“Yes,” she said, hovering near Rhys’s face, her wings beating so quickly that the edge of his curls blew softly in the wind of her flight.
“Did I seem like I needed a pep talk to you?” Rhys asked.
“There is often an air of melancholy about you.”
I glanced from the tiny fey to Rhys and wondered, would I have thought that? Was that true? He joked a lot and made light comments, but … behind all of it, Penny was right. I found it interesting that she had paid that much attention to him. I thought of several motives for a female to pay that much attention to a man—did Penny have a crush on Rhys? Or was she just that wise and observant of all of us, of everything? If the first was true, then I doubted Rhys would realize it, and if the second was true, then hearing her thoughts on other things might be interesting.
“Penny, do you think we should do the reality show?” I asked.
She dipped down, which was a flying demi-fey’s way of stumbling. I’d surprised her.
“It is not my place to say.”
“I’ve asked your opinion,” I said.
She cocked her head to one side, then moved in the air so she was more in front of my face than Rhys’s. “Why ask my opinion, my lady?”
“It will affect you, as it will affect everyone who lives with us, so I am interested in what you think.”
She gave me a very serious, searching look. I saw the intelligence in that tiny face that I hadn’t seen before; she was as bright as her brother, but maybe a better thinker, deeper anyway.
“Very well. The queen is always very careful to look good in front of the human media, so if you did the reality show, then cameras might keep us all safe from her.”
“The queen is insane, she can’t help herself,” Galen said.
Penny looked at him, then back to me. “If that were true, then she would have lost her control at a press conference decades ago, but she never has; if she can control herself to that degree then she is not truly insane, she is simply cruel. Never mistake someone who cannot control their murderous impulses from someone who simply has no one to tell them, ‘Stop, behave yourself.’ I find that most cruel people, no matter how awful their actions, once faced with punishment, or someone stronger, behave. Mean is not crazy, it is merely mean.”
I thought about what Penny had said, really thought about it. “She’s right. My aunt has never lost control of herself in front of the media. If she were truly serial killer crazy, she’d have lost it at least once, but she never has, not that I remember.” I looked at Rhys and then at Galen.
They looked at each other, and then back at me. “Well, I’ll be damned,” Rhys said.
“Penny is right, isn’t she?” Galen asked.
I nodded. “I think she is.”
“The king also has never lost control in front of the media.”
“He attacked our human lawyers and us once before he kidnapped me,” I said.
“But there was no media to record it, Princess Merry. It is still a matter of witnesses, but no video or pictures.”
“I think that the king was honestly insane during that attack,” Rhys said. “His guard had to physically jump him, bury him under their bodies to keep him from continuing the attack.”
I shivered and cuddled into Rhys. Taranis had almost killed Doyle in that attack, and my Darkness was not an easy kill.
“If that is true, then a television show may not protect us from the king.”
One of the other demi-fey flew upward on tiny white wings with little black spots on them. She was even tinier than Penny’s Barbie doll size, as if she were trying harder to ape the butterfly she resembled. It was a Cabbage White, an American butterfly, which meant she’d likely been born here.
Her voice was high and musical, as if a trilling bird’s song could be words. “My sister is still in the Seelie Court. She told me that the king was enraged that you had slipped his seduction magic. He’d never had a woman except for the queen of the Unseelie Court escape from his spells.”
“Which is why he came for me later,” I said, softly.
The little faerie flew closer and laid a hand no bigger than the nail of my little finger on my hand. “But even then his magic did not work; he had to hit you with brute force like any human. He knows now that his magic does not work on you.”
“Did your sister hear him say that?” Rhys asked.
She nodded so hard that her pale blond curls bobbed.