"There's been another fey murder."
I sat up straighter, letting the sheet pool in my lap. "Like the other one?"
"I don't know yet. Lucy just called."
"She called you, not me," I said. "After the mess my presence made of the last murder, I think I'm probably persona non grata."
"You are," he said, "but if I feel I want you and your guard's opinion she's left me a very explicit message. She said 'Bring whatever employees you think will be the most helpful on this. I trust your judgment, Jeremy, and I know you understand the situation.'"
"That is an odd way for her to ask."
"This way when you show up, it's not her bad, it's mine, and I can make the case for needing you better than she can."
"I'm not sure Lucy's superiors aren't right, Jeremy. Her having to come save me made her lose the only witness we had."
"Maybe, but if a fey, especially a demi-fey, wants to run they will. They disappear better than almost any of us."
He was right, but ... "That's true, but it was still a mess."
"Bring only guards who can do enough glamour to hide in plain sight. Bring more guards; two wasn't enough from what I saw on the news."
"If I bring more guards, it's more people to hide," I said.
"I'll have some of the other people meet us there, so we all show up in a mass. We'll hide you with numbers, and leave Doyle and Frost at home. They don't do good glamour, and they're too damn noticeable."
"They won't like that."
"Either you're Princess or you aren't, Merry. If you are going to be in charge, then be in charge. If you're not, then stop pretending."
"The voice of experience," I said.
"You know it," he said. "If I need you, meet Julian here." He gave me the address to meet so we wouldn't show up in a car that was associated with me.
"They won't let this many of us inside a crime scene, Jeremy," I said.
"Some of us don't need to be inside the crime scene to do our jobs, and it won't hurt our reputation to have more of our people on camera milling around with the police."
"Thinking like that is why you're the boss."
"Remember that, Merry. You have to earn the right to keep being the boss. Get off the phone, enjoy a few more hours with your boyfriend, but be ready to go earn the title Princess. Leave your two shadows at home, and bring ones who can blend in better when I call."
I hung up and explained to Doyle and Frost why they were not going with me if I had to go. They didn't like it at all, but I did what Jeremy had told me to do. I was the boss. He was right. Either I claimed the role or someone else would. I'd almost lost it to Doyle before, and now Barinthus. There were too many leaders among us and not enough followers. Doyle and Frost dressed in jeans and T-shirt and suit respectively. I chose a summer weight dress and heels. The heels were for Sholto who was coming to help guard me today. He was as good at glamour as any and could travel instantly from his kingdom to the edge where the sand met the surf because it was a place between and he was the Lord of that which passes between. He and King Taranis were the only sidhe left who could do magical travel.
The real problem was that only two of the guards were truly that good at personal glamour. Rhys and Galen could go with me as the main guards, but we needed more guards than that. I knew Doyle and Frost well enough to know that if they couldn't be with me, they would insist on more guards, which was fine, but who? Sholto was great at glamour and he was on his way, but who else? Instead of relaxing we spent a lot of the morning debating who would go with me.
Rhys said, "Saraid and Dogmaela are both almost as good at glamour as I am."
"But they have only been with us a few weeks," Frost said. "We have not trusted them with Merry's personal safety."
"We have to try them sometime," he answered.
Doyle spoke from the edge of the bed, where he was sitting as I got dressed. "They were Prince Cel's pet guards only a few weeks ago. I am not so eager to give them personal guard duty over Merry."
"Nor I," Frost said.
Barinthus spoke from near the closed door. "I found them competent guards here at the beach house."
"But that's just running the perimeter," Doyle said. "I would trust all the guards to do that. Merry's safety is a different type of duty altogether."
"We either trust them, or we need to send them away from us," Rhys said.
Doyle and Frost exchanged a look, and then Doyle said, "I am not as distrustful as that."
"Then you must let some of them guard Merry," Barinthus said. "They have already begun to suspect that they will never be trusted because of their association with Prince Cel."
"How do you know that?" I asked.
"They have spent centuries with a queen and a prince to answer to; they feel the need of someone to lead them. You have left many of them here at the beach house off and on these few weeks. I am who they have to follow."
"You are not their leader," Rhys said.
"No, the princess is, but your caution to keep them farther from her has left a vacuum of leadership. They are frightened by this new world that you have brought them to, and they wonder why you have not taken any of them as your ladies-in-waiting."
"That was a human custom that the Seelie Court adopted," I said. "It's not an Unseelie custom."
"True, but many of the ones with us now were longer at the Seelie Court than at our own. They would like something familiar."
"Or is it you who would like something familiar?" Rhys asked.