"I think you could buy her for cake. Or at least rent her for significant periods of time." She gave Marcello a fond, if rather careworn look. "You could borrow her, you know. For practice, until you get one of your own. Just until spring. Niabheara already wants to take her to Cnoch-na-Niall and get her a bard when she's old enough to sit still for more than fifty heartbeats. Which should be in another twenty or so years."

Marcello raised an eyebrow. "Ah..." she aid hesitantly. "I don't-- it's not that I wouldn't love to take her, but is there a reason why you're trying to foist your child off on us?"

"Of course not." Meg averted her eyes all-too-innocently forward. "She is my daughter and I love and adore her so much that I would like to be able to give her a playmate this year. So far the only way to do that, we've found, is for her to go to bed and we put ourselves outside."

Marcello's tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth. "And of course at Cnoch na Niall, there are people who can watch her," she ventured. "I'd have to ask Niabheara of course, but you know I'd take her. Especially when you let me and Mal stay with you for all those months."

"I'm teasing," she said, smiling. "Her daddy would miss her before the end of the third day. I'd be just as pleased if you'd take her with you to the manor-house an you go." Her smile faded a little. "I don't want her at Cnoch-na-Niall with the Puck."

"The Puck [i]likes[i] children," Marcello said. "She'd more than likely be safe there." But she nodded. "Of course we'll take her to the manor. It will be a grand adventure. And close by enough that if there's a problem, we can get back to you. But if that happens, we'll make a lot of noise, I promise."

"The Puck may like children, but as the lady Dierdre has mentioned, it has not much care for people Niabheara loves." Absently she plucked a leaf out of the basket and chewed it.

"I know," Marcello replied. "I still wouldn't trust it with her. I don't understand it," Marcello said. "By all accounts, the menacing little monster was just a mischief-maker-- oh, god, I'm alliterating even talking about it," she moaned. "It only got dangerous around Imbolc. Before that..." She shrugged. "But then, Niabheara always thought she was on good terms with Auberon."

"So did we all," said Morgana. "The king saved her life when she came--or if not her life, then her title. But I believe Titania would have killed her even if we had given up the claim and gone away, if Auberon hadn't stepped in."

"So...and I've asked everyone this question, and no one seems to have the answer," Marcello said. "What happened? No one...what was the point of defending her and protecting her only to turn on her like that?"