“Divided time then,” Leith said, loud enough to be heard by all assembled. “You would split your time between the worlds, Lilywhite.”
“LilyDark,” Lily corrected, deciding in that moment that Violet’s renaming of her was fitting. She met first her grandfather and then her grandmother’s gaze and said firmly, “I am neither Seelie nor Unseelie. We might as well be very clear that I am of neither court solely. I am of the light and the dark.”
Both of her grandparents smiled—Leith widely, and Endellion slightly.
Leith nodded. “Agreed, LilyDark.”
She added, “And I belong to neither world solely while there is no need to assume the throne.”
Leith looked at Endellion, who gave a curt nod.
“Are those all of your terms, LilyDark?” Leith asked.
She hesitated. There were more than a few reasons not to make deals with the fae, but the idea of stopping the war was too tempting to ignore. Her friends would be safe. The reality was that now there was nowhere she could truly hide forever, not since she was being claimed as the heir to the Hidden Throne. She hadn’t meant to be declared heir, or to impress the regents, or to fight the Seelie princes. She’d simply hoped that talking to the queen, telling her that Iana wasn’t killed by the humans that day long ago, might appease her. She’d had a vague hope that the queen would see reason to end her attacks. She’d hoped to spare Zephyr and the rest of the Black Diamonds from the queen’s wrath.
Abernathy Commandment #4: Weigh the consequences before beginning a course of action.
She had weighed them, but even being raised as the daughter of Nick Abernathy hadn’t prepared her for this situation. There was manipulation and machination, and then there was fae manipulation and machination.
“I won’t be wed without my consent. I will not be engaged to someone not of my choosing. I will not favor one court over the other or reside solely in the Hidden Lands, nor will I stop being Nicolas Abernathy’s daughter,” Lily said, reviewing the terms. She paused, thinking over any other terms she might be forgetting.
Abernathy Commandment #15: Always have a way out, more than one if possible.
“And,” she added quickly, “if a more suiting heir to the Hidden Throne can be agreed upon by Endellion, Queen of Blood and Rage, and Leith, King of Fire and Truth, I will have the right to return to a normal life.”
“But you will not cut your family out of your life,” Endellion inserted firmly.
“Agreed,” Lily said, feeling—despite everything—touched that her grandmother wanted to know her. The queen was far from an embracing woman, but she obviously cared for her family in her way.
“I accept your offer,” she vowed.
“Your terms are accepted, LilyDark, daughter of Iana and the Abernathy, granddaughter of Endellion and Leith,” both regents said.
Endellion took Lily’s hand in hers and gazed around at the assembled fae. “I present to you your future queen, LilyDark.”
Every fae knelt, including Creed and Violet. Her grandparents were the only ones still standing, and Lily felt the weight of the vow settle on her skin. She had stopped the war that her mother’s birth had started, but at what cost?
thirty-five
LILY
Returning from the Hidden Lands to a world where the air was thick with pollution shouldn’t have felt soothing, but right now it did.
“How are we going to explain this?” Violet gestured at Creed.
He shrugged, still leaning on Zephyr heavily as they walked. “Bar fight.”
Zephyr sighed, as if the idea was ludicrous, but he didn’t object.
“I’ll be fine within a week,” Creed reminded them. The queen herself had given him strength that would speed his healing—“to protect my granddaughter,” she’d said—so he was already beginning to look as though the fight had been weeks ago.
“A fight? Then how do we explain the way you look healed so fast?” Zephyr shook his head. “We don’t want attention. Until we know what the queen decides about coming out to the world, our job is to stay out of the papers—and to keep Lily safe.”
Violet let out a laugh. “Hell-o, darlings, you have a makeup pro right here. Either we say I’ve been hiding the proof of the boy’s nitwittery while it heals or I simply hide it now.” She linked her arm with Lily’s. “Ninian help us. It’s like they need to bicker, you know? If they weren’t so tediously straight, I’d swear they needed to kiss it out.”
