“Oh, I know who you are, Lilywhite,” he said softly. “I know exactly who and what you are.”
She was about to argue, but an explosion rocked the pier. The hull of a cruise ship exploded into flame.
Zephyr’s arm snaked around her waist, keeping her from tumbling to the pier or falling into the murky water.
Ships canted wildly as the waves from the explosion battered them. People yelled, both in the street and on other boats. The pier itself shuddered as Lily dragged her attention from the smoke pouring from the cruise liner to Zephyr.
“Welcome to the team,” he whispered against her ear.
She tensed, her hand wrapped around the knife. She withdrew it and flicked it open.
But Zephyr spun her around to face him and leaned down. His lips pressed against hers.
Lily jerked away. She waved her hand around, trying to encapsulate the ship, the people running, the sirens, the chaos of it all. She couldn’t even begin to deal with the kissing part. “Seriously? This? You . . . what are you doing? Are you insane?”
Zephyr’s expression shifted. “You are Lilywhite Abernathy, aren’t you?” He glanced at the knife in her hand, but it didn’t deter him. He grabbed her again. This time, his hand was on her shoulder, turning her to face him. With his other hand, he gripped Lily’s chin and tilted her head, staring at her intently the whole time. “You look like her.”
“Of course I’m me!” She shoved him away with one hand and took a step backward. “But just because my father is an accused criminal doesn’t mean I’m some sort of fan of random violence.”
Zephyr looked pointedly at the weapon she still clutched in her hand. “Really?”
“Yes, really! You grabbed me. I’m defending myself.” She was sick of the way everyone judged her. Daidí had often explained that he only engaged in violence for a reason. Lily agreed with that approach, although it had been a point of contention with Erik on several occasions.
Lily closed her knife with a snick and glared at Zephyr. “You can’t go around blowing things up. There are people on those boats, and—”
“It was empty,” he interrupted.
“But you . . . I . . . You can’t just go around blowing things up and . . . and kissing people.”
“It was a welcome gift,” he said, staring at her in obvious confusion.
“Just stay away from me.” She shivered, both from the intensity of his stare and her body’s response to his kiss.
“You don’t know,” he whispered. His eyes widened, and his lips parted. “Holy Ninian! You don’t even know.”
His reference to the old Pictish saint, said to have been fae, unnerved her further, but she still asked, “Know what?”
“Who you are,” Zephyr said quietly. “You have no idea. That’s why you didn’t seek us out. That’s why you . . .” He snagged her around the waist again, but this time his hold was so tight that she couldn’t escape.
Lily tried to yank away. She knew what she was, knew that the blood of the fae was in her not-too-distant ancestry. That didn’t mean she was admitting a thing.
“I thought you were just too Seelie for us,” Zephyr murmured.
“Too what?” She took a step back. That was even more dangerous than invoking Ninian. Seelie was an illegal word, one not used casually in public. Lily needed to get the hell away from Zephyr. Blowing things up, kissing her, accusing her of being fae, he was frightening. He could get them killed . . . or worse.
“Seelie.” He started walking, propelling Lily with him along the pier. “Come on. We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t.” She pulled out of his hold. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”
They were still. Then, after several moments, Zephyr nodded. “I’ll see you around, Lilywhite.”
He walked away. She returned to campus in hopes that her room was ready. She’d been here not even an hour, and she’d been accused of being fae, kissed, and witnessed a bombing. She wasn’t entirely sure which was the most disturbing. Any of them were dangerous.
As she walked the couple of miles back to campus, Lily debated what to do. Zephyr was clearly involved in something—either as a fae sympathizer or zealously anti-fae. Either option wasn’t one she wanted any part of, but there were such similarities in what both Creed and Zephyr had said to her that she wasn’t sure she could stay clear of it without more information. Both knew about her, her ancestry, and seemed to have been “waiting” for her. How that was possible, she didn’t know.
