Fragile Eternity

  Niall had her pinned briefly in an embrace of sorts—her back to his chest.

  She stayed motionless for a moment. The look on her face was embarrassing to see: it was not unhappiness but an intimate sort of pleasure. She sighed. “You’re almost worth fighting.”

  Then she flung her head backward into Niall’s face with such force that she bloodied his nose and mouth.

  Niall didn’t release his hold, though. Instead, he loosed his right hand and cupped her head with it. He took her momentum and spun her to the ground. He kept her on the floor with one hand on her head and his body half on top of her. Niall stayed there, his body pinning the motionless faery.

  She turned her bloodied face to his, and the two held each other’s gazes.

  Uncomfortable, Seth looked away and realized that the waitress was standing beside him; she said something.

  “What?”

  The waitress spoke again. “Niall. I didn’t see him leave. Is he coming back?”

  With a start, Seth remembered that she couldn’t see the faeries. Only he saw the fight. Only he saw them bloodied and tangled together. He nodded. “Yeah. He’ll be here.”

  The waitress gave him an odd look. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just…you startled me.” He smiled. “Sorry.”

  She nodded and moved on to another table.

  Behind him, Seth heard Niall say, “My dear?”

  Seth turned to see Niall stand and reach down to the faery. “Are we done?”

  “Mmmm. Paused. Not done. Never done until you’re dead.” She took his hand and, with the liquid grace that characterized so many faeries, she came to her feet. Her eyes were unfocused as she gingerly touched her cheek. “That was good, my King.”

  The Dark King nodded. He didn’t take his gaze away from her.

  “I’ll come for you tonight,” she whispered in what was either a threat or a proposition.

  Then she turned her head in a series of short jerky moves, locating each of the six red-palmed faeries unerringly. They moved in unison toward her. Without another word exchanged, the group left as suddenly as they’d arrived.

  Niall glanced at Seth. “I’ll be right back.”

  He left as well, and Seth sat there, stunned by the random violence and unsure what to think of it.

  Seth realized that another person had seen the fight: a faery, invisible to Un-Sighted mortal eyes, stared at him from across the room. Coarse white hair was bound back into a tiny knot at the crown of his head. His features were sharp, angular in ways that made him seem carved. It was a different sort of sculpture than what Seth created, but in the instant, Seth’s hands itched for a block of dark stone to try to sculpt an opposite piece. The pale faery stood staring, and for a moment, Seth wondered if he was alive. He was so inflexible that the illusion of being carved was complete.

  Once Niall returned a few minutes later, he was not so blood-covered. His glamour hid the state of his clothes and the cuts on his skin, so the only mortal in the room who saw that anything had changed was Seth.

  When Niall sat down at the table again, Seth said, “Do you know him?”

  Niall followed Seth’s gaze to the side of the room where the statuelike faery still stood. “Unfortunately.” Niall removed a cigarette case from a pocket and slid one out. “Devlin is Sorcha’s ‘peacekeeper,’ or her thug, depending on who’s doing the defining.”

  The faery Devlin smiled placidly at them.

  “And I’m not in the mood to deal with him,” Niall added, without taking his attention from Devlin. “Very few faeries are strong enough to test me these days. She is. Unfortunately, he is too.”

  Unsure how the day had gone so suddenly tense, Seth shot another glance at Devlin, who was approaching their table.

  He stopped, still invisible, and said to Niall, “Trouble comes, my friend. Sorcha is not the only target.”

  “Is she ever?” Niall flicked open his lighter.

  Without being invited, Devlin pulled a chair out and joined them. “Sorcha was once fond of you. That should matter, even to you. What she needs is—”

  “I don’t want to know, Dev. You see what I am now….”

  “In control of your own path.”

  Niall laughed. “No. Not that. Never that.”

  Seth wasn’t sure what the right move was, but when he started to stand, Niall gripped his forearm. “Stay.”

  Devlin watched, seemingly impassive. “He’s yours?”

