Chapter two begins the next day, inside Merry’s office downtown LA. It is bright and sunny, and Merry remarks how the day is one of those days where people in LA pretend it’s an eternal summer and everyone is smiling and beautiful, but that is just an illusion.
So sunny and beautiful.
She remarks that people in LA typically are more grumpy than smiling, and she mentions very clinically that LA still has one of the highest homicide rates in the country, “which is pretty grumpy if you think about it.”
Yeah, because St. Louis is the pinnacle of safe cities.
Merry is sitting in her office at her desk with Doyle and Rhys standing in the room with her. Kitto sat under her desk caressing her calves, as Kitto does not do well inside buildings surrounded by so much man-made materials. THEN WHY FUCKING BRING HIM. LKH spends pages describing what each of her characters are wearing, which is one thing that authors do that I hate with a fiery passion. I don’t care how many fucking buttons are on your character’s jacket. I don’t care that your character’s jacket matches her hair. I don’t care about any of that, and people who do care about those sort of details are people who think books like Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey should be Pulitzer prize winners. You do not need to spend pages and pages describing your characters looks and what they are wearing. No one wants to read that.
A client is sitting across from Merry – Jeffery Maison. Jeffery is rather uncomfortable surrounded by the guards, and Merry picks up on this by his mannerisms. She is tempted to have Kitto leap out from under the desk and go “Boo!” because that is a nice thing that responsible adults do, you know, torture their terrified goblin sexbag by siccing them on an uncomfortable client. Jeffery begins babbling, complimenting Merry’s hair color and such, until Merry asks him point blank why he’s come to Grey’s Detective Agency today. Jeffery says that he was instructed to speak to Merry alone, and he begins complimenting Merry some more. Merry tries again to stop him, telling him that they went though a lot of trouble to rearrange their schedule to meet him, and he is wasting their time with all the compliments.
Jeffery tells them that he was explicitly told that he had to compliment all the sidhe, that ignoring a fey when they were trying to be attractive, was a deadly insult. This surprises Merry – usually her clients are not very well versed in sidhe or fey culture. She asks Jeffery how he knows all this, and Jeffery tells them that his employer wanted to make sure he gave no offense. Merry asks who the employer is, and Jeffery lets them know he was under express orders to only tell Merry, that he cannot tell her with her guards in the room. Doyle tells Jeffery to call his employer, to explain the situation (that Merry cannot be alone without any guards present) and see if the employer can be a bit more agreeable. So, Jeffery picks up the phone and places a call. After a bit, he ends the call, and lets them know that his employer requests an in-person meeting with Merry and her guards.
Merry asks why the employer didn’t just come along to the meeting, and Jeffery tells them that his employer is afraid of all the publicity surrounding Merry. Three months after Merry reemerges as the missing Unseelie princess, and the paparazzi are still hounding her like crazy. At that exact moment, a throng of paparazzi stood outside the office building, waiting for Merry and her guards to leave. Jeffery asks if Merry would be willing to meet his employer somewhere private. Doyle steps into the conversation and reiterates that Merry will not be meeting with anyone without her guards present, and Jeffery agrees. His client just wants to avoid the media circus that surrounds Merry.
Merry asks him who his employer is, but Jeffery cannot say. “I’m not allowed to say my employer’s name out loud. She said that would mean something to you.” Merry apologizes, but tells him that no, that means nothing to her. She stands to escort Jeffery out, since he will not tell her the name of his employer and is wasting her time, and Jeffery blurts out “My employer wishes to see people of her own kind again”. Merry realizes who the employer must be, as there is only one other sidhe she is aware of living in LA – Maeve Reed. She had been exiled from the Seelie Court over a hundred years ago, and she had become a very famous and popular actress.
Many, many years ago, when the sidhe were more powerful than they are now, Maeve was a goddess in her own right – the goddess Conchenn. King Taranis of the Seelie court had Maeve exiled from the Seelie court and forbidden anyone from inquiring why she was exiled. He actually forbid anyone in the Seelie court from even mentioning her name. So, Maeve came to Hollywood and became the golden goddess of the screen.
Merry wasn’t sure what to do – Taranis had forbidden any Seelie from mentioning Maeve’s name, but Merry wouldn’t be just mentioning her name, she’d be meeting Maeve in person. However, Merry was not a Seelie sidhe, she was Unseelie, despite Taranis being her uncle. So, Andais would not punish her for visiting with Maeve… but Taranis might try to use his familial status to punish Merry for contacting Maeve. When she was a young girl visiting the Seelie court, Merry happened to ask Taranis directly what happened to Maeve, and Taranis beat Merry to within inches of her life. No one, not even her own mother, tried to stop Taranis from beating her. Merry knew she should send Jeffery away and not meet with Maeve.
However, Merry agrees to meet with Maeve because she wanted to defy Taranis. She wanted to get back at Taranis for him beating her as a child,. She knew now that she was Andais’s heir, she had enough clout to keep Taranis from seeking any punishment, as to harm Merry would be enough to spark a war between the courts. She knew Taranis would not be willing to start a war, so she agreed to meet with Maeve.
The chapter ends with Merry wondering what Andais may do to her when she finds out about the meeting with Maeve.
Characters Introduced:
Maeve Reed – once the goddess Conchenn, a Seelie sidhe who was exiled from faerie 100 years ago. Since had become a very popular and well loved Hollywood actress.
Themes Introduced: nothing really
Sex: nope.
Trailer Park of Emotion 