However, what she did know was that it was better that Daidí not hear about her “welcome surprise” from Zephyr until she investigated. Abernathy Commandment #4: Weigh the consequences before beginning a course of action.
ten
EILIDH
Eilidh was grateful that Rhys had decided to help her, to protect her and potentially Torquil. She knew that he was limited in what he could do, but knowing that she had an ally was a relief she hadn’t expected. Of course, none of that made it easier to face him or Torquil. She’d admitted that the missing child had survived, been raised in the human world, and had a life there for years.
“Who are you?” a ten-year-old Eilidh asked the woman standing inside the Hidden Lands.
“Iana.” The woman looked around the somewhat bleak landscape. “Where am I?”
“Hidden Lands.” Eilidh walked closer to her. “You look like Mother.”
The woman squatted down in front of Eilidh. She didn’t stare at her in horror the way some of the Seelie did, and she didn’t ease away as if she couldn’t see Eilidh the way a lot of the Unseelie did. They weren’t technically to use those terms any longer. The courts were one. They were simply . . . fae.
“Who is your mother?” she asked.
“Endellion, Queen of Blood and Rage, once queen of only the Unseelie, but now . . . she protects all of us.” Eilidh was proud of her mother. The queen was their guardian, the warrior who would keep the humans from destroying them all. “She had no sisters. So how can you . . .”
“Do you have sisters . . . ?”
“Eilidh. I’m Eilidh.” She sounded her name out carefully—Ay-leigh—for the woman. “I had a sister. She died in the sea, and Mother had to kill the bad men.”
“Oh.” The woman brushed Eilidh’s hair back. “I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t know her. She was a baby, waaaay before I was born.” Eilidh smiled at the woman.
She looked like Mother would if she was happy sometimes. Her hair was night-dark, and when she moved, it looked like tiny stars glimmered in it. The woman’s skin was more like the king’s though. Leith looked like he’d been forever in the sun and was as dark as bog-soaked wood.
Quietly, Eilidh told her, “You look like Mother’s face, but you have Father’s skin.”
Over the years, Iana and Eilidh had become close, and by the time that Iana confessed that she’d been plucked from the sea and raised by human parents, a fisherman and his wife, Eilidh had already figured it out. She kept that secret—and the secret that Iana had a daughter.
As Eilidh told the story to her brother and betrothed, Torquil interrupted, “The missing heir to the fae kingdom was raised where?”
“In a small village on one of the islands.”
“How did she hide what she was?” Rhys asked.
“Her mother—”
“Foster mother,” Rhys interjected with more anger than was typical of him.
“They found someone, a faery, who helped and taught her everything she needed to know. She learned it all, everything but who she is.” Eilidh got up and paced to the edge of the room. Down below her, faeries stared up at the tower. They didn’t usually watch her this closely, but then again, she didn’t usually have the queen’s son or one of the most sought-after pureblooded fae in her home. Having either of them in the tower was new; having both here was drawing a disturbing degree of attention.
“They’ll think we’re plotting against our queen,” Rhys said.
“I kn
ow.”
“She will ask questions of me,” he continued.
“I know.”
“And I will lie.”
Eilidh looked over her shoulder at him.
“But we aren’t plotting against the queen . . . are we?” Torquil asked.
Neither Eilidh nor Rhys answered.
After several moments passed, Eilidh looked back out the window of the tower, staring at the dozens of fae who unabashedly gazed up at her. Quietly, she offered, “I will accept the withdrawal of your betrothal should you see fit to change your mind.”
“And I will slide the knife across your throat if you go to Mother with what has been spoken here,” Rhys added conversationally.
“Is your family always like this?” Torquil sighed. “No. To both of you, no.”
He stood. Eilidh knew without looking that it was Torquil and not Rhys approaching her. Rhys was too silent to move so obviously through the sitting room. He had to make a conscious effort not to move like shadows.
She didn’t turn around.
“I’ve held your secrets our whole life, Eilidh. Why would that change now that you’re my betrothed?” His hands landed on her shoulders as they had often in their years as friends.
