A Shiver of Light by Laurell K. Hamilton

like butterfly wings fresh out of a chrysalis, before blood pumps them into full shape,” I said.
    “They may look like pink and crystal gossamer, but they feel leathery, more like bat, or reptile,” Sholto said.
    I frowned. “I don’t understand.”
    He smiled, and it was that rare one that made his face look younger, as if it were a glimpse of what he might have been like if his life had not made him so hard.
    “Horns and leathery wings are sluagh, Merry.”
    In my head I thought,
Goblins have horns
, but I didn’t say it out loud. The horns and wings could be his genetics; we really didn’t know. If his throne hadn’t been potentially on the line, it wouldn’t have mattered, but to rule the sluagh you had to be part sluagh, just as to rule the Unseelie and Seelie courts you had to be descended from their bloodline. Every court in faerie was like that; you had to be the type of fey to rule that type of fey. Since I’d thought we’d given up all plans for any of our children to be on any throne, I hadn’t worried about it.
    Sholto’s throne was not normally an inherited one. You were elected to it, chosen by the people. It was the only rulership in all of our lands that was democratic. I hadn’t known he would look down at our babies and begin to dream of a royal bloodline for his people. Funny, what fatherhood means to different men.
    “If it’s sluagh, then it can’t be demi-fey,” Royal said, and he looked sad.
    “We have a geneticist who’s going to be testing the babies. We won’t really know without that,” I said.
    The men all did another of those looks, almost looking at each other, and avoiding my eyes.
    I hugged Gwenwyfar to me, for my comfort this time. “What were those looks about? You told me my aunt wants to see the babies and we’re guarding them and the hospital, because she’s still insane and too dangerous to come, but that look just now says there’s more you haven’t told me.”
    “Have you always been able to read us this easily, or have you grown more observant?” Sholto asked.
    “I love you all in my way; a woman pays attention to the men she loves.”
    “You love us,” Rhys said, “but you’re not in love with all of us.”
    “I said what I meant, Rhys.”
    He nodded. “It was diplomatically worded.” His tone was mild, but his face unhappy.
    “Rhys,” Galen said.
    The two men exchanged a long look, both their faces serious. Rhys looked away first. “You’re right, you are so right.”
    Since Galen hadn’t said anything out loud, I wasn’t sure what he was so right about. It was as if the men had had a conversation that I hadn’t heard and were still saying bits of it. I could ask, or …
    “I’m sorry that you’re unhappy with me, but you aren’t going to distract me from my question. What else has gone wrong, besides my aunt?”
    “Some of us love you more than you love us; it’s an old topic,” Rhys said.
    “Stop changing the subject, and trying to distract me with emotional issues we’ve already discussed. It must be something bad for you to bring this back up again, Rhys,” I said.
    He nodded, and sighed. “Bad enough.”
    Sholto stood up, brushing the knees of his pants automatically. “I’m not in love with Merry, nor do I expect her to be with me. We care for each other, which is more than you usually get out of a royal marriage.”
    “Then you tell me what the three of you, four of you, are keeping from me,” I said.
    Galen held Alastair closer, much as I had with Gwenwyfar. “It’s the other side of your family.”
    “The other side, you mean the Seelie Court?”
    He nodded, resting his cheek against the top of the baby’s thick black hair.
    Sholto came to stand beside the bed and laid a hand over my arm and half cradled Gwenwyfar, because his hand was that big in comparison to the baby. “Your uncle, the King of the Seelie Court, is trying to get permission to see the babies, also.”
    I stared up at him. “My aunt wants to