“Now, Dell—”
“Father!” Eilidh caught herself then. She cleared her throat and tried again, this time in a softer voice. “Do you intend to punish me?”
“Of course he doesn’t!” The queen scowled. “If he’d disciplined those sons of his in the first place, they wouldn’t have behaved like that. Rhys never—”
“You have stabbed that boy more times than—”
“And does Rhys obey me?” Endellion’s voice grew sharper. “Is Rhys safe from attacks? Could someone capture and torture him?”
“I bet our daughter could,” Leith pronounced in a rather self-satisfied way. “She has efficiently instilled fear in both of my sons, and she taught Calder the value of knowing our history. If she wanted to torture your son—”
“I didn’t want to torture anyone,” Eilidh snapped. “It was terrible and messy and . . . I saw no other way.”
Her parents exchanged a look. Then her father said, “You were brave, and your people ought to rejoice that one such as you is here to look out for them.”
The queen rested her head against his in a very uncharacteristically affectionate way. “We make amazing children together, don’t we?”
“We need to schedule the coronation,” Leith said. “Bring our granddaughter home too.”
“Dinner’s cancelled, Eilidh. We’ll have a family meal when LilyDark is home,” the queen said happily.
Leith stared at the queen as she spoke.
And Eilidh steadfastly refused to think about why her parents were cancelling the meal . . . or if she had known there was a meal in the first place. She turned to go and was several steps away, when the king added, “If you keep healing Torquil, though, I’ll stab him myself. You know not to use your affinity so freely, child.”
“Would you really?” Endellion asked.
Leith didn’t reply. Instead he said, “Eilidh?”
“Yes, Father.” She shook her head and left, carefully stepping around a sleeping peacock and a baby jaguar that was curled up against it. As much as she often thought the Seelie palace odd, there was something fitting about it. Only her father could convince predators and prey to rest peacefully together.
Quietly, she wandered through the halls, marveling at the strange beauty that seemed pervasive here. It wasn’t home any more than the queen’s palace was, but she could appreciate it . . . sometimes.
twenty-eight
ZEPHYR
When they were in the Hidden Lands, Zephyr had promised anew to be whatever the Queen of Blood and Rage wished. It wasn’t a new vow. He’d been hers since before birth. Now, though, he knew that he was her grandson—and had sworn fealty to his cousin. Like his father had with the current queen, Zephyr would be the next queen’s weapon until he died.
His last task for Endellion was to be sure that the diamonds were in the tabloids. There were innumerable pictures, not only of him and Alkamy but also of Lily and Creed. Often Vi was with them. Sometimes Roan and Will were as well. Zephyr could see the logic: Endellion wanted the public adoration secured before their true heritage was revealed, but he didn’t think it necessary or useful. Opinion changed as quickly as it formed. Being adored today meant nothing about tomorrow.
Today those pictures hurt.
Zephyr stared at the photographs in one of the magazines he’d had delivered earlier that day. The diamonds stood like guards around Lily in them, not a proper formation of any sorts but clearly surrounding her protectively. Across the top of the two-page spread, the magazine asked: NEW STARLET? SINGING SENSATION? MODEL? Behind her, Alkamy was smiling.
She’d never do that again.
“Are you okay?” Lily said as she walked into the common room of the suite.
He’d slept there, claiming Alkamy’s room as his own. If Lily and Creed slept in Creed’s room, Zephyr would sleep in his own. If they were here, he’d sleep in Alkamy’s bed. He hadn’t told them as much, but he couldn’t protect her if he wasn’t there.
Right now, everyone was watching him like he was going to shatter. He wasn’t. He was going to do his duty. He would keep the future queen safe.
Lily glanced at the now-closed magazine he held in his hand.
“You avenged her. The one who killed her is dead. That is the right and good,” she said, and maybe it was simply because he knew the truth now, but he could see the queen in her expression. It was more than a little disconcerting.
“She’s still dead.”
Lily dropped into a chair across from him. “You aren’t.”