She felt his breath stir her hair as he stood behind her. Quietly, she told him, “We won’t ever be wed. You can withdraw now or later, but we won’t have a bonding ceremony.”
“Endellion accepted my choice.”
“No,” Rhys said, drawing their attention back to him. “Endellion allowed you to be Eilidh’s betrothed. There will be no wedding. She won’t risk Eilidh’s life that way. The heir is too important.”
Eilidh slipped out of Torquil’s hands and walked back over to her brother. “Is he in danger?” she asked Rhys.
Rhys was still as he thought. It was a look Eilidh had seen on their mother’s face often as she weighed the consequences of various plans of action. After several moments, Rhys said, “Not from Nacton or Calder. They’d like you to die. If there were a living child, the infant would be at grave risk, but for their purposes, you must die and leave no young.” Rhys glanced at Torquil. “You are not to bed the heir. Not now or ever . . . unless Iana’s daughter comes home. Then you are no longer of any concern.”
“Her life is worthless then?” Torquil came to stand at Eilidh’s side. He didn’t quite step in front of her, and no weapons were drawn, but the aggression in his posture was enough to make it clear that he wouldn’t restrain if he thought his betrothed was threatened.
“Stop.” Eilidh grabbed Torquil’s wrist and stepped in front of him. She was facing him, her back to Rhys. “He’s stating the truth. This is what it means to be the heir: always knowing that there are those who would have me dead, and . . . those who would use me.”
If she’d revealed his motive for their betrothal, Torquil showed no sign of it. All he said was, “Then why not let Iana’s child take her rightful place?”
“Because she’s been raised away from this place. Because she’s not meant for this life.” Eilidh shook her head at how obvious it was that Torquil had never loved anyone. How could she wish this fate on someone she loved? How could he think that being bonded to a faery not of her choosing and living in a glass tower would be satisfying to a woman raised in the human world?
Eilidh turned to face her brother. “There is no risk of a child being born to me.”
Rhys nodded. “Keep it so.”
Torquil tensed behind her, and she squeezed the wrist she still held.
“I must go, and he can’t stay here if you have no chaperone,” Rhys announced with all the finality of a father.
Her own father never fussed overmuch about such things, not with her or with his sons. Nacton and Calder were both older than Rhys, and they’d been raised to believe that the world was theirs. Until the unification of the courts, it had been.
“I am immeasurably pleased to hear you speak of my safety, but the walls are transparent and our people watch,” Eilidh reminded her brother. “If Torquil is to be my betrothed, he will visit me.”
“Only in this room.”
Torquil’s voice was sharp as blades as he said, “You have no right to tell—”
“There are those who would kill him before they would see you with child.” Rhys spoke over Torquil as if he wasn’t there, speaking only to her, dismissing her betrothed pointedly. “And if Mother thinks he has bed you, I will be sent to remove him. There is no way to refuse that order once she has issued it. If you care for him at all, you will not allow him where the people cannot see him. They must know that you are inviolate.”
Eilidh nodded. “He will only be here when in this room, but I’m not so young that I need a chaperone beyond”—she gestured to the glass wall—“our people’s watchful gaze.”
Rhys looked at her like he might consider some form of parting affection, but then he simply said, “Never forget that you will be watched constantly now—by her people, by mine, by Nacton’s. Act accordingly.”
She nodded again, and then Rhys left, and Eilidh was alone with her betrothed for the first time since his impulsivity had put them in this ridiculous position.
eleven
ZEPHYR
Indifferent expression firmly in place, Zephyr walked away from the pier. He’d let his facade slip when he met Lilywhite. Finally talking to her after all these years was exhilarating. She was to be the other person at the head of the Sleepers, his assigned work-partner. For years, he’d carried the weight without her. He’d done everything he needed, and she’d been hidden away. In his mind, she’d become more than his partner.