  “He’s my friend,” Niall corrected.

  “He sees me. He saw her.” Devlin’s tone wasn’t accusing, but it was alarming nonetheless. “Mortals aren’t to See.”

  “He does. If you try to take him”—Niall bared his teeth in an animalistic snarl—“any kindness I once felt for your queen or friendship for you will not stop my anger.” Then he glanced at Seth. “Go nowhere with him. Ever.”

  Seth raised one brow in silent question.

  Devlin stood. “If Sorcha had meant for me to take the mortal, he’d be gone. She hasn’t ordered his collection. I am here now warning you of trouble in your court.”

  “And reporting back on it.”

  “Of course.” Devlin gave Niall a look that was beyond disdainful. “I report everything to my queen. I serve the High Court in all things. Be alert to my sisters’ words.”

  Then he stood and left.

  Niall ground out his first cigarette, which he hadn’t smoked, and pulled out another.

  “Want to explain any of that?” Seth gestured around the room.

  “Not really.” Niall lit the cigarette and took a long drag. He held the cigarette in front of him with a bemused look on his face. “And really, I’m not sure I can explain it all.”

  “Are you in danger?”

  Niall exhaled and grinned. “One can hope.”

  “Am I?”

  “Not from Devlin. He’d have tried to take you if he was sent here to do so.” Niall glanced at the doorway through which the High Court faery had left. “Devlin comes here on High Court business because Sorcha does not often walk among mortals.”

  “And the faery who attacked you?”

  Niall shrugged. “It’s one of her hobbies. She enjoys violence, discord, pain. Keeping her in check is one of the many challenges Irial left me. He helps, but…I have trouble trusting him.”

  Seth didn’t know what to say to that. They sat in awkward silence for several cigarettes.

  The waitress stopped to clean the tables nearest them—again. She stared at Niall with blatant interest. Most faeries and mortals did. Niall was a Gancanagh, seductive and addictive. Until he’d become Dark King, his affection was also fatal to his partners.

  “Who was she? The faer—” Seth broke the word off as the waitress came to their table with a clean ashtray. He told her, “We’ll let you know if we need anything.”

  “I don’t mind stopping, Seth.” She spared him a scowl before turning her attention to the Dark King. “Niall…Is there anything you need?”

  “No.” Niall stroked the girl’s bare arm. “You’re always good to us. Isn’t she, Seth?”

  After the waitress walked away, sighing and darting a glance back at Niall, Seth rolled his eyes and muttered, “We ought to pass those charms of yours out to everyone here.”

  A grin replaced the gloomy expression on Niall’s face. “Spoilsport.”

  “Enjoy it. Enjoy the attention, but reserve your affection for faeries,” Seth cautioned.

  “I know that. I just need”—the Dark King winced as if the thought hurt him—“I just need you to keep reminding me. I don’t ever want to be what Keenan is, what Irial was.”

  “Which is?” Seth asked.

  “A selfish bastard.”

  “You’re a faery king, man. I don’t know how much choice you have. And with what just happened with the raven-faery—”

  “Don’t. I would spare you and myself from your knowing the unpleasant things in my life if you’ll let me.”

  Seth held up a hand in a
halting gesture. “Your call. I’m not judging you either way.”

  “That makes one of us then,” Niall murmured. After a still moment, he straightened his shoulders, rolling them like he was testing for motility. “I suppose the true dilemma is where to direct my bastardness.”

  “Or you know, try harder on the resisting-it thing.”

  “Sure.” Niall’s expression was bland as he added, “That’s exactly what the Dark King is to do: resist temptation.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Aislinn was feeding the birds when Keenan came in slamming doors and scowling. One of the cockatiels clung to the back of her shirt and poked its beak through her hair to watch the Summer King. The birds were a source of comfort for Keenan. Sometimes, in his melancholy or irritable moods, sitting and watching them was one of the only surefire ways to adjust his temper. The birds seemed to know how valuable they were and acted accordingly. Today, however, he didn’t pause among them.

