“I’m already helping you,” I said.
“No, you’re biding your time until you can figure out a way to oust me from Drake’s body. You can’t play me, Cara. Not me.”
“I’m helping you because your banshee wants to kill my family,” I said, my lower lip trembling. “I’m helping you because maybe all of these attacks will stop if you’re in charge. I’m helping because I know there are monsters under the bed, Brendan. You need to make them go away.”
“Do you now? What else do you know, Cara?”
“I know you take humans and use them up then spit them back out.”
“And how do you know that?”
I stared at him blankly, desperately trying to think back on what I had said, if Realtín and Grim would be in trouble because of my words. It was all a blur. I shook my head feebly.
His grip loosened. “Everyone has a choice.”
“Not when you feed them poisoned apples and wine! I didn’t have a choice.”
“But you knew there was danger, and that was the lure. I’ve seen it many times, Cara. Sometimes the subconscious makes the decision, but a decision is always made.”
I opened my mouth to deny it, but decided there was no point.
“When I reigned, I was a young and foolish king. I didn’t know anything about humans other than that they were pleasant entertainment for a time. I had too much time, grew bored too easily, and made my fun in the only ways that made me feel something for a while. You’re not the only one, Cara, not the only one who can’t feel. But you have feelings; we’re born with none. You don’t know what it’s like for us, to be so empty inside. We’re shells, all of us, desperate to find something, anything, that will fill the emptiness just long enough for us to forget for a while. If it wasn’t for humans, we’d all be mad.” He gave a short, sharp laugh. “Perhaps we’re all already mad.”
“You understand then,” I said, “what it’s like for me to be around you. Why the thought of going back and having none of this again is…” I looked away, feeling the ache of an empty future, one with dead-end jobs and crappy flats and living week to week because there was nothing better out there for me.
He shook his head. “Sometimes, I think I envy the life you’ll return to. When my soul was trapped, it was like I was in a maze, a nightmare that never ended. But sometimes, there was clarity, and I saw things that kept me going, that kept my mind intact. I didn’t lose myself completely because of those moments. I couldn’t choose what I saw, couldn’t interfere, but I saw humans do beautiful things, things that made me want to change.”
“Like what?”
“It doesn’t matter now.” He stepped away from me. “But I discovered so much about myself, about my own people, and the rest of the world. The snippets weren’t enough, and I fear I’ll lose them soon. I want to be a better king, but when I’m myself again, I will no longer be sorry for the things that have happened to you. You won’t like me when I’m myself again. If you even do now.”
“So change,” I said. “Don’t be that same old king again. Be a different one, a better one, one the fae deserve. The last queens died because of how they treated people. You were betrayed because of the way you treated people.”
“They act as if they’re offended, but they wouldn’t tolerate kindness either. They think us weak if we care, especially about humans. An old friend once lost his mind over a human, so I took the threat away to save his life. He still hasn’t forgiven me, and that is his weakness. Drake cares for you, but we’ll both be hurt if anything should happen to you. The thing that makes us weak is keeping him alive.”
“If I help you, will you set Realtín and Grim free?” I blurted. “Will you let them live freely and unharmed?”
He hesitated. “I’ll consider it. You were wrong about one thing, Cara. I am your king. Whether you know it or not, a part of you wants to obey me.”
“No,” I whispered. “Never.”
“I can feel everything you feel. The fae play and aggravate because it increases the emotional response from humans. We feed off of that response. We live off your fear and lust, and that’s the only reason we allow you to live. I can feel everything you’re going through, and I could feed from you for a long time. Perhaps living with you and your mother has changed your father. Those charges of energy and emotion could be affecting him.”
“He’s just an arsehole,” I said. “He hates me. It has nothing to do with a trace of something fucked up in my blood.”
“Perhaps there has been a fae whispering in his ear all these years. It would explain so much: your brother’s depression, your father’s anger, your mother’s fear, and your unhappiness.”
“What do you know about my brother?”
“I know many things,” he said. “And there might only be a trace of fae in your blood, but perhaps the fae it came from was potent. Stay with me. An attack could happen at any time. Do you really want to have to fight again? You’re no warrior, and your luck will run out sometime.”
I gazed at him, weakening. He said the right things, and I didn’t want to be alone. “I don’t want to fight,” I whispered. “Until Imbolc?”
He nodded. “Until then. I promise.”
There I went again, believing a faery.
Chapter Fifteen
Brendan left me to his fae, while he went to attend to other things. I wondered if the friend he’d mentioned was Sadler, if maybe Brendan hadn’t been the monster the others thought him to be. Faeries couldn’t love freely for fear of seeming weak, and they could never trust another soul. Yet I still envied them.
Realtín and Grim led me to my room, the same lavender and silver place that was way too good for me. I had my own bathroom, my own double bed, and my very own guard outside my door.
“This feels like prison,” I said.
“It won’t be forever,” Grim replied. “Two weeks until the ceremony, and then it’s over.”
