“Well, aren’t you just a bundle of cheer,” she said.

“Instead of being able to spend time with Merry and our children, I have spent the last day and night negotiating with one high court of faerie or another. The king’s courtiers have assured me that he will wait until the DNA tests come back. If they show that none of the babes are his, then he will acknowledge he has no claim on them, or Merry.”

“Merry was already pregnant when he …” She stopped as if afraid she’d said too much.

“It’s okay, Lucy, but the geneticist has informed us that it may not be that simple. The king is my great-uncle, and the sidhe of both courts have been intermarrying for centuries; we could share a lot of genetics. It’s probably not enough to prove paternity, but enough to confuse the issue if my uncle wishes not to give up his claim.”

“He won’t give up,” Doyle said.

“Is it true that if he’s not able to have children, then he has to relinquish the throne?” she asked.

I fought to keep my face neutral. I hadn’t known that the human police knew that, or any human knew that.

“The blank face from both of you is answer enough,” she said.

I cursed softly inside my head—sometimes in trying so hard not to give something away, the very effort screams your answer. The big question was: Did the police know that it wasn’t a matter of stepping down from the throne, but execution, for having cursed his court with infertility a century after Taranis knew he was infertile? The old idea that your health, prosperity, and fertility came from your king, or queen, was very true in faerie. Taranis was fighting for his very life. Did Lucy know that?

“What happens if he steps down?” she asked.

“He ceases to be king,” Doyle said.

“That part I figured, but is he exiled from faerie?”

“No, why do you ask?” I said.

She shrugged. “Because exile would explain why he’s so desperate to prove one of the babies is his.”

“I think it’s simpler than that, Lucy. I think he just can’t stand the thought of not being absolute ruler of the Seelie Court after all these centuries. I think he’d do anything to keep his throne.”

“Define anything,” she said, and I didn’t like the very shrewd look in her brown eyes. She was smart and very good at her job.

One of the babies made a sound from the cribs. Lucy had ignored them except for a brief glimpse at the cloth-wrapped bundles. She was here on business, not to see babies, but the noise made us turn to find out which baby was waking up.

It was Bryluen, moving fitfully in her basket like a crib within a crib. Doyle picked her up with his big, dark hands. The baby looked even tinier. Some of the fathers had been awkward holding them, but Doyle held our daughter with the same physical ease and grace with which he did everything. Bryluen’s eyes were open enough to gleam in the light like dark jewels.

“May I hold her?” Lucy asked, and the request surprised me.

Doyle looked to me, and I said, “Of course. We’re waiting for the nurse to bring the wheelchair; they won’t let me walk out, and most of the other men are helping load the gifts.”

Lucy didn’t seem to hear me as Doyle laid Bryluen in her arms. Lucy didn’t know how to hold the baby, which said she’d never really been around them. Doyle helped move her arms into place, and once she had the baby tucked into the crook of her arm she just stared down. Lucy’s face got this happy, almost beatific glow to it, as if the world had narrowed down to the baby in her arms.

I hadn’t expected Lucy to be that entranced with babies, but maybe she was having that “I’m in my midthirties and the clock is ticking” moment.

“Detective Tate,” Doyle said.

She never reacted, just started humming softly and rocking Bryluen gently.

“Detective Tate,” he said again, with a little more force to his voice.

When she didn’t react this time, I moved closer to her and said, “Lucy, can you hear me?”

She never reacted, as we hadn’t spoken.

“Lucy!” I said it sharply this time.

She blinked up at me as if she were waking from a dream. She stared at me, trying to say something, but she had to blink twice more to finally say, “What did you say?”

“I need to get Bryluen ready to go downstairs.” I took the baby from her arms, and she was reluctant to let her go, but once she wasn’t holding the baby Lucy seemed to recover herself. She shook visibly, like shaking off a nightmare, and said, “Wow, I just had that sensation like someone walked over my grave.”

I nodded. “It happens.”

She shivered again, and when she looked at me her eyes looked normal. Detective Tate was in there again.

“I’m sorry, Lucy, and I hope it doesn’t get you in trouble with the higher-ups in your department, but we need to take more precautions against my uncle, and Maeve Reed’s estate is more magically guarded than any safe house would be.”

“We’ll have police wizards on the detail, Merry.”

“The last time you and I worked together, one of the bad guys was one of those wizards,” I said.

“That’s not fair, Merry.”

“Perhaps not, but it’s still true.”

“You’re saying that you don’t trust the police?”

“No, I’m saying that no matter how safe you think you are, you’re probably wrong.”

“That sounds pretty hopeless,” she said.

“I thought it sounded realistic.”

She smiled, but it wasn’t entirely a happy one. “We’ll put extra patrols in your neighborhood. Call and we’ll be there.”

“I know that,” I said.

“Promise if anything goes wrong you’ll call the police and not try to handle it yourselves.”

“I can’t promise that.”

“Because you’re not allowed to lie,” she said.

I nodded.

“You’ll handle this internally, if you can, won’t you?”

I nodded again, cuddling Bryluen to me.

She turned to Doyle. “Don’t you or any of the people she loves play hero and get killed when we could have prevented it, okay?”

“We will endeavor not to,” he said.

“I mean it. Merry loves you, and I don’t want to hold her hand while she mourns you, or Frost, or Galen, or any of you guys. We’re the police; it’s our job to risk our lives to protect and serve.”

“It is our job, as well, where Merry and the babes are concerned.”

“Yeah, but Merry won’t be devastated if we get hurt, and police dying in the line of duty won’t lose the babies their dads.”

He gave a small bow from his neck. “I will remember what you said, and thank you for putting our lives above yours for Merry’s sake.”

“I don’t want to die, none of us do, but it’s our job to stop this bastard from hurting her again.”

“And ours,” he said.

She frowned and made a little push-away gesture. “You’re going to do what you’re going to do; I’ll tell them I tried.”

“We really do appreciate you coming down, Lucy.”

She smiled at me. “I know you do. I just really want to get this guy.”