  “Aislinn,” he said by way of greeting before he walked past her and to his study.

  She waited. The cockatiel took flight. None of the other birds came toward her. Instead, they all seemed to be watching her expectantly. The cockatiels’ crests were raised. The other birds merely stared at her—or in the direction Keenan had gone. A few squawked or chirped.

  “Fine. I’ll go see him.”

  She followed him into the study. The room was one of the two that were Keenan’s domain. The other—his bedroom—wasn’t one she ever entered, but the study was where they usually went when it was just the two of them. She felt weird going in there without him. The Summer Girls sometimes curled up on the sofa with a book, but they had no interest in keeping boundaries with Keenan. Aislinn did. The closer summer crept, the more she felt a pull toward him—which she didn’t want.

  Aislinn stood just inside the doorway, trying not to feel ill at ease about being in his space. He kept telling her that the loft was hers as much as his, that everything was hers now. Her name was on store accounts, credit cards, bank cards. She ignored them, so he went for more subtle gestures, things that he thought would make her feel at home in the loft. Little threads to tie me. It wasn’t obvious at first glance that he’d changed the study again, but if she looked around the somber room, small things would be different. She didn’t live there, but she spent enough time at the loft that it was a second—third—home these days. Her nights were divided among home, Seth’s, and the loft. She kept clothes and toiletries in all three places. Her real home, the apartment she shared with Grams, was the only place where she was treated like she was normal. At home she wasn’t a faery queen; she was just a girl who needed to do a bit better in calculus.

  While she stood tentatively at the door, Keenan sat at one end of a dark brown leather sofa. Someone had set out a pitcher of ice water; condensation was rolling down the sides of it in little rivulets. It puddled on the surface of the slab of agate that served as a coffee table. He tossed away one of the newest pillows, an oversized deep green thing without any ostentatious decorations. “Donia won’t see me.”

  Aislinn closed the door behind her. “What for this time?”

  “Maybe over asking about Bananach. Maybe still over this business with Niall. Maybe something…else—” Keenan broke off midthought and scowled.

  “Did she talk to you at all?” Briefly, Aislinn rested her hand on his forearm before going to the other end of the sofa. She kept her distance by habit, breaking it only for etiquette or gestures of friendship, but every day it grew more difficult to keep that distance.

  “No. I was stopped at the door again, refused admittance to the house. ‘Unless it is official business,’ Evan said. For three days, she’s been unavailable and now this.”

  “Evan is just doing his job.”

  “And enjoying it, I’m sure.” Keenan was not very good at rejection of any sort; Aislinn had figured that out back when she was still mortal.

  She switched the topic. “It seems odd that she’d be upset over Niall now or over us asking about Bananach.”

  “Exactly. Once Niall calms down, his holding the Dark Court can be an asset to both of our courts. She’s—”

  “No. I mean, she seemed calm enough when we left the other day. Not happy but not truly angry.” Aislinn hugged a pillow to her like a big stuffed toy. Talk of the intricacies of faery relationships and courts and of grudges between faeries with centuries of history made her feel so very young. Many of the faeries might look—and often act—like her classmates at school, but the whole longevity thing made life far more complicated. Brief relationships spanned decades; long friendships stretched over centuries; betrayals of yesterday and decades and centuries past all cut deeply. It was a challenge to navigate.

  “Am I missing something?” she asked.

  Keenan watched her with a pensive expression. “You know, Niall was like that. He helped me focus, went straight to the point….” His words drifted away as tiny clouds shifted in his eyes, a promise of rain as yet unfulfilled.

  “You miss him.”

  “I do. I’m sure he’s a great king…. I just wish it wasn’t of such a vile court. I handled things poorly,” he said.

  “We both messed up there. I ignored things that I should’ve reacted to, and you—” Aislinn stopped herself. Rehashing Keenan’s deceits and the consequences for Leslie and for Niall yet again wasn’t going to help. “We both made mistakes.”