“I can’t wait.” I was torn between never wanting to see the fae again and wishing I could stay with them forever. I sprawled on the bed and took my phone out of my pocket. Dead. “I need to charge this. Is there electricity here?”
“Yes,” Grim said. “But perhaps our magic can give it the boost it needs?”
I stared at the phone, unwilling to test the theory on something I had spent months saving up to buy. “I think I’ll just use the electricity.”
Brendan made us join him for dinner that evening. Sorcha was there, along with his head guards, including a tall, bald, broad-chested faery I had seen a number of times. The rest of the seats were full of faeries I didn’t know. They all seemed to want something from Brendan. The politics bored me, and Realtín entertained me by making snide remarks in my ear about everyone present.
After dinner, Brendan stood. “You must excuse me,” he said in a tight voice. “I have a guest, as you can see. I’ll be spending this evening showing her around the grounds.”
The other fae exchanged surprised glances.
Sorcha clenched her fists. “But we still haven’t talked about the—”
He took my arm firmly and pulled me from my chair. “Tomorrow. We’ll get to it tomorrow.” He led me out of the room, giving the others a warning look that apparently meant, stay.
“I might kill somebody at one of these dinners,” he said as we walked outside. “Please look the other way if I ever pick up the carving knife.”
“That bad?”
“Weren’t you listening? If I ever thought court intrigue was dull before, it was nothing compared to this. The life has gone out of these fae.”
“I stopped paying attention when they started talking about marrying you off to anyone even remotely related to them.”
He stared at me, clearly horrified. “When did anyone say that?”
“Realtín translated for me.”
His laughter was contagious. “Not even servitude can knock the mischief out of that one. She’s right. What they say and what they mean are two very different
things. They ally themselves to me only if it benefits them. They only care about power and pain.”
“I thought that was all you cared about, too.”
“I’m not myself,” he admitted. “Perhaps it’s Drake’s influence. But he will be gone when the throne is officially mine.”
“What if you don’t change back?”
He released a shuddering sigh. “Then I’ll have to brush up on my acting skills.”
“But what if you don’t get the throne? What happens then?”
“If Sadler gains the throne, then my life is forfeit. We can’t let that happen.”
“Is he… bad?”
His face softened. “Not bad. Just angry. I did him a wrong once. He won’t ever forget it. If he forgives me, then he’ll be forced to feel the pain. Anger is always better for fae. It makes us strong.”
“I pity you all sometimes.”
He laughed. “Oh, if they heard you say that.”
We continued on the path, and I felt eyes on my back. I glanced around, but nobody was there. I shivered. “Grim said they fight over who gets to watch over me because they get such a thrill when I almost die.”
“The guards? Can you blame them? If not you, then me, and you’ve seen for yourself how boring my day is.”
“But do you think the attacks could be coming from them? Just to scare me?”
He looked over his shoulder, frowning. “I don’t think they would risk it.”
“But am I really safe here? With you?”
He grinned. “Maybe the threat of danger will attract you all the more.”
I punched his arm. There were no guards next to us, so it seemed safe, but it felt like hitting a wall. “You’re strong.”
“Not yet. Soon, I will be. It’s you who are weak, in any case. It’s a shame you don’t have more fae in you. If you can kill a pooka now, imagine what you could have been with power.”
“I’m not fae at all. Look at me.” I held up my ordinary arms. Even my mother looked different. I was just like everyone else.
“There’s something familiar about you, something I can’t pinpoint. Perhaps that’s why Drake is taken with you.”
My cheeks burned. That was far too awkward a conversation to have with the person inhabiting Drake’s body.
“You do care for him, don’t you?”
I ignored the question. “What’s it like? Invading somebody’s body and knowing they’re still in there with you?”
He paused for a moment. “Our thoughts run parallel. I can hear the things he wants me to hear. We don’t converse. It’s not like that. Except we understand each other. I think, in another time, I would have liked this faery.”
That threw me.
“Sorcha wants me to kill you after the ceremony. To get rid of you and Drake, once and for all. For some reason, the thought leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”
“I don’t feel very safe.”
“Would I warn you if I planned to do it?”
“Probably, just to fuck with my head.”
His laughter surprised me. “I find I like that you talk to me as if you aren’t afraid of me. It makes me forget the things I’m responsible for.”
“I’m definitely afraid of you. Sorry.”
He reached out and touched the necklaces around my neck. “Grim told me how his Seelie queen refused to wear the same adornments twice, but these are the only pieces I’ve seen you wear. Do they mean something to you?”
I pushed his hand away. “It’s nothing.”
“Obviously, that’s not true.”
“They’re… memories,” I said. “My mother gave me the locket at Christmas. There’s a picture of my brother and me inside. Butterfly was his nickname for me. The medal was his. I found it before the pooka came. Now that I’ve left, it kind of feels like… this is all I have of family. I don’t even know why he wore the medal. It has St. Patrick on one side and St. Brighid on the other. I don’t remember him being religious or anything.”
“St. Brighid,” he repeated. “Our Brighid was a fire goddess, mother of all. She turned her back on us a long time ago. Strange to hear her name mentioned by you.”