He shrugged. With someone not fae, he might pretend. Lily was the single most fae person in the human world. She was also the daughter of Nicolas Abernathy. The head of the nation’s most influential crime syndicate had kept her face out of the news for her whole life, had kept her hidden away in his fortress, and until she’d suddenly come to St. Columba’s, she’d been thoroughly unreachable. The Abernathy security was almost impenetrable.
And his sole duty in life now was to keep her safe. Nothing else mattered. It never would again. Alkamy was gone.
“I don’t know what to say,” Lily admitted. She tucked her feet up in the chair as if she were a mermaid curled atop a rock. It was not an unfitting image, considering the family affinity for the sea.
“There is nothing,” he said baldly. “Humans can utter words of comfort, but they are lies. Nothing can be said to make this not hurt. No words matter now.”
“I wonder sometimes what it would be like to be all human,” Lily murmured. “Do you ever wish that?”
“No. Not even now. All I wish was . . .” He shrugged again. They both knew what he wished.
“Tell me how to help you.”
Zephyr looked at her. She was the person he’d sought for years, the fae-blood who would lead their cell with him, and right now . . . he’d trade her in for Alkamy in a blink. “Be the queen our people need. That is all I ask. I will dedicate my life to your safety, Lily. I will guard you as my father has our grandmother.”
“That’s not what I mean!” Lily touched his arm. “You’re my family, Zephyr. How do I help you?”
He was saved from a reply when the door to the suite crashed open. Creed was all but running as he entered their room, and Violet was running fast enough that she ducked past Creed. Tendrils of fire glimmered on her skin as she came into the room, making it clear that she was either furious or terrified.
“Get up!” Violet exclaimed.
“What?” Lily asked, immediately looking for a threat behind them.
“We have twenty-five minutes,” Creed said.
“For?”
“Being where we intend to greet Lily’s grandparents,” Violet said in a voice still too emotional. “Messenger said . . . they’ll come to where we are at that moment. I don’t know that school—”
“Not here. Belfoure,” Lily interrupted, standing with a fluidity that seemed to be more and more undeniable every day. “I want water, air, and earth near me. St. Columba’s lacks water. If the others are coming, meet at the pier.”
“We all go,” Zephyr announced.
“They have a choice to—”
“We all go,” he interrupted.
“Twenty-three minutes,” Violet announced. “If we are going to Belfoure, we need to move or we’ll be running the whole way. We might any—”
“Get the others, Vi,” he ordered.
Violet glanced at Lily, who nodded once. Then Violet took off in a run.
“They could stay hidden,” Lily said calmly as she pulled off her boots. She needed the touch of earth. “You both could too.”
“No!” Creed glared at her.
Simultaneously, Zephyr said, “I am unable to stay behind, and if the others tried, there would be consequences.”
It was the closest he’d come to admitting that the queen, their grandmother, had given him orders he’d not shared with them. Lily stared at him, hearing his unspoken admissions. Undoubtedly, Creed had heard as well, but his sole focus was on Lily
.
Silently, she walked into her room, grabbed her sheathed sword, and then left the suite without another word.
She didn’t head to the vine-covered wall that hid a secret exit. Instead, she descended the stairs and walked toward the main door. Zephyr and Creed walked behind her, trailing her like guards—which was a fairly normal position for them to assume these days.
She had her sword, still in its scabbard, hanging from her hip now. It wasn’t the way she usually strode across campus. As she walked, Lily seemed to become more. Hair normally chestnut brown seemed to shift in tone and texture until it more closely resembled the rich dark of freshly turned soil. Skin that had looked no appreciably different from most of the students of St. Columba’s grew starker, lightening into bone white.
“Did you see—”
“Yes,” Creed said, stopping the question before it was fully formed. Softly, the words barely a whisper in a drift of air that seemed to slide directly into Zephyr’s ear, he added, “She doesn’t notice it though.”
They had reached the door. Lily glanced at them. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.” They both swore.
