Fire Touched (Mercy Thompson 9)

I smelled Margaret’s sudden embarrassment. “I had a much more tactful way to ask that,” she said. Then she let out a frustrated growl. “We’ve been living together for two and a half years, and the most passion I get is a kiss on the forehead. And I don’t have anyone but Thomas to ask about it. And I can’t ask Thomas.”

“Obviously not,” I said. The reason I hadn’t had the girlfriend talk with anyone in a long time is that I sucked at it. I could barely talk to Adam about our relationship, and I loved Adam.

“Right?” she said.

I liked Margaret. I wanted to help her if I could, even if only as a sounding board. But. I couldn’t forget what Margaret was. Despite the easy way she’d thanked me and how she’d just established that she was not under the power of the Gray Lords, she was still fae. If there was one thing I’d learned about the fae, it was that being in their debt was only a little more dangerous than having a fae in my debt. If she wanted my help—I’d ask for her help, too.

“I have a proposition for you,” I said. “I’ll try to help you—as much as one clueless person can help another—if you’ll give me some intelligence on the people in the room tonight.” Like, say, the name of the middle-aged woman in salmon who had tortured Zee. “I could ask Zee—but he tends to hate everyone uniformly.”

It hadn’t been an accident that Tad had been the one to talk to Adam and me about the Widow Queen. I could call Ariana, maybe, but she was in Europe, and she hadn’t been in that room tonight.

“Deal,” she said promptly. “What do you want to know?”

“Don’t you think I should go first?” I asked. “I see your problem, but I’m relationship-challenged. Since Thomas sounds like he’s relationship-challenged, too, you might be better off talking to Adam, who has experience dealing with stupid people.”

She leaned back in her seat and smiled sweetly. Unlike when Zee smiled sweetly, it didn’t send the hairs on the back of my neck up with nervousness. “I’m not in the inner circle of the Council, either. All I know is the stuff my father drilled into my head. But he was pretty sharp. I have to tell you, that if all you do is listen to me whine, it would help me a great deal. Let’s do politics first. I have a feeling it will be less depressing. What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with the woman in the salmon-colored suit,” I said.

“Órlaith,” she said. “She is the sister of Brian mac Cennétig.”

I frowned because she said the name of Órlaith’s brother as if I should have known him. “Who?” I asked.

“He was the high king of Ireland,” she said. “He defeated the kings of Ulster.”

I only knew one of the high kings of Ireland named Brian. Okay, I only knew the name of one of the high kings of Ireland, and his name was Brian.

“Do you mean Brian Boru?” I asked tentatively. “The one who united all of the Irish against the Vikings?”

She let out a huff of air. “And a good thing it is that my father died before he heard you say that. Boru is a nickname given him years after he died by people who didn’t know him. And the Vikings weren’t driven out, they were assimilated . . . not that it is important to our current conversation.”

Not being an expert on Irish history, I didn’t feel the need to argue. “Okay. So Brian Boru was fae?”

“No. His father married a fae lady who saw to it that he thought her daughter Órlaith was his. She soon grew bored of him and went on her way, but she left her daughter behind.” Margaret huffed. “But that’s not what you need to know, is it? Still, despite her chosen appearance, Órlaith is very young for a Gray Lord. Even so, my father said she is too tied to the glories of the past. Her greatest strength is in her ability to persuade people to follow her. My father liked her a great deal.”

“I think she tortured Zee,” I said. “I don’t think I’m going to like her.”

She smiled, but it was a sad smile. “My father did not like your Zee. The Dark Smith was not, even by the flexible standards of the fae, a hero.”

I knew that. I knew that. But I’d worked side by side with him for most of my adult life. I’d seen him do a lot of small kindnesses, and I suspected that there were some I’d missed because he was embarrassed by them. He was not petty, and I’d never seen him be cruel.

I decided it would be safer to change the subject. “So the Widow Queen?”

“Neuth?” Margaret focused her gaze on the dark beyond the windows of the Subaru. “She’s not a nice person. Dangerous. She takes pleasure in the misery of others. She despises humankind—despises those weaker than her, and most people are weaker than she is.”

That dovetailed with what Tad had said about her.

“Goreu,” I said.

She looked at me. “My father didn’t know him well. Goreu didn’t take an active role among the fae until after my father died. Much of what I know of him comes from the research Thomas did for this trip.” She smiled, as if at some memory. “The vampires follow fae politics for entertainment. Thomas gathered a lot more information about current politics than the Gray Lords would be comfortable with if they knew.” She tapped a finger on the dash. “So Goreu. King Arthur wasn’t a king, really, and the stories of the knights of the round table are only very loosely factual. But Arthur was a hero, and Goreu rode with him. He killed a giant. The troll you killed was but a rabbit to the wolf that a giant would have been.” She paused. “But that was a long time ago. Goreu has done nothing important since except for his selection into the Council of the Gray Lords. I wouldn’t have thought one of Arthur’s men would have stooped to the foulness of those slave bracelets.” She hummed a little; it was on key and pretty. “I also wouldn’t have thought a Gray Lord would have been so easily defeated.”