“Not the same person though,” I said, looking at the medal. “At school, we used to make her cross from reeds on the first of February, but I forget why. This Brighid is the patron saint of babies and children with unmarried parents. And crops or something.”
“Much like our Brighid then. She is birth and fertility in all of its forms. Imbolc is her festival.” He made a scoffing sound. “Sadler claims to descend from her.”
I dropped the medal against my chest and shrugged. “Maybe they’re the one and the same then. You sound a little angry at her.”
“She deserted us when we needed her. She is long dead.” His cheeks flamed with colour. “Maybe if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t have ended up like this.”
“So how did you end up like this? What happened when you were king?”
He fidgeted. Watching him speak was interesting because his facial expressions were so different to Drake’s. It was easy for me to separate the two personalities.
When I felt like it.
“You know already that I was a young, brash king. Spoiled, really. My mother was summer, and my father, winter. Back then, we claimed we controlled the seasons, but they were empty titles. We were not gods. My parents joined in the hope of uniting the courts again. We had been weakened after many wars, and there had been two opposing courts for many years. Before you ask, that’s an even longer story.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“There were dark days before I was born, and my parents united against their enemies. They were the last good leaders, in truth. They left too soon. Having me nearly killed my mother. I was the summer boy who could survive winter. I belonged everywhere, and they believed I would be the one to gather the fae again, to make us as strong as we had once been.”
“Are the fae weakening?” I blurted, thinking of Ronnie’s words.
“I believe so. Most do not, however. But we shall see. In my first life, I was the strongest fae, the one with the most potential. My parents assumed I would be as fair as they were. They were wrong. I was too cocky. My parents spent summers and winters apart for a number of reasons, and I stayed with one or the other. They came together during springs and autumns. Those were their happy times. When I grew old enough and proved strong enough to control both courts, they left for the Nether.”
“The Nether?”
“The place fae go when they say goodbye. Nobody returns from the Nether. If Drake is lucky, he’ll end up there. If not, he may become a shade instead. That’s what I fought against when I was sent to the Fade.”
“What’s a shade?”
“The shades are twisted, corrupted, lost souls. They’re bound to guard the Nether, to be trapped in the outer Fade, but when one escapes, it wreaks havoc on our world and yours.”
“You escaped the Fade,” I said, fear leaving me cold.
“I was no shade. I fought to keep my mind intact. Mayhap it was the banshees who kept me whole, but while I was there, I thought it was a connection to the real world, those moments of clarity I told you about.”
“But somebody wanted you to be a shade? That’s why they sent you to the Fade?”
He nodded. “The ultimate punishment. I brought it all upon myself. When I ruled, I spent too much time in our realm, keeping my youth intact, when I should have been searching for wisdom. Vanity was my biggest problem. I was so arrogant. I spent too much time in excess, too much time seeking enjoyment. I hunted in the Great Forest, drank and danced and played my days away. I ignored the threats and danger, and I savoured every pleasure. It was too much.”
“I thought you lot were made for excess.”
“We are, but the ruler should be the one who sets the example. My life was filled with wild, heady days that led to my downfall. When I ruled, Ireland was a young country. Humans worshipped us, called us gods, and sacrificed their virg
in daughters to us. I spat back depraved, demented old women who couldn’t remember their own names. Still, they sang songs and spread the legendary stories about us. We enjoyed a golden age for a time.”
“So what went wrong?”
“Me,” he said firmly. “I went wrong every chance I had. I treated the solitary fae like dirt, attempted to force them to swear fealty to me. I didn’t spend enough time working to keep the peace, and the courts fell apart. It was too much for me to control. The courts weren’t held together even by the great power of my parents, and I was a lesser man. If I had been different, I could have been the greatest king the fae have ever known.”
He led me through the rose bushes. Out of the corner of my eye, I could have sworn I saw a black cat, but when I looked, there was nothing there.
Brendan picked a black rose and handed it to me. “This is why they think me weak, why Sorcha is so worried about having you here. I was ruined by a human. Betrayed, defeated. And all it took was a pretty face.” His expression darkened. “Sorcha remembers the old days, and she refuses to allow it to happen again.”
“What happened?” I whispered.
“There was a girl, as there usually is,” he said with a smile. “Fae and humans alike spoke of her beauty. Her father refused to give her to me, and she refused my advances, wouldn’t even look at me. I wasn’t used to that. Humans didn’t refuse the king of the fae.”
He wrapped his fingers around the petals of the rose in my hand and squeezed. “They played to my arrogance, and I fell for it. I was determined to take this girl, for her to be willing. I relished the challenge. She was beautiful and intoxicating, and like you, she had a trace of fae in her. She came to me after a time, and I thought I had won something. They used her to steal my heart and mind long enough to send my soul away. It took magic and blood and pain to send my soul into the Outer Fade, but once I was there, I couldn’t break free, couldn’t pass the shades. I had no form, and there was no one brave enough to come for me.”