Lily laughed, despite the scowls that both boys gave Violet.
“I’m not ‘tediously straight,’ Vi.” Creed flashed her the sort of smile he typically reserved for cameras, and Lily wondered if they had an audience she hadn’t yet seen. When he grabbed her arm and pulled her in front of him so she was facing him, Lily knew they must.
“Look down,” he whispered.
Laughing, she tugged a little, keeping her face hidden as she did so.
“Zeph’s just not the one for me,” Creed continued, glancing at Zephyr and grinning.
Violet was at Lily’s back then, and she was all but surrounded. A large part of her wanted to object, but Violet and Creed were authorized to guard her. That was one of the terms of her return to the human world. Endellion had wanted to send fae to live at Columba’s, as if there was any way that true fae could hide there. Only Leith’s intervention had forestalled that plan.
So Lily had agreed to being protected. For now, she’d tolerate it, but if she was going to be the heir to the Hidden Throne, she was going to set some rules of her own. Surely, that was something a princess could do.
“They’ve gone,” Zephyr said suddenly.
“Fae? Humans?” Lily scanned the area as soon as Creed released her.
“All I know was that I heard voices in the air, ones that spoke your name.” Creed hobbled toward her. “Let’s get to the dorms, yeah?”
“Okay.” She squeezed his hand. “But I’m not defenseless. You didn’t miss that whole fight with my uncles, did you?”
Zephyr and Violet said nothing. In fact, Zephyr had been unsettlingly quiet since they’d reunited in the Hidden Lands. She hoped he’d be forthcoming about whatever he’d discussed or done with the queen, but if he wasn’t . . . well, she wasn’t eager to experiment with her affinity for compulsion. It felt wrong to even consider, but she was the heir to the throne now. She had no idea who she could or could not trust—aside from Creed and Violet. They alone were the people she knew she could trust without reservation. She had a general degree of trust for Eilidh, Rhys, and Torquil. She had a strong degree of trust in Zephyr for many things, but he had secrets, and he had loyalties that predated her. If she needed to compel answers from him, she would.
“Alkamy, Roan, and Will are probably worried sick,” Lily said. “We can figure everything else out later.
Zephyr did his duty, walking with the others until they reached the dorms. He felt divided from them now, more than ever before. The queen had separated him from them before sending them to meet Leith. He could choose to believe it was for the same reason that she kept Rhys at her side—that her Unseelie descendants weren’t welcome there. He wanted to believe that.
He also knew that the Queen of Blood and Rage had machinations inside her plots inside her maneuverings. She had sent Creed and Violet with Lily into what he suspected she knew might be a battle. She’d sent the former heir’s betrothed with them. There were more than a few explanations for this that Zephyr could guess. Perhaps the queen wanted Torquil injured or dead. Perhaps she wanted Lily to feel closer to Violet and Creed. If Zephyr thought long on it, he realized that he’d known which of the Sleepers to bring. But how? Had the queen known that Creed visited Eilidh? Was anything that had happened to them not orchestrated?
He sighed.
“Are you okay?” Lily asked gently. “I don’t know what happened when we were away but—”
“I saw a bit of the palace, talked to the queen.” Zephyr shrugged. “She explained that I would need to be trai
ned by my . . . by Rhys, so I can earn her respect. Then the king arrived.”
“Uh-huh.” Violet stared at him, not quite calling him a liar, but the statement was there whether she said it aloud or not. “She just kept you back to tell you to be a good boy?”
“Vi,” Lily said warningly.
Zephyr opened the door to the tunnels. “It’s okay, Lily. Maybe Violet’s adopting her court’s dislike for mine. Her father is Seelie after all.”
Violet made a rude gesture, a well-illuminated one as her hand glowed with fire to light their way in the tunnel.
“There is only one court, Zephyr,” Lily corrected him. “Unless both Eilidh and I are killed, there is a united court. One throne. One court.”
