When they reached the sparkling glass tower, Eilidh gestured for him to precede her into her home.
Still mute, he did so, ascending the stairs until they reached the common area, where they found Torquil waiting anxiously.
“You were gone, Patches. I thought I’d lost you. . . .” His words faded. Torquil walked over and wrapped an arm around her. She leaned into him.
Then, in a blink, Torquil had composed himself. “Zephyr.”
“Torquil.”
“What happened?” Torquil asked them both. “The sea is thrashing, and the earth is rolling. Something has happened, Eilidh.”
Zephyr filled Torquil in, but they both watched her expectantly as Zephyr explained that she had appeared, floating under the waves after the disaster that had taken lives and endangered the heir and Eilidh’s own parents.
“Eilidh?” Torquil asked. In that question were the fears and doubts she herself struggled to address. What had happened? Why was she there? Had she attacked her own family?
But Eilidh couldn’t reply. All she knew was that the sea had taken her and when she had awakened she was on the shore.
She needed answers. They needed answers. She simply didn’t have them.
thirty-six
LILY
Entering the Hidden Lands this time was a very different experience from the first time Lily had done so. This time, Lily wasn’t being summoned there. She was entering as the heir, alongside the rulers of this strange land and one of the Black Diamonds who was there as her subject. Lily entered with a sword in one hand and a circlet seemingly affixed to her head of its own will. It was an overwhelming experience, one she wasn’t sure she’d be so calm about later.
At her side, Violet was silent.
The first time they’d come here, Lily hadn’t had any time to look around and enjoy the odd beauty of the world. She also hadn’t realized that the doors didn’t always open to the same place. When she’d come through before, the Hidden Lands seemed more like forest than anything else. This time, she’d stepped into a craggy landscape of exposed reef and crumbling cliffs.
“Is there a pattern to where we enter?”
“Bloodline,” Endellion said simply. The Queen of Blood and Rage walked at her left side, as if they were equals or perhaps friends. “You are more mine so you will enter through my gate more often. Sea or water will often be near you.”
“Oh, Dell.” Leith sigh-laughed. “She isn’t more yours. She was in the forest last time.” He increased his pace so he was on the opposite side of Lily. “A lot of times, it’s affinity. With you that gives a few options, of course, but there will be spaces that call to you more. There are those bits of air—”
“Or sea,” Endellion interjected.
“Air or sea,” Leith continued with barely a pause, “that will call to you, as if they are solid space where you can anchor yourself. Dell is fond of these sharp rocks of hers. I like the softer moss of the forest. Our daughter tends to mix the two. She has a little spot she slips in and out of, as if we don’t notice, where there are trees, but she crosses through the caves. The girl’s always had a thing for the caves.”
Lily tried to ignore the oddities of the moment. She and Violet exchanged a look, but neither of them spoke. Lily wasn’t sure there was an appropriate response other than silence. These were her grandparents, talking about her aunt, but they were also the two single-most powerful creatures in either world. In the moment of crisis at Belfoure, she was grateful for their power and presence, but now that she was beyond that moment, she had to admit that there was a trickle of terror.
The regents of the Hidden Lands were pleased with her, and as such, she was cherished, but the truth was that the fae were capricious. The queen had waged war, using children as soldiers. The king had sat back in his throne and let her do so with full knowledge of her plan. Perhaps he was simply pleased that she wasn’t waging war on his court as she’d reputedly done centuries ago when the fae were divided. Lily might have been raised around guns, arrests, and the occasional assassination, but that was mild compared to the ways of the fae. She couldn’t forget that. Ever.
The Hidden Lands themselves inspired a fair degree of awe as well. There was something almost alive in the fae lands, as if they were sentient. Lily felt like there were invisible fingers reaching out to her, trying to touch some part of her where her affinities were surging. Briefly, she wondered if she’d felt it the last time she was here, but the fear of Endellion had subsumed everything and she’d not noticed. It was the fae that worked and lived here in the Hidden Lands. This was the land itself stretching toward her.
