Dead Reckoning - Charlaine Harris [39]
“A female,” Claude said. His handsome face was set in stone. “One we couldn’t afford to lose. Yes, we have to find out.”
For a second I was confused, because Claude didn’t think that much about women in terms of his personal life. Then I remembered that there were fewer and fewer female fairies. I didn’t know about the rest of the fae, but it seemed the fairies were on the wane. It wasn’t that I lacked concern about the missing Cait (though I didn’t think there was a snowball’s chance in hell that she was alive), but I had other, selfish questions to ask, and I was not going to be diverted. As soon as Dermot had called Hooligans and asked Bellenos to call the fae together to ask about Cait’s kin, I got back on my own track.
“While Bellenos is busy, you have some free time, and since the appraisers are coming soon, I really need you to answer my questions,” I said.
Dermot and Claude looked at each other. Dermot seemed to lose the conversational coin toss, because he took a deep breath and began, “You know when one of your Caucasians marries one of your Negroes, sometimes the babies turn out looking much more like one race than another, seemingly at random. That likeness can vary even between children of the same couple.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve heard that.”
“When Jason was a baby, our great-grandfather Niall checked on him.”
I felt my mouth drop open. “Wait,” I said, and it came out in a hoarse croak. “Niall said he couldn’t visit because his half-human son Fintan guarded us from him. That Fintan was actually our grandfather.”
“This is why Fintan guarded you from the fae. He didn’t want his father interfering in your lives the way he had interfered in his own. But Niall had his ways, and nonetheless, he found that the essential spark had passed Jason by. He became . . . uninterested,” Claude said.
I waited.
He continued, “That’s why he took so many years to make your acquaintance. He could have evaded Fintan, but he assumed you would be the same as Jason . . . attractive to humans and supernaturals, but other than that, essentially a normal human.”
“But then he heard you weren’t,” Dermot said.
“Heard? From who? Whom?” My grandmother would have been proud.
“From Eric. They had a few business dealings together, and Niall thought to ask Eric to alert him to events in your life. Eric would tell Niall from time to time what you were up to. There came a time when Eric thought you needed the protection of your great-grandfather, and of course you were withering.”
Huh?
“So Grandfather sent Claudine, and then when she grew worried she couldn’t take care of you, he decided to meet you himself. Eric arranged that, too. I suppose he thought that he would get Niall’s goodwill as kind of a finder’s fee.” Dermot shrugged. “That seems to have worked for Eric. Vampires are all venal and selfish.”
The words “pot” and “kettle” popped into my mind.
I said, “So Niall appeared in my life and made himself known to me, via Eric’s intervention. And that precipitated the fairy war, because the water fairies didn’t want any more contact with humans, much less a minor royal who was only one-eighth fairy.” Thanks, guys. I loved hearing that a whole war was my fault.
“Yes,” Claude said judiciously. “That’s a fair summary. And so the war came, and after many deaths Niall made the decision to seal off Faery.” He sighed heavily. “I was left outside, and Dermot, too.”
“And by the way, I’m not withering,” I pointed out with some sharpness. “I mean, do I look withered to you?” I knew I was ignoring the big picture, but I was getting angry. Or maybe, even angrier.
“You have only a little fae blood,” Dermot said gently, as if that would be a crushing reminder. “You are aging.”
I couldn’t deny that. “So why am I feeling more and more like one of you, if I have such a little dab of fairy in me?”
“Our sum is more than our parts,” Dermot said. “I’m half-human, but the longer I’m with Claude, the stronger my magic is. Claude, though a full-blooded fairy, has been in the human world for so long he was getting weak. Now he