Eilidh touched the pile of wood she’d left last night and it burst into flame. The flickering fire gave her light, and it offered a bit of heat. She didn’t need it, but she enjoyed taking it away from her prisoner when she left again.
She liked heating the sword that rested in that fire too. Torquil’s blood had long since been burned away, but it had been there. It had stained the blade. She thought it only fitting that the same blade be used to explain her upset to her Seelie brother.
“Did you rest?” she asked Calder.
He was held fast to the wall by the cave itself. Eilidh had explained to the stone that she was the daughter of the queen and king. She’d let the rocks feel her grief, and the cave had offered her aid. Stone had found Calder guilty.
Eilidh was justified in exacting her due blood price. She’d taken three days to do so, and tonight was her last night. After this, she’d dump him into the sea. If the sea thought him worthy of saving, it would take him to shore.
“The laws of the fae grant me blood rights,” Eilidh said formally. “For the injury done me when you drew the blood of my beloved, my betrothed. Before I could be wed and bring a child of our union, you stabbed him. You risked my future child’s life, the continuation of my parents’ joined line.”
Calder glared at her. He tried to remain silent when she visited, but in the two prior nights, he’d failed. Something about pain seemed to encourage speech—even if it was of a vulgar sort.
Eilidh gripped the hilt of Calder’s sword, welcoming the fire’s warmth into her body. It wasn’t something she would be able to do if she had different affinities, but she drew enough of the flames into her body that the hilt was cool in her hand. The blade, however, was heated, not as much as it would be later, but enough to hurt.
Slowly, Eilidh touched it to the bottoms of Calder’s feet. For about ten seconds, he held his silence. Then, he screamed. As soon as he did, Eilidh removed the blade. Flesh came with it.
“You should’ve been drowned at birth like the weakest of the litter,” Calder said in a rasping voice. “When the king hears—”
“He’ll do nothing,” Eilidh interrupted. She knew that to be true, was sure of it in the way that she was sure of the tides.
Calder stared at her.
“The land allowed me to take my price,” Eilidh explained to her Seelie brother. He was the younger of the king’s two sons, not known for skill with word or thought. Nacton, the elder Seelie brother, was the one to fear. Calder was simply the weapon Nacton wielded. If Calder wasn’t so hateful toward her, she would feel sympathy for how he’d been used.
He hated her, though, and he’d stabbed Torquil.
“You didn’t learn,” Eilidh chastised Calder. “You weren’t the eldest son, and so you never bothered to learn the old laws. I know them. Nacton and Rhys know them. I am within my rights to take these three days, Calder.”
She shoved his now-cooled sword into his leg, careful to avoid the femoral artery. When he screamed again, she withdrew it—only to repeat the action on the other leg. As he bled, she heated the sword up until it glowed.
“It’s important to cauterize these,” she told him before pressing the flat of the sword to his bleeding leg.
“By the terms of the law, I cannot leave you still bleeding unless I know it is only minor blood.” She pressed the flat to the other leg once he stopped shaking and yelling vulgarities. “His own daughter did this for him, you know. The half-fae girl Violet cauterized his wounds. The ones you gave to him. Torquil did not scream as you do. She told me that, as did the new heir. Torquil was brave.”
While Calder was still shuddering in pain, Eilidh summoned the waves, drew them high up the cliff and into the cave, and then she let the water take him away. Softly she told the sea, “If you will it, deliver him to the shore safely.”
And then she sat in the cave and wept until she thought she might be ill. This was not the person she wanted to be, but a weak queen—or princess—was as good as dead. Calder had drawn the blood of her husband-to-be; letting that go unanswered was tantamount to permission to do so again.
The cave curved around her, holding her in a basin where she curled up and sobbed. For herself. For her beloved. And for her brother-no-more.
fifteen
LILYDARK
When she heard the knock, Lily jumped. Her nerves were beyond tense. After the police, the attack, and the fire at the Row House, it felt like everything was a wreck. She was definitely a wreck.
Lily opened the door more cautiously than normal and . . . stared. The creature standing in the hall was obviously not here on Abernathy or Gaviria business. “What are you?”
“Not of the courts,” the fae said with a bark-harsh voice. “No harm is meant to you, Heir. There are plenty of us who are outside the finery and ceremony of the royal ones. Too ugly or too human. Too”—he shrugged—“unnatural for the courtly fae.”
Admittedly, the fae standing at the dorm suite door was thinner than anyone strictly human should be, as if his body had been steadily and slowly stretched and extended over many years. It was an unsettling thing to look at him. His face had that peculiar beauty that only fiction or paintings could create. It was a matter of perfect symmetry: beautiful to behold but too . . . fae.
Lily didn’t feel the urge to run, but regular humans often did.
“For you,” the faery said, extending a hand with an envelope and a package. He had the beautiful dark skin of the Seelie Court, but his skin had fine pale green tracery that could’ve been the result of hours upon hours under tattoo needles.
Lily stared at the leafy pattern trying to recall what she knew about the faeries outside the two courts. He obviously would not be able to pass for human, and such faeries were rarely seen outside the Hidden Lands. It was a saddening realization. There was an incredible amount of beauty that the world was denied when the fae withdrew from the world.
“Sent by them,” he added as if there would be any other fae so bold as to send her packages when she was carefully guarded.
Lily took the letter and package, and the fae man flashed her a smile. Then he was gone, sliding through the hallways with a grace that seemed as if he was swimming rather than walking on dry land. That, too, was a revelation. She wondered briefly if she’d ever be fae enough that she could move so elegantly.
“Lily?” Alkamy called from behind her.
She turned to look at her suitemate. Alkamy wasn’t overprotective in any way that was uncomfortable or off-putting. However, she was, rather obviously, watching Lily’s every move. Without discussing it outright, they had both acknowledged that Alkamy reported Lily’s doings to Zephyr. It was something of an open secret since they’d returned from the Hidden Lands a few weeks ago, and as much as Lily found it irritating, she wasn’t going to fight over it—at least not yet. Zephyr was beholden to the queen, and whatever she’d asked of him made him think that tracking Lily was essential. For now, she was letting it go.
“I’m right here,” Lily told Alkamy. “I had a delivery.”
“From . . . them?”
“Yes.” Lily closed the door and walked over to the sofa. This was the second time now that one of the court minions had slid into her life with no pause or obstacles. It highlighted how vulnerable she truly was.
Lily held the leaf-wrapped package in her hands. When she’d touched it, the wrapping had looked like brown paper, but as she held