Chapter 12 begins with Merry and Co exiting the house to
find Maeve sitting by her pool. She’s furiously smoking cigarette after
cigarette, her glamour back in place like a well-worn shirt. Maeve had insisted
that Merry and her guards sit around the pool, in the full, bright sunlight,
and Merry has an idea as to why. Superstition had it that Unseelie sidhe could
not work their full power in the sun. Merry knew this was untrue, but she had
to do whatever she could to get Maeve to trust her enough to tell her why she was invited.
Merry tries to sit on one of the lounge chairs next to
Maeve, and finds that she is just too short and is wearing too short of a skirt
to sit on it comfortably and without flashing her underwear.
If
it had just been other fey, I wouldn’t have cared so much, but with more humans
than fey standing around, we’d try to stay polite by human standards. Besides,
I’d found years ago that if I let a bunch of strange human men see my
underwear, they tended to get the wrong idea. Fey males would have enjoyed the
show and never remarked on it
Well, that’s a disgusting thought there. Of course Merry
accidentally flashing her undergarmets automatically equals a sexual thing to
us silly humans. Of course! Ugh.
Maeve is drinking some Scotch… a lot of Scotch. She had
already finished a fifth before Merry and her guards got themselves settled. She
offers Merry and co some drinks, but Merry politely declines. Maeve responds
that she knows the guards are working, but Merry could easily imbibe with her.
Merry again declines, saying doesn’t much care for drinking that early in the
day. Maeve laughs – it’s like 4pm or so, not at all early by LA standards, and
she says a couple of times “I really do hate to drink alone”, like that’ll do
anything.
Merry responds “I’m sure you’ve got a husband around her
somewhere.” And Maeve instantly goes hardened, telling Merry that she’d be
meeting her husband later when they’ve finished their business. She then asks
Merry to have her guards move back a little, for some private girl-talk. Doyle
and Co move to a smaller umbrella covered table to give the ladies a little bit
of room, well except Kitto who is curled up next to Merry on his own little
chair.
Because OF COURSE they’d bring Kitto, tiny terrified Kitto,
outside with them into the bright sun. They treat this poor goblin like a
fucking tortured child, Jesus.
Eventually, after a bit of bickering and whining, Maeve
allows Kitto to remain at Merry’s side. Merry immediately bursts out “The sidhe
have been speculating for centuries about why you left us.”
But wait, hadn’t Maeve just been exiled a century ago?
Maeve reminds Merry that she had not left, she had been cast
out, to which Merry responds “Your exile was the bogeyman for all the younger
sidhe in the Seelie Court. ‘If you don’t please the king, you’ll end as
Conchenn did.’” Don’t the sidhe have anything else to be afraid of? The sluagh?
Anyone? Bueller?
Merry eventually lets on that when she was a child, the king
beat her for inquiring about Maeve’s exile. Merry tells her that anyone who had
asked about Maeve at the Seelie Court had been punished, but after the King
killed one of Maeve’s biggest allies, the sidhe Emrys, no one bothered asking
about her anymore. Until Merry came along, that is. Maeve hadn’t known that her
exile had been that much of an issue at court. Well, duh, Maeve. You had been
exiled and haven’t so much as seen
another sidhe since you were kicked out. God these sidhe are stupid.
Maeve then calls one of her maids to attend them, and her
maid Nancy few bathing suits for Merry to wear. What? Merry worries that Maeve
could have placed a spell upon the bathing suits, wondering if perhaps Maeve
had made a deal with Merry’s enemies to be able to return to faerie in exchange
for Merry’s death.
Merry politely declines changing, telling Maeve she’s
comfortable as is, in her hideous Christmassy-green suit (oh, did I not
describe that from the first few chapters? SHE’S DRESSED LIKE CHRISTMAS.)
Maeve returns the conversation to her killed ally, Emrys.
She says that the king would never order someone as powerful as Emrys killed,
and Merry responds that he didn’t order an execution. He personally challenged
Emrys to a duel. Maeve is floored at this – Taranis would never risk his own
personal well-being on a duel, and Merry swears an oath that what she says is
true.
“So,
I was right.” Her voice was very soft as she said the last.
“You were right about what?” I asked, voice equally soft. I eased down to the
foot of my own lounge chair so she would be sure to hear me.
She smiled then, but it was weak and not at all humorous. “No, you won’t get my
secret that easily.”
I frowned, and it was genuine. “ I don’t know what you mean.”
Her voice was more solid, more certain of itself as she spoke. “Why did you
come here today, Meredith?”
YOU FUCKING INVITED HER THERE, MAEVE, YOU DAFT MORON.
UGH. IT JUST KEEPS GOING. Maeve continues being talky about
Taranis, wondering why Merry came when it would have risked Taranis’s anger,
and that he will never believe that she never told Merry his secret. What
secret, Merry asks, and Maeve is all “I’ll never teeeellll” because this is the worst chapter ever. Merry is sure
that Taranis would not risk war between the courts for harming her, but Maeve
thinks that is not true –that to prevent his secret from getting out, he’d risk
much up to and including all out war.
It then becomes yet another stalemate, as Merry is sure that
if Taranis killed her, the Queen would send the sluagh after him. Maeve thinks
she’s incorrect. This has been like seven pages of the same sort of
merry-go-round of bullshit. I hate this chapter. I hate this chapter. I hate
this chapter. Maeve finally announces that she would not risk war between the
courts, she would not risk the sluagh being loosed on Taranis, so she finally
agrees that Taranis would likely not have Merry killed for meeting with her.
Merry tells Maeve that she wishes to know why Maeve was
exiled, and she knows Maeve desires something from her as well. Merry asks her
what would be important enough that Maeve would risk her life for, and the
chapter FINALLY FUCKING ENDS when Maeve announces that she desires a child.
ARAGGHGHAGHGHGGHGH FUCK THIS BOOK.
I QUIT.
Labels: book review, Caress of Twilight