"Duels are illegal," she said primly.
"As are compulsion spells that steal the free will of any legal citizen of these United States."
She blinked at me, frowning. Bittersweet cuddled against Gilda's curls with a face gone half sleepy, as if touching Gilda made the godmother's spell even stronger. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do," I said, and I leaned closer, so that the light around her dress reflected in my tricolor eyes and moonlight skin. "I don't remember you being this powerful last time we met, Gilda. What have you been doing to gain such power?"
I was close enough to see the flash of fear in her perfect blue eyes. She masked it, but it had been there. What had she been doing that she didn't want anyone to know about? I had the thought that maybe she really didn't want Bittersweet to talk to the police. Maybe Gilda knew more about the murders than she wanted to let on. There were spells - evil spells, forbidden spells - that allowed a fey to steal power from those less powerful. I'd even seen a human wizard who had perfected it so that he could steal power from other humans who had only the faintest trace of faerie blood. He'd died trying to rape me. No, I didn't kill him. The sidhe traitor who had given the human the power killed him before we could use him to trace the power back to its master. The traitor was dead now, too, so it had all evened out.
Then I realized why I'd noticed the blond wannabe in the cafe. We'd killed the main wizard of that ring of magic thiefs and rapists, but we hadn't caught all of them. One of them had been described to me as an uncircumcised wannabe with long blond hair named Donald. It would be a huge coincidence, but I'd seen bigger coincidences in real life. Was stealing magic slowly over months that much of a step up to stealing the demi-fey's magic all at once? It was only magic that kept the smallest of us alive outside of faerie.
Something must have shown on my face, because Gilda asked, "What's wrong with you? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Do you know an elf wannabe named Donald?"
"I would never consort with the false elves. They are an abomination."
I thought her choice of words was interesting. "Do you have a sidhe lover?"
"That is none of your business."
I studied her offended face. Would she not know the difference between a really well-done wannabe and the real thing? I doubted that she'd ever been with a true sidhe of the courts, and if you've never had the real thing you might have trouble spotting a fake.
I smiled, and said, "Hold that thought." I started for the door behind her. Doyle and Frost followed like shadows. Lucy called after me, "Merry, where are you going?"
"Need to check something in the cafe," I called back but kept moving. The room was thick with people, police of different flavors, and the court retinue that followed Gilda everywhere, but that the police hadn't allowed into the back room. They were a pretty lot, almost as shiny and spectacular as their mistress. There were still customers at the tables, a mix of human and fey. Some had stayed to have tea and cakes, but others were just there to gawk.
I pushed my way through the crowd, until Doyle moved a little forward of me and people just seemed to move out of his way. When he wanted to he could be very intimidating. I'd seen men step out of his way without even knowing why they'd done so. But when Doyle got me through the crowd, the table that had held the blond wannabe was empty.
Chapter Ten