“You need to do something about them. Today was to be a celebration. I wore queenly clothes. I had shoes on my feet.” Endellion’s words were accompanied by a large root snapping to the surface where the king almost stumbled over it.
As the root tried to trip him, Leith merely floated upward as if on a draft of air. “It wasn’t the boys, Dell.”
“So say you.”
“I do, and you know I’m right.” Leith pushed warm air currents toward the Queen of Blood and Rage and ruffled her primitive sea-grass dress as if he were a boy trying to flirt with her.
Endellion let out a grumbling noise that rolled through the trees and soil like a small earthquake. The ground shuddered under their feet, and seams cracked in a nearby rock. It wasn’t deadly, but it felt a lot like a warning.
Violet and Lily exchanged a tense look, but neither spoke. The fae regents were seemingly oblivious to the girls’ presence as they bickered—or so Lily thought until Leith winked at her. He sent a gust of wind to shape fallen leaves into two clashing swords in front of the queen. “Calder has only air. Nacton has fire and compulsion. No water for either, my love.”
The queen called a gush of water to drench him up to his hips. It surged across the forest floor like she’d summoned a river to form. In truth, it was a beautiful bit of magic, especially as it curved around them and only doused the king.
Laughing, Leith hopped out of the suddenly appearing creek, somehow managing not to look ludicrous in the process. He continued to speak as if his wife hadn’t just tried to injure him . . . again. “Calder is still recovering from torture.”
The queen was silent for a brief moment before saying, “It obviously wasn’t Rhys.”
Leith guffawed. “That boy wouldn’t cross you for anyone but our daughter, or possibly”—he gestured at Lily—“our granddaughter. He might be Unseelie, but he’s loyal to his family.”
“And what, pray tell, is wrong with being Unseelie?” Endellion seemed to grow taller in her anger. Trees shivered, dropping leaves in a sudden shower. The water that the king had just stepped out of turned toward him as if it were stalking him now.
“Nothing. Someone has to take on the task of being temperamental and violent, and I’ve never been fond of it.” He eased closer to Lily and Violet and said, “It was the most difficult flirtation of my life. Always with the insults and crossing swords. A few centuries ago she almost had me convinced she disliked me.”
Endellion said levelly, “Sometimes I do dislike you.”
“You see?” Leith said, levitating a long strand of spiderweb, shaped as a heart, in front of the queen and setting it afire.
With an audible sigh, she drew water from the creek she’d just pulled to the surface and drenched both the flaming heart and the king.
He wiped the water from his face. “My sons suspect she’s a sorceress, bewitched me to madness.”
“You were mad before I decided to wed you,” the queen muttered.
“Mad with love. You know I love you, Dell . . . anyone with sense knows that.”
Endellion glared at him, but she was smiling slightly too. “Fine. I will allow that it wasn’t your Calder or my Rhys, and it might not have been your other son.”
She fixed her husband with a pointed stare. “Who was it then?”
He didn’t answer, but Lily saw a glimmer in his eye that made
her suspect that he had a theory. Whatever it was, whomever he suspected, the King of Fire and Truth wasn’t sharing. He turned to Lily instead and asked, “Do you want to visit my court? Your grandmother will want to check on Eilidh, pretend she’s not worrying over Rhys—”
“There’s no need to worry,” the queen interrupted. “He can handle himself.”
The king smiled at her kindly, and then he turned to Lily. “That boy got injured once, and she trained with him from that point forward till he was likely to expire out of sheer exhaustion.”
The queen said nothing.
“So,” the king continued, “I would love to offer you both rooms at my palace.”
Lily glanced at the queen, who did nothing other than swish her hand toward the king. Apparently that was as close as she was going to get to an assent. Carefully, Lily said, “If it would be okay, I’d also like to stay with my grandmother for a few days.”
