“Very true,” Doyle said.
“I don’t believe we would all have lived to see the babies born,” Rhys said.
“Too many enemies still left in the darkling court,” Doyle agreed.
“Or perhaps the Goddess and God would have protected you,” Royal said.
We all looked at the delicate figure still tucked into the chair with a baby who might, or might not, be his daughter.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“If the Goddess and God crowned the two of you, maybe they would have worked to keep you safe on the throne?”
I thought about it. “Are you saying we needed to have faith, little one?” Doyle asked.
“You still talk as if the power of the Goddess has not returned to bless us all with Her Grace, but she has moved among us these last months even here outside faerie, in the far Western Lands.”
I said, “The Goddess told me that if the fey weren’t willing to accept Her blessings, then I should take them out among the humans and see if they appreciated them more.”
“Humans are always impressed with magic,” Sholto said.
“But it’s not magic,” I said. “It’s miracles.”
“Aren’t miracles just a type of magic?” he asked.
I thought about that, and finally said, “I’m not sure, perhaps.”
“What did the queen say when you told her not to come?” I asked.
Doyle met my eyes, but his face was unreadable, as closed and mysterious as he had ever been, but now I understood what the look meant. He was hiding something from me, protecting me, he thought. I saw it as not sharing information that I needed.
“What makes you think I have spoken to the queen?”
“Who else had a chance of persuading her to stay away but the Queen’s Darkness?”
“I am no longer her Darkness, but yours.”
“Then tell me what she said, and what she wants.”
“She wants to see her brother’s grandchildren.”
“You’ve told me that she’s still torturing random people at court,” I said.
“She was the most composed I have seen her since this last madness gripped her.”
“And how composed was that?” Rhys asked, and by tone and expression he showed that he didn’t believe it would be composed enough.
“She seemed her old self, before Cel’s death and our giving up the throne drove her mad.”
“You still believe that she was trying to be so insane that some of her court would kill her?”
“I believe that for this space of time she sought death, or didn’t care whether she lived or died,” Doyle said.
I thought about the broken, bloody bodies of the people that had been brought to us or escaped to find refuge with us. The queen had not tried to hunt down any of the refugees of her court, even though it was well known that her nobles had come to seek asylum with us.
“If positions had been reversed, she would have sent me to kill you months ago,” Doyle said.
I nodded, hugging Gwenwyfar a little closer, feeling her deeply asleep in my arms. It helped me stay calm and say, “She would have said, ‘Where is my Darkness? Bring me my Darkness,’ and you would have come like a shadow and ended my life.”