JEZEBEL:
Heya, Avid Fans! Welcome once again to Cat and Muse, your online break away from the sweltering heat–unless you’re in Hell, in which case this heat wave isn’t even a blip on your radar. I’m your host, the former demon Jezebel. With me, as always, is the producer of Cat and Muse, the lovely, lamentable Muse of Tragedy…Melpomene!

[APPLAUSE]

Hi, Mel!

MELPOMENE:
YO.

JEZ:
Our next guest on Cat and Muse hails straight from the Elizabethan Era. So to accommodate her, the interview will be conducted completely in Elizabethan English. (At least, as Elizabethan as my Dear Creator can fake it.)

MEL:
FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT.

JEZ:
[SMILES] What she said.

JACKIE:
[OFF CAMERA] Hey! I’m right here, you know!

JEZ:
Ahem. Moving on…

Publishers Weekly calls MIDNIGHT NEVER COME “stunningly conceived and exquisitely achieved,” and says that “Brennan’s myriad fantastical creations ring as true as her ear for Elizabethan and faerie dialogue. With intriguing flashbacks to historical events and a cast of deftly drawn characters both real and imagined, Brennan fleshes out the primal conflict of love and honor pitted against raging ambition and lust for power in a glittering age when mortals could well be such fools as to sell their souls forever.”

Ladies and gentlemen, please do us the courtesy of welcoming to Cat and Muse our most delightful guest, the heroine of Marie Brennan’s first Onyx Court book, MIDNIGHT NEVER COME…Lady Lune!

[APPLAUSE]

I’m quite pleased, Lady Lune, that you’re able to join us. You have had much excitement as of late, and I am flattered that you have taken time away from the Onyx Hall to speak with me. I hope this is not too great an inconvenience?

LUNE:
Though the Onyx Hall is my home, its confines can grow too close. I am glad for the occasion to step out—and I am most curious to know what you will ask me.

JEZ:
Well then, I shall not keep you waiting. At the start of MIDNIGHT NEVER COME, you have already fallen out of favor with your dread sovereign, Invidiana, queen of fae England. Pray tell, what happened? Did you truly earn her wrath? Or is Invidiana more temperamental than the weather in London?

LUNE:
You ask as if it cannot be both.

JEZ:
[LAUGHS]

LUNE:
The Queen has her whims—or perhaps her mood simply shifts according to winds we cannot easily see.

MEL:
DANCES TO THE BEAT OF A DIFFERENT DRUMMER.

LUNE:
I do, however, know what I did to offend.

JEZ:
Pray, do enlighten us.

LUNE:
For my own sake, I should not share all the details. But this I can say: I served as her ambassador to the folk of the sea, and conceded too much to them in my negotiations.

MEL:
CHICKEN OF THE SEA?

JEZ:
Hush, Muse.

LUNE:
You may recall the attempted invasion by Spain, their Great and Most Fortunate Armada?

JEZ:
Indeed.

LUNE:
The storms that hampered them came not by chance. The Queen feels we paid too much for those, and ’tis my fault.

JEZ:
I am sure ’tis not as bad as all that. But let us move onto lighter subjects. Who are more gullible: fae or humans?

LUNE:
Each can be gulled in their own way. Mortals may easily be misled through faerie trickery, for which many think them fools.

JEZ:
[SMILES] Aye.

LUNE:
But a fae taken by sudden curiosity or infatuation may follow blindly what lead you give him—though pity him who misleads a fae, once the mood that possessed him is gone.

JEZ:
Who are better lovers?

LUNE:
We would say humans, but I imagine they would say fae.

MEL:
THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER…

LUNE:
Our great seducers have had ages to perfect their skill, but humans bring to it a passion we cannot counterfeit—at least, not for long.

JEZ:
Counterfeit? Can fae truly love?

LUNE:
Rarely. ’Tis more of a choice for us, rather than a great tide that may take us unawares. Most never consider it, for what is to be gained?

JEZ:
What is to be lost?

LUNE:
A faerie who loves will ALWAYS love, and when the mortal upon whom she fixes her heart dies, she will mourn him forever. Few see any profit in that.

JEZ:
Ah. I see. Well then, let us speak not of love, but of lust. What suggestions do you have for faerie ladies who wish a certain mortal fellow’s attention? What should she do, short of resorting to charms and magic?

LUNE:
Most fae would see little reason to forbid themselves charms and magic, and few would have the skill to work without them.

JEZ:
Skill, eh?

LUNE:
[SHRUGS] To win a man’s heart without the aid of charms is to win it as a mortal woman would, and that is a mystery mortal women have wrestled with for centuries.

JEZ:
Speaking of mortals: Unlike most fae, you enjoy walking among the mortals, disguised with a bit of bread and faerie glamour, trusting that none would pierce your illusion. Tell me, have you always enjoyed living dangerously?

LUNE:
In truth, I never thought of it as danger. With mortal bread to shield me, my glamour is safe, and what human would suspect me a fae?

JEZ:
You have never encountered any problems?