Endellion didn’t say anything, but a look of pleasure crossed her face before she spoke, “You keep her safe. Do you understand? I won’t have those cretins upsetting her again, and the dissenters need to be kept in line.”
“Yes, dear.”
“The dissenters?” Violet asked.
“Some of our kind would want to kill LilyDark so she can’t be queen, the few who want to once again separate the courts, but it’s folly to even entertain it. . . .”
Lily sighed. Of course some of the fae wanted her to die. Humanity wanted to arrest her. A declaration of peace was a massive change. To accept it, laws would need to be rewritten. Tolerance for fae-blood would need to be mandated, and the gates between the worlds would need to be cracked open. It wasn’t a process that would go easily or quickly—especially with rogue fae out there burning places down and attacking the coronation.
Lily glanced at the king. He’d begun humming again, seeming as if he was as content as anybody could be. A small voice reminded her that he was the King of Fire and Truth, and he’d not only ruled the Seelie Court but found a way to forge peace between the courts—and now had angled the queen toward peace with humanity. He winked at her, and she shook her head. It was easy to forget that there were ways to achieve your ends that required no bloodshed. It wouldn’t do to underestimate the king.
thirty-seven
CREED
Inside the police station, Will and Creed were separated. Will had apparently been determined not to be a threat. Maybe it was because they realized who his mother was and that they’d arrested him with cameras rolling. The senator undoubtedly knew by now—as, most likely, did Creed’s fans and manager.
And because of Erik, Lily’s dad undoubtedly did too. If they were supremely unlucky, Lily did too. Creed truly hoped that wasn’t the case.
He found himself inside what was more or less a terrarium with foot-thick glass walls as if he was a bug in a jar or—
“You must release the singing boy.” The oddly worded proclamation interrupted Creed’s thoughts.
“Noxious plant in a bell jar,” he said quietly to himself. He wasn’t sure any of this was actually the start of a song, or if he’d ever get to sing on stage in this world again. Before Lily, music had been his only love. If he had to choose between them, Lily would win every time. First, though, he had to get out of a cage with walls so thick he couldn’t crack them.
A wiry officer stepped toward the door. “Sir, we—”
“He is to be released,” the voice repeated.
Creed walked to the edge of his cage, trying to see who had come seeking his freedom. Everything was distorted though. He had expected someone to come after him. He’d hoped that Erik had called for a lawyer when he’d seen him being arrested. His own manager wasn’t as quick at bailing him out these days. Honestly, Creed needed to fire the woman, but his career hadn’t been his top priority of late.
“He is not yours to keep.” The person who was demanding Creed’s release moved forward even as various officers tried to reach out and grab him. It was as if the air around him were impenetrable.
“Rhys?” Creed winced at the realization that the Queen of Blood and Rage’s son was in a police station because of him.
“The boy belongs to my queen,” Rhys pronounced, drawing a sword from his side.
Guards scrambled toward him, trying to halt his advance.
“Step back,” Rhys ordered.
This was about to become an incident, the sort that wouldn’t foster peace. The fae were rarely so bold out in public.
“Rhys!” Nicolas Abernathy’s voice at the door made the faery turn and scowl. “You cannot do that. There are laws.”
“My queen’s laws are clear,” Rhys began.
“We are not in her territory,” Lily’s father said.
Rhys kept his sword in hand, but an officer moved toward Lily’s father and that was enough for Rhys to leap over a desk, knock down two other officers and one prisoner, and step in front of Mr. Abernathy. Mildly, as if his actions were mundane, Rhys said, “This is my niece’s father. Blood of she whom I’ve sworn to keep safe.” He let his gaze drift over the room menacingly, but he continued to sound conversational as he added, “I’ve killed more than a score of men in an afternoon after I’d already sustained a grievous wound. I have no doubt that most everyone here will die if you draw weapons.”
“And if we don’t draw them?” one of the officers asked.
“Then you don’t bleed,” Rhys said. “My blade is currently clean. I’d rather it stay that way. I do not relish killing, and my queen has declared peace with your world this day.”