He nodded. There might be, but it didn’t feel that way—not to him and not to a lot of the fae he had seen. They divided themselves among their kind even as they watched both their king and queen. There were still rifts.
“You heard the princess,” Creed said in a cheerier voice than Zephyr was used to. “One court. One throne . . .”
He started humming to himself, slipping into some sort of space in his head where he went when he was writing music. That alone was proof that he was feeling better than he had in well over a year and a half. Creed hadn’t been writing, just drinking between concerts. Violet looked at Creed and smiled. She knew as well as everyone on their team, other than Lily, that Creed had been very near the edge until she arrived.
Zephyr opened the door to the dorms.
“Do you think they’re in your room or—”
“I know where Kam is,” Zephyr interrupted. He walked away, toward his room. The others could do whatever they wanted. Tonight, he was abdicating all responsibility for them. Honestly, probably for more than just tonight. Everything had changed. They were no longer the queen’s seven Black Diamonds. He was no longer in charge.
Now, he answered only to the Queen of Blood and Rage.
Creed and Violet answered to Lily.
He wasn’t at all sure what that would mean for Will and Roan, but he knew—he’d always known—what Alkamy would do.
Zephyr didn’t quite run to his suite, but it was a close thing.
He slowed when he reached the door, schooling his face, trying to seem like everything was okay. Then he opened the door.
“Kam?”
She was in his arms, flinging across the room like a blur. “Thank Ninian,” she whispered as her arms tightened around him. “I was so worried and . . . Is everyone else okay?”
“They are. Lily’s burned, but . . . not that bad. And Creed was stabbed, and his wrist is broken but . . .”
Alkamy leaned back, looking at him. “That’s not what I’d call okay, Zeph.”
“No one died. Lily was declared heir. I was openly announced as the queen’s grandson . . . oh, and Violet met her father.”
At first, Alkamy’s mouth opened silently. Then she closed it and shook her head. Finally, she said, “Come sit with me. Tell me the rest . . . unless you want to join the others?”
“No. I really don’t.” He took her hand in his. “I need to tell you something else though.”
“Bad?”
“No.” He took a breath, trying to find the words. He didn’t want her to misunderstand, to think it was only about physical things. It wasn’t. Even before he admitted to himself that he loved her, it had never been only the physical between them.
“You’re scaring me,” she said, even though her voice sounded steady.
“The queen offered me a boon . . . a gift for serving her so well,” he started.
“And?”
“And I asked for you, your safety above the rest of the team—”
“Oh, Zeph,” she interrupted. “That’s not fair to—”
“I don’t care,” he cut her off. “I’m Unseelie-born; my father is her son. Do you honestly think I’m going to be a fair person? I’ve tried, but . . . I love you, and if the queen is going to let me have anything, it’s your safety I’ll take.”
Alkamy smiled a little. “So that’s it? I’m . . . safe?”
Slowly, he walked toward his bedroom, holding her hand in his. “That’s what I asked for. What she offered me was permission to be with you.”
“No strings?”
Zephyr laughed. “I’m sure there were, and I’ll agree to whatever they are. That’s how negotiations with the fae work.”
Alkamy stopped and stepped closer to him. “So are you asking me to stay here then? Here in this room with you?”
“We don’t have to do anyth—”
His words were lost under her bubble of laughter. “You can be awfully dense, Zephyr Waters. I’d have stayed in your bed against the queen’s orders. You are the one who was all about her rules . . . or are you forgetting that?”
He wasn’t. He wouldn’t. He’d follow every rule he had to for her safety. She didn’t get that, but it didn’t matter now. Zephyr scooped her up into his arms and carried her the rest of the way to his bed.
“Tell me again,” he asked.
“I love you, Zephyr.”