LUNE:
I imagine a determined enough priest might break through that protection, but first I must give him cause, and I would never be so foolish.

JEZ:
Of course not.

LUNE:
But I have always enjoyed passing time among mortals. They change so rapidly; there is always something new to see, in their world.

JEZ:
Very true. From how I understand it, mortal-made bread and milk, freely given to the fae, are enough for faerie to hide among the humans. Why bread and milk? Why not, say, meat and ale? Or better yet, chocolate?

LUNE:
What is chocolate?

JEZ:
Ah, lady. Words cannot describe its deliciousness.

MEL:
MELTS IN YOUR MOUTH, NOT IN YOUR HANDS.

JEZ:
You must try it for yourself. But again, why bread and milk?

LUNE:
I must confess that I do not know. I have never seen a mortal lay out meat or ale in tithe to us; perhaps they might suffice. If I knew how the custom had begun, I might be able to say why ’tis bread and milk, but I am not sure anyone can answer that.

JEZ:
Well, I am certain there is one, but we shall come to her in a moment’s time. For now, let us speak of Michael Deven. Kindly describe him. In great detail. Especially the juicy parts.

LUNE:
“Juicy”?

JEZ:
Juicy.

LUNE:
[BLINKS] He is a gentleman of Elizabeth’s court—the mortal Queen, of course. She has a particular bodyguard, called the Gentlemen Pensioners (for the yearly stipend they receive), of which he is a member, which places him quite close to the Queen. He received that position through the good offices of Sir Francis Walsingham, whom he serves. Deven rarely spies, but he collects the information they bring, and works to make sense of it on the Principal Secretary’s behalf.

JEZ:
Yes, yes. All of that. Quite interesting, I am certain. But tell us more about his physical assets.

LUNE:
Ah, I see. You wish for more lascivious detail.

JEZ:
Much lascivious detail.

LUNE:
I am not sure how to oblige you, for a catalogue of his traits—dark hair, blue eyes—would be tedious, and I am no poet, to extol them in metaphor.

JEZ:
Alas…

LUNE:
His heart I can speak of better.

JEZ:
Pray, speak!

LUNE:
He is ambitious, but not cold-hearted in pursuit of that ambition. He serves faithfully those who win his loyalty. And his mind is ever sharp, piecing together the puzzles set him by Walsingham, his master. Or the occasional puzzle he stumbles across on his own.

JEZ:
Well spoken, lady. Tell us true: did you, or did you not, place a charm on Deven to make him fall in love with you?

LUNE:
[COOLLY] I have answered his question on that matter, and will not answer it for another.

JEZ:
My my.

MEL:
TOUCHED A NERVE.

JEZ:
Indeed. Who are more cutthroat: the fae, or mortal English royalty?

LUNE:
I believe the fae to be worse, and I have had experience of both. Though the mortals of Elizabeth’s court scheme and betray, they also feel loyalty and affection, which temper their crueler impulses. In the Onyx Court, we take our lead from Invidiana, who is burdened by no such considerations.

JEZ:
In MIDNIGHT NEVER COME, were there any parts of the novel in which you desperately wished that Mistress Brennan would conveniently drop dead? Or did your Dear Creator support you and listen to your concerns throughout the endeavor?

LUNE:
Were she to fall before the story were done, I imagine we would all be left hanging, caught in our travails, with no way out of them. This is hardly a fate I would desire.

JEZ:
[SMILES] I cannot blame you.

LUNE:
But her “support” is of a peculiar sort, that seems to take unseemly glee in the pain we her characters suffer, even as she works to free us from it.

JEZ:
Ah, Creators do seem to work in mysterious ways…

LUNE:
I begin to understand what it is to be mortal, and to live one’s life at the behest of a distant, all-powerful, and capricious God.

JEZ:
Are you looking forward to what Miss Brennan does to you in the next Onyx Hall novel? Or are you planning to run far, far away and leave a changeling in your place?

LUNE:
At present, though she is building a list of most impressive obstacles and challenges, they are largely of an external sort, and those I can face with tranquility.

JEZ:
Ah.

LUNE:
She does, however, have several months in which to enlarge upon her ideas before writing begins, and perhaps it would be wiser for me to run now, before she forges new knives with which to torment me.

JEZ:
I wish you much luck, lady. The last question is this: If you could be evil for one day (without worrying about anything bothersome such as human guilt or other annoying emotions), how would you use your infernal powers?

LUNE:
I fear I know too much of evil to desire such a day.

MEL:
TO EACH, HIS OWN.

JEZ:
Or hers, as the case may be.

Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for the heroine of Marie Brennan’s first Onyx Court book, MIDNIGHT NEVER COME…Lady Lune!

[APPLAUSE]

[No, this is not the Lady Lune. But it is her Dear Creator, Marie Brennan.]

MIDNIGHT NEVER COME is available at Barnes and Noble, Mysterious Galaxy, other Booksense bookstores, Amazon, and other fine stores near you.

That’s it for this episode of Cat and Muse! Until next time, remember: love your inner demon.