Uncharacteristically, Lily’s father addressed the assembled group of officers. “This man—”
“Fae-blood,” interrupted one of them.
“Fae,” corrected Rhys. “I am but a weapon created and wielded by the queen as needs be.”
“Not helping, man.” It was Erik. He had followed Nick into the station. He shook his head.
“This fae man,” Lily’s father said, almost as if he hadn’t been interrupted at all, “has broken no law yet.”
“Being fae is illegal . . . sir,” said an officer cautiously.
Nick waved his comment away, sounding more and more like his attorney. “Nonetheless, there were no other laws broken.”
“Yet,” muttered Erik quietly.
“Brandishing a weapon,” interjected someone from Creed’s left.
When Nick started to turn to glance behind him, there was a moment, a split instant when Creed knew that something very bad was about to happen. He heard the air, but being in the glass cell meant he couldn’t bend it. He couldn’t solidify it or reshape it.
“Move!” Creed yelled as he slammed both fists on the glass.
Before the word was fully formed, a bright red blossom covered Nick’s chest. Someone had fired a bullet and hit Nicolas Abernathy, crime lord and father of the new heir to the Hidden Throne. The shot wasn’t from inside the station. Creed could hear enough of the displaced air to know that the bullet was fired by someone outside.
“Nick!” Erik lunged toward him and tried to steady him.
And at that moment, Senator Parrish’s voice carried over the room and she shoved past several guards with a loud, “Unhand me right now!”
Within moments of stepping into the melee—even with an officer holding on to her arm—she looked as composed as she always did, right up to the point when she saw Nick bleeding, Creed in a glass cage, and a faery with a sword standing in the midst of it all.
“Put that down,” she ordered Rhys. She glanced around. “And you . . . the one still seated . . . call for an ambulance. There’s a man down.”
Her very sensible black pumps clacked on the floor as she walked farther into the room.
“And you.” She pointed at an officer. “Fetch my son.”
“Your . . .”
“William Parrish. My son.” The senator leveled a glare at the officer and extended a folded batch of papers. “You have him held wrongly. His test results are very
clear and public.”
The officer she was browbeating stepped forward when she shook the papers in his direction like she was summoning a recalcitrant pet.
“Ma’am?” another officer started.
“Senator,” she corrected in that same barking voice. “I am a senator, not a ma’am.”
“Yes, Senator, ma’am.” The officer accepted the papers and scanned them quickly. After he read them, re-read them, and nodded to himself, he said, “The nice one is free.”
Then he turned to glance at Creed. “But you’re staying. Anyone that’s got a thug . . . and one of them coming to free him is right where he ought to be.”
The senator said nothing. Her lips pressed tightly together, but Creed wasn’t sure whether that was in disapproval or if she was weighing her options. Her hands shook so slightly that it would take a slow motion camera to see that she was nowhere as confident as she was pretending to be.
Rhys watched everyone, as if he were trying to decide whether he could start brandishing the sword that hung loosely in his grip.
“My cage is comfortable enough.” Creed shrugged as if it was fine. He could pretend too.
He couldn’t help but look at his girlfriend’s father though. Nicolas Abernathy was bleeding and on the floor. Erik had shrugged out of his suit coat and given it to Nick. Rhys stayed there as if he were a statue guarding the fallen man. Nick himself had slid to the ground, but he’d managed to stay in a half-sitting position. He surveyed them all, speaking quietly to Erik, and holding the balled-up jacket to his own wound.
Creed didn’t want to imagine Lily’s wrath if she knew what was happening here. Obviously, he wasn’t the only one thinking that way either. Nick coughed and winced at the pain it caused before saying, “Lily is not to find out that one”—he inclined his head toward Creed—“is in here or that I have had a bit of a complication, do you understand?”
Erik frowned, but when Nick stared at him, he gave a curt nod.
Rhys said, “She will be displeased at the deceit.”