Chapter 3 starts off with Merry calling herself a private dick and I just can’t. Like with mike for microphone, the rational, logical part of my mind knows that dick is a shortened form of detective, but like, in this book, with all the terrible, no good, very very bad sex scenes, maybe don’t use dick as a nickname for detective?

But, since Merry’s a dick and all, she knows how to deal with dead bodies. She says this about how to react to seeing a dead body:

Sympathy steals your ability to think. Empathy will cripple you. Detatchment and logic, those are your salvation at a fresh murder.

Which, sure, makes sense. But then she says:

Anything else leads to hysterics, and I was not only the most experienced detective in the hallway, I was also Princess Meredith NicEssus, wielder of the hands of flesh and blood, Besaba’s Bane. … I was a princess and I might one day be queen. Future queens do not have hysterics.

Lol what. All the characters ever DO in this series is have full on hysterical fits over the most banal, boring thing. All Queen Andais ever does is have a fucking tantrum whenever anything happens. This is the least tantrum/hysterics-free series ever written.

Anyway, turns out Merry knew one of the bodies. Beatrice was a demi-fey who had an accident and was turned human-size forever, and thus was cast out of the Seelie court. She came to find some acceptance in the Unseelie court. Apparently when Merry was in college, she would always give her schoolbooks to Beatrice after her classes ended, because she knew she’d never read them again. I had totally forgotten that Merry had an undergrad degree, but now this is reminding me that of course she has a single bachelor’s degree, like it’s the height of education. Yeah, okay. I’m glad you went to college once, LKH, but it’s nothing special anymore.

Some dude died as well, and they figure out the the man was killed with a knife. They’re not sure  how the reporter had left the press conference area and why he was killed, but think it has something to do with him seeing Beatrice’s murder. Since Beatrice was fey, a normal knife couldn’t have killed her, so it had to have been a spell that did her in.

A scullery maid named Peasblossom is who found the bodies, originally, so they decide they want to talk to her. She’s flipping the fuck out, because Doyle first went to speak with her and surprise surprise, lesser fey don’t take the Queen’s Darkness/head guard coming to talk to them after a sidhe was murdered.

Merry starts thinking that maybe it was Prince Cel or one of his crew who murdered the two. She can’t talk about this there, though, because some of her least trusted guard, meaning the ones Andais planted in her crew, are there trying to help. And by help I mean they keep arguing that they want to hide the bodies and don’t understand why that’s a bad idea. Amatheon had always been one of Cel’s supporters and took offense at being forced upon Merry. He had originally refused to join her crew, but Andais punished him and forced him to. Punished by chopping off his hair. Because having less than ass-length hair is so shameful. I hate this so much.

Merry wants to call the cops and her dudes are like WTF why. Well it’s because she doesn’t trust fey magic to find a normal fucking knife because fey magic failed to find her father’s murderer. Everyone thinks inviting the cops into the sithen is a terrible idea. Not because they’ll see more of the fey lands, but because it will piss Andais off. Merry tells them that she doesn’t give a shit about the honor of the court of Andais’s feelings. Some of the guards finally agree to accompany Merry to discuss bringing in the police with the Queen, though it takes like four pages to get to this agreement.

After like 2 pages of reminiscing on the day she found her father’s dead body, Merry decides she’s going to try to use her father’s, the Queen’s brother’s, death to guilt the Queen into letting her bring the cops in on the murder. And if that fails, she’s going to bring up the return of the magical sidhe chalice, the fucking magic cup from the last novel, to the Unseelie Court. Andais wasn’t yet aware of the magic cup returning, so Merry’s going to keep that as her ace in the hole. Or cup in the vagina. Whatever, this chapter is boring, let’s bring on the sex.