He sank down beside her and kissed her. There was no telling what would come next. Zephyr wasn’t so foolish as to believe that things were going to be peaceful simply because Lily had accepted her role as heir, or that he was going to be absolved of duties to the queen. Everyone else seemed to think they had a victory, but their trip to the Hidden Lands had put them more fully under the queen’s control than they’d ever been. He had no idea what that would mean in the coming days, but right now, he’d enjoy the one good thing that had happened. He had permission to be with Alkamy, and he fully intended to enjoy every possible second of time with her.
thirty-six
LILY
Days turned into weeks, and the only contact Lily had with the Hidden Lands was a strange leaf-wrapped package. It was hand-delivered to her door by a courier that was obviously more fae than not.
Everyone but Creed was out. These days, she was never truly alone. Sometimes she thought it was worse than being with the guards Daidí assigned.
Daidí. Soon, she’d need to tell him what had happened. Today, though, she had to figure out whether a fae-blood courier making it all the way to her suite door should terrify her or comfort her. Her instinct was not toward comfort.
“How did he get that close? Did you know—” Creed’s words stopped suddenly when the leaves unfurled to reveal a crown of black diamonds.
At least, it had looked like a crown at first, but as Lily lifted it, the seemingly solid metal appeared to melt into a serpentine rope. At a second touch, it reshaped into an ornate crown.
Creed lifted a letter from the package and held it out so they could both read it.
LilyDark,
There will be need of something official in the coming weeks. Until such time, your crown can be worn as a necklace to protect your privacy. Do not remove it until it is required for ceremony and revelation. You’ll know when. Until such time, you should wear it as a sign to any fae-blood or fae that to mean ill to you is tantamount to treason.
Endellion & Leith
The thought of “something official” filled her with terror, but a cease-fire was apparently the sort of thing one announced.
“I really need to talk to Daidí before this ‘official thing’ actually happens.” She held her crown, not wanting to ever wear it, not wanting to do anything that made the world know that she was the heir to the Hidden Throne.
Being fae-blood was still illegal, and she was fairly sure that the laws didn’t vanish simply because her blood happened to be the same as the blood of the Queen of Blood and Rage. If anything, being the queen’s granddaughter was more likely to get her arrested.
And if Lily was arrested, the cease-fire would end. That wouldn’t undo her vow to her grandparents . . . but it would give them a new reason to attack.
“Do you want me to come with you to see your father?” Creed offered. He was rubbing his hands up and down he
r arms soothingly. “I can. We all can if you want.”
Lily nodded. As much as she didn’t want them there when she asked questions of her father, questions about her mother and about him, she did want them with her. They were a part of her life now, and until her life ended, they would be.
Creed took the crown from her hands and stepped behind her. Once it became pliant and lengthened, he lowered it over her head. The weight of it felt heavier than it should.
As Lily reached up to touch it, she wondered how she was to walk around with such grossly expensive jewelry on her every day. There had to be a way to hide it. Her fingers traced the stone and metal, and whatever it was wrought of seemed to be sinking into her skin. Within a fraction of a moment, it was nothing more than skin under her fingers.
“You have a tattoo,” Creed said, staring at her throat. “Can you undo it?”
Cautiously, she traced her fingertips over the warm skin where she knew the crown was hidden, thinking that she wanted to see it, and it became solid in the instant the thought was finished. Just as quickly, she returned it to ink on her flesh.
“Well then.” Creed kissed her tattoo. “That’s certainly easier than the way I got mine.”
They were snuggled up in one chair, her nestled in his arms, when the door burst open, and three of the five other Black Diamonds trouped into the suite.
“The boys are studying for some test or something,” Violet announced with a huff as she dropped onto the sofa.
At Lily’s questioning look, Zephyr added, “They kicked her out.”
“Ah.”
“It isn’t as if it matters,” Violet said with the sort of petulant grace that made all of them bite back smiles. “This whole school thing doesn’t matter.”
“I dare you to say that to Will,” Creed teased.
Lily was so amused by Violet’s dedicated pouting that she startled when Alkamy asked, “What is that?”
Every eye turned to Lily.