «Just another faerie slut. Royal blood doesn't change that.»

I leaned into the microphone and made my voice low and rich. «You're just jealous, Barry.»

A portion of the policemen in the circle were already working their way toward the back of the room. Barry Jenkins was always on the do-not-let-him-in list. I had a restraining order against him dating back to my father's death. He'd gotten better, or worse, photos than anyone of my father's body, and me weeping over him. The courts had agreed that what he'd done subsequently had infringed on the rights of a minor—me. They'd ruled that he could not profit by the exploitation of a minor child. That meant that all his photos that he hadn't used yet were useless. He couldn't sell them. He had to give the money he'd already received for photos and articles to charity. He'd gone from maybe winning a Pulitzer to nothing. For that and an incident on a lonely country road, where I took my own revenge, he'd never forgiven me.

He'd had his own revenge, in a way. When my once-upon-a-time fiance, Griffin, had sold intimate pictures to the tabloids, it had been with Jenkins's byline. I wasn't a minor anymore, and Griffin had gone to him, so he hadn't even had to come within fifty feet of me to write the story.

My aunt, the Queen of Air and Darkness, had declared a death sentence on Griffin. Not for hurting me, but for betraying our intimate secrets to the humans. That was not allowed. To my knowledge they were still hunting for him. I think if she could have sent Doyle after him, he'd have been dead by now, but her Darkness had better things to do than revenge. Keeping me alive, and getting me pregnant, were more important to her than Griffin's punishment. Hell's bells, they were more important to me.

I didn't want Griffin dead. His death wouldn't change what he'd done. It wouldn't change that he'd been my fiance for seven years, and that he'd betrayed me with anything he could sleep with. We'd been broken up for more than three years before he betrayed me in the press. Griffin seemed to believe that he was so good that I'd take him back. His delusions weren't my problem. So he'd gone back to the queen's guards, and because I refused him, she'd declared him celibate again. If he didn't sleep with me, he slept with no one. Part of me had enjoyed the irony of it. Part of me had enjoyed the revenge. The next day the tabloids had carried the pictures, and his interview with Jenkins.

The policemen stationed at the doors closed off Jenkins's escape so he could only stand there and wait for the other policemen to come get him. «What's the matter, Meredith, afraid of the truth?»

«The restraining order says that you must stay at least fifty feet away from me, Jenkins. This room isn't that big.»