“So be it.” She paused as people looked their way, and then LilyDark Abernathy—heir to the Hidden Throne, daughter of a crime lord and the missing faery whose disappearance had started a war—cleared a path to the doors of St. Columba without moving another step.
twenty-nine
EILIDH
Eilidh wanted to argue that she should be allowed to attend the coronation, but she was worn out from the conflicts in the Hidden Lands. Her affinities seemed to be tearing her apart lately, and her people weren’t much better. Finding Calder at her side as she walked through the caves was a shade past too much. She stumbled to a stop.
“At least we look like siblings finally,” he said, gesturing to his scars.
Her Seelie brother didn’t reach out to steady her, but he didn’t shove her to the ground either.
“I am glad you aren’t dead,” she told him carefully. There were times that blunt statements were best, times when the fae need to speak truth served them well. This felt like such a time.
It also felt like a time when her recently increased training was an asset. Her hand went to the hilt of the sword she wore at her side. She didn’t draw the weapon, nor did she feel inclined to do so yet.
“Afraid I’ve come to pay you back, sister?”
Eilidh’s heart hurt. He’d never called her that, and hearing it said so venomously stung. “No. I did as the lands allowed. You know that I was taking fair blood rights for—”
“No one does that. Not anymore.”
“The law exists. The land and sea supported it,” she reminded him.
“You’re not Seelie. Maybe my father isn’t even—”
“Do not even suggest such lies,” she hissed. “The king is my father.”
Calder stared at her, unable to refute it. “You are more like her. He was never one to torture.”
Eilidh sighed. “And who do you think did so for him? The queen. Even before they were wed. Both have told me so.”
Her Seelie brother stared at her. His lips parted as if he would argue. There was no argument that would be truth, however. Instead, he asked, “If I were to hurt Torquil again, what would you do?”
“Hurt? With cold words or slight? Nothing. Hurt with a weapon? Hurt with intent to kill him?” Eilidh weighed out the words she could use, trying to be as precise as possible. “Torquil is mine. To try to take him from me is to know that death will follow. No one, not even the queen or the king, would be spared.”
“You would kill your parents?”
Eilidh nodded once. “If they meant to take Torquil from me? Yes, I would.”
Calder paused at the end of the tunnel, staring at her in a way that was unfamiliar. It was almost as if he’d never seen her before that day. “And what of the new heir? Would you kill for her?”
“I would.”
Calder studied her. “You are very much like the queen, aren’t you?”
There was no need to offer an answer to that. They stood, her with hand on her sword hilt and him watching her, for several uncomfortable moments.
“Calder?” she said quietly.
He paused and looked back at her.
“I would kill for you as well,” she said. “You are my brother, whether you choose to accept me or not. I may no longer be heir, but I am still their daughter. I was raised to believe that no act was too far to protect my family, no sacrifice too great to protect our homeland. You are my family.”
Her Seelie brother nodded. “Nacton, Rhys, you . . . do you realize that all three of you were promised thrones that your parents took away?”
Eilidh startled at that. She hadn’t thought of it, not so clearly. Calder was the only of the royal children never destined to rule. He was . . . the Seelie King’s spare.
“I never wanted it,” he said, as if hearing her thoughts.
“Me, either.”
After another uncomfortably long pause, Calder said, “Nacton did. He still does.”
Eilidh knew there were more things said than she was hearing. If her brother intended to clarify, though, he would’ve done so. Instead, he straightened, as if the bones in his spine were all suddenly lengthened, and he added, “I admire your willingness to draw blood for your beliefs and for the lands, but if you ever raise a blade to me again with such intentions, I won’t forgive it . . . and you should know that my brother has not forgiven you this time. Not you. Not Torquil. Not the queen or the king.”
Then he left.
Eilidh knew that Calder hadn’t outright spoken his forgiveness, but it was there in the words he had spoken all the same. He’d sought her out, and he’d given her a warning.
Torquil.
