Divine Misdemeanors by Laurell K. Hamilton

said.
    I realized that they might not even know why they were here to guard Bittersweet. They might simply have been told that there was a witness to guard, or maybe even less. They’d been told to show up and keep an eye on her, and that’s what they were doing.
    “She has, but it’s more than that. She needs fuel.” I ran a finger through the icing and licked the tip of my finger. It was homemade-frosting sweet, but not too sweet.
    “You mean eat?” O’Brian asked.
    I nodded. “Yes, but it’s more than that. We don’t eat and we just get hungry, maybe a little sick. When you’re warm-blooded, the smaller you are the harder it is to maintain your body temperature and your energy level. Shrews have to eat about five times their own body weight every day just to keep from starving to death.”
    I gave up with my finger and just licked the icing off the cake. Officer Wright glanced at me, then quickly away and ignored me. Neither officer took anything off the tray, wanting to keep their hands free, too, maybe, or were they told not to take food from the faeries?That was only a rule if you were inside faerie and were human. But I didn’t say anything, because if they were passing on the cakes because of fear of faery magic, it was an insult to Robert.
    The Fear Dearg took a piece of carrot cake from the tray, smiling his wicked smile up at Alice. Then he stared at me. There was no glancing out of the corners of his eyes; he simply stared. Among the fey if you were trying to be sexy and someone didn’t notice, it was an insult. Was I trying to be sexy? I hadn’t meant to. I just wanted my icing first, and without silverware there were only so many options.
    Robert was still holding the iced cake up to the small fey on his shoulder. “For me, Bittersweet, just a taste.”
    “You mean she could die just from not eating enough?” O’Brian asked.
    “Not just from that. The hysteria and her use of magic all eat up some of the power that enables her to function at this size and still be a reasoning being.”
    “I’m just a cop, you need to uses smaller words, or more of them,” Wright said. He looked at me as he said it, then quickly away. I was making him uncomfortable. Among the humans I was being rude. Among the fey, he was being rude.
    Frost slid one arm around me, his fingers lingering on the bare skin of my shoulder. He was still watching the room, but his touch let me know that he’d noticed, and that he was thinking what it would mean to have me use the same skills on his body. Humans who try to play by these rules often get it wrong and are too sexual about it. It’s polite to notice, not to grope.
    I talked to the officers as Frost’s fingers traced my shoulder in delicate circles. Doyle was at a disadvantage. He was too far away to touch me, but he needed to keep his attention on the far door, so how could he acknowledge my behavior and not be a bad guard? I realized that this was the dilemma that the queen had put him in for centuries. He’d shown nothing to her; the cold, unmovable Darkness. I left the icing to itself while I talked to the police and thought about that.
    “It takes energy to use a complicated brain. It takes energy to bebipedal, and to do all the things we do at our size. Now shrink us down and it takes magic to make fey like Bittersweet able to exist.”
    “You mean without magic she couldn’t survive?” O’Brian asked.
    “I mean she has a magical aura, for lack of a better term, that encircles her and keeps her working. She is by all laws of physics and biology impossible; only magic sustains the smallest of us.”
    Both officers were looking at the little faery as she scooped icing off the cake and ate it as delicately as a cat with cream on its paw.
    Alice said, “I’ve never heard it explained that clearly before.” She gave a nod to Robert. “Sorry, boss man, but it’s the truth.”
    Robert said, “No, you’re right.” He looked at me, and it was a more intent