  Leslie’s being caught in the heart of the Dark Court was Aislinn’s fault too. She’d failed one of her closest friends—and she’d failed Niall. Aislinn shared the weight of the responsibility for the actions of the Summer Court. It was why she was trying to work on a closer relationship with Keenan: they had joint responsibility, and if she was going to bear the guilt for his less palatable actions she needed to know what they were in advance.

  And stop them if they’re awful.

  “And they made bad choices. We aren’t the ones responsible for that.” Keenan couldn’t have said it if it was a lie, but it was an opinion. Opinions were shaky territory with the faeries-don’t-lie rule.

  “We aren’t absolved either. You kept things from me…and they paid the consequences.” She had not entirely forgiven him for his using Leslie or Niall, but unlike Donia, Aislinn had no choice but to get along with the Summer King. Unless one of them died, they were bound together for eternity or until they no longer held the Summer Court—and faery rulers tended to hold their courts for centuries. That was pretty close to an eternity.

  Eternity with Keenan. The thought terrified her still. He wasn’t particularly inclined toward an equal ruling status, and she wasn’t experienced at dealing with faeries. Prior to her transformation into a faery monarch, her primary method of “dealing” was avoidance. Now, she had to rule them. He had nine centuries ruling without his full power. It was hard to say that she should have an equal voice, but the alternative—responsibility for the consequences but not involvement in the decisions—wasn’t a solution.

  And since she’d become their queen, the summer faeries had become important to her. Their welfare mattered; their happiness and safety were essential. It was as instinctual as the need to help Summer grow to strength, but that didn’t mean everyone else should be sacrificed for the progress of Summer. Keenan didn’t get that.

  She shook her head. “We’re not going to agree on this, Keenan.”

  “Maybe”—Keenan looked at her with such open affection that she could feel the sunbeams under her skin responding—“but at least you aren’t refusing to speak to me.”

  Aislinn moved farther back into the corner of the sofa, her message implicit in the movement. “I don’t have a choice in the matter. Donia does.”

  “You have a choice. You are just…”

  “What?”

  “More reasonable.” He didn’t hide the smile that came as soon as he said it.

  The tension that had been growing inside of her dissipated at his easy smile. She laughed. “I’ve never been as un
reasonable as I’ve been the past few months. The way I’ve changed…My teachers have commented. My friends, Grams, even Seth…My mood swings are awful.”

  “Compared to me, you’re quite unflappable.” His eyes were sparkling: he knew how volatile she’d become. He’d been the target of her temper more than anyone else.

  “I’m not sure it counts as being reasonable if you’re the measuring stick.” She relaxed again. During all the weirdness over the past few months, he’d found ways to make her lighten up. It was a big part of what had made it bearable to be the Summer Queen. His friendship and Seth’s love were her mainstays.

  Keenan’s smile was still there, but the plea in his eyes was serious as he asked, “Maybe you could talk to Don? Maybe explain to her that I miss her. Maybe you could tell her that I am sad when I can’t see her. Tell her that I need her.”

  “Shouldn’t you tell her?”

  “How? She won’t even let me in the door.” He frowned. “I need her in my life. Without her…and without you being—I’m not good at things. I try, but I need her to believe in me. To not have either of—”

  “Don’t.” Aislinn didn’t want him to follow that thought any further. The peace between the courts was new and tenuous. It was better if Donia and Keenan were at peace with each other, but talking to Donia alone made her anxious. They’d become friends of a sort, not as close as Aislinn had initially hoped, but close enough that they’d spent afternoons together at first. That had ended when spring began. When things with Keenan changed. They could avoid talking about it, but it took constant effort for her and Keenan not to touch each other.

  “I can try, but if she’s upset with you, she might not be willing to talk to me either. Lately, she’s bailed every time I’ve tried to make plans with her,” Aislinn admitted.

  Keenan poured them both glasses of water while he talked. “It’s because Summer is growing stronger, and Winter is weakening. Beira got surly every spring—and that was when I was still weak.”