The air in Eilidh’s lungs escaped in a rush. Her feet were moving before she could allow further thoughts to form. Being with him, seeing he was safe, was suddenly the single most urgent thing in her life. A quiet voice reminded her that Torquil and Nacton had been friends, but she’d had more lectures on political maneuvers and machinations than anyone needed. Nacton had undoubtedly had many of the same ones.
By the time she found Torquil, her fear had grown into a heavy weight in her stomach.
There he was, swinging a sword in a meadow. He was untouched and safe. The sheer relief made her sag against a tree.
“Patches?”
Eilidh shook her head. She simply didn’t have words enough for her feelings, so as it tended to do more and more, her affinity was speaking. The earth surged toward him as if the roots of trees had become hands and the soil flesh. Fire shivered, tilting toward him. Air slid over his skin, seeking surety that he was well and real. “I love you, and I was afraid that . . .”
“I am safe,” Torquil told her as he crossed to stand before her.
Earth twisted, as water flooded the surface. Fire dropped to the soil, heating the churning ground. Eilidh couldn’t find more words though. She stared at her betrothed, needing to know that he was whole and well and here.
“I have you.” Torquil’s sword fell to the ground. His arms wrapped around her, clasping her to his chest, steadying her. “We are safe, and we will stay so.”
Still she couldn’t speak. She was afraid to open her mouth, as if parting her lips would call rain down or pull the sea too far inland. She’d done that once after a particularly frightening dream. Instead of wanting her laughing father or her fierce mother, she had called the sea. It came crashing on her home, and only the foundational magic the queen had used in building it preserved the glass tower. The fae who had still been in the streets near her home had not fared as well.
Eilidh shook her head. She wasn’t ready to speak. The fear of unleashing the sea was too much.
Torquil looked at her, sighed softly, and covered her lips with his.
She felt some of her fire slip away to him, knew the coals inside her were being banked, heard the earth sigh in resp
onse. He took in her fears and gave her peace. He’d often done so, but with the touch of his hand not with a kiss.
“I don’t deserve your love,” she whispered when he pulled away. “Sometimes, I think there is a madness in me.”
He laughed. “You are foolish sometimes, Patches, but not mad. You are everything right in my life.”
“Sometimes the way I love you chokes me,” she admitted in a still-low voice. “I am my mother’s daughter. If you were taken from me—”
“I wasn’t. I won’t be.” Torquil stroked her cheek so tenderly that her eyes drifted shut. “And you . . . made it clear enough that doing so again would be unwise.”
This time it was Eilidh who laughed. She was about to speak when she felt the earth shudder. The gates between worlds had been opened, and she knew that her parents had left the Hidden Lands. She could feel their absence. The queen and king had never once gone to the human world during Eilidh’s life. It was unprecedented.
But since Lily had become known to them everything was unprecedented. The soil, the roots, and the squirming things within the soil and among the roots chattered to her. The regents. Leaving. The words were few, but the cacophony with which they all spoke at once and repeatedly made Eilidh wonder how anyone walked with their skin touching soil. If this affinity were to lead to madness, she would be unsurprised.
“We don’t speak the same to all and each,” one of the willows told her with a fluttering of branches.
“We don’t think they all need to know,” another tree whispered.
The willow added, “But you do.”
“I’m not the fae heir now,” Eilidh pointed out, only to be reminded that the laughter of trees is a beautiful thing. The sound of it rose up inside her, filling her until her rage and fear had nowhere left to hide.
“Fae words,” the willow said lightly. “You are ours.”
Eilidh didn’t understand, but communing with the earth wasn’t the same as comprehending it. “I am yours,” she agreed. “And you are mine.”
The surge of love from the soil made her tremble. Much as the sea calmed her in her pain and rage, the earth filled her with contentment and acceptance. There was a part of Eilidh that felt sorrowful that anyone had to exist without affinity for sea and soil. For her, they were all that stood between her and the inferno that fire created inside her. They were her parents in a way that the fae who were her literal mother and father had never been.