He’d imagined their first meeting, of course, pictured their eventual conversation in his mind. He’d pondered a variety of surprises to greet her, ultimately settling on a small explosion. He’d bribed one of the secretaries to let him know when she was arriving, set charges on ships every day in hopes that she’d be unable to resist the pier. It should have been perfect. It should have been a joyous moment.
Instead, she’d pulled a knife and pushed him away. It wasn’t encouraging. If he hadn’t been so shocked by her reaction, he’d have tried to ask her knife for any details it might have gathered. Lilywhite was aligned with water, so she couldn’t ask it not to speak to him. He hadn’t thought to ask the steel for information, however. He was too caught off guard by her response to him.
Obviously, he’d built up his expectations. He’d imagined this day for so many years that Lilywhite was almost mythical to him. She had become increasingly more so the longer she stayed away. He’d imagined that she was more like those he’d met in the Hidden Lands. He’d spent thousands of dollars to collect every scrap of intel he could so as to prep for today, for their first meeting, for the moment when he wasn’t left alone with the responsibility for the others in their Sleeper cell, for the moment he met the faery he thought would one day be his mate. Despite everything he’d done, he was grievously unprepared for the reality.
“Roan,” he called out as he walked into the surf shop.
Not surprisingly, Roan was the only customer in the surf shop. He stood in front of the bulletin board with sales and trip listings. Zephyr sometimes suspected Swell stayed in business solely on the purchases made by the St. Columba’s students, most of whom weren’t back to school until tomorrow. Of those students, Roan was easily the freest with his money. No trip was too dear for him. He would live in the water if he had his way.
“Zeph.” Roan studied Zephyr with the kind of attentive nonchalance that he excelled at. Like the seas that were his element, Roan was both calm and filled with energy simultaneously. If Roan hadn’t admitted his affinity the moment they’d met, Zephyr would’ve still known it. The surf-crazed boy had eyes that could easily be mistaken for a seal’s and his skin was dark enough that it seemed as elegant as the seal pelt he could don as comfortably as most people slipped into a winter coat. Only his unruly hair was unmatched to his water-dwelling appearance. Given a chance, Roan would let hi
s hair form into the dreadlocks it so obviously wanted, but the future CEO of Reliance Pharmaceuticals wouldn’t wear dreads.
They all wore their human personas. It was simply part of the task they’d been given by their queen. Sleepers could only succeed at their missions by being exactly what they were thought to be.
Zephyr turned and walked out of the shop.
“Well?” Roan prompted as he exited behind Zephyr.
Zephyr tried to find the calm he usually had, but he couldn’t. Lilywhite was the last of the seven on his team, and now that she was with him, he had to report to the Unseelie Queen that all seven Black Diamonds were together. That was the protocol. What he didn’t know was how much to reveal to the queen, and facing her for the first time with incomplete answers was more terrifying than he wanted to admit, even to himself. He couldn’t let the others see how afraid he was.
The others relied on him. They had for years. He’d met Alkamy, Creed, and Violet when he was still a kid, and he’d met Roan and Will when he started at St. Columba’s several years ago. They’d always known that he was their leader. He’d worked hard to live up to that expectation, but today had thrown him for a loop.
“Lilywhite has no idea who she is,” he told Roan finally.
“How did the handlers let that happen?”
“I have no idea,” Zephyr admitted. The horrible shock of it had left him quieter than usual. Lilywhite was the seventh and final member of his unit, the missing piece, the one the queen wanted to meet—and she was clueless.
Roan fell into step with him, keeping pace and then little by little slowing so as to force Zephyr to walk at a more fitting rate. That was one of the things he valued most about Roan: he was a strategist. He was also the calmest of the group, trained to be so because he was the only son of the CEO and primary shareholder of Reliance Pharmaceuticals.
Roan turned onto a less crowded street and added, “Before I forget, Vi wanted me to let you know she might not be here for another few days. Whatever film she’s in now is running behind schedule.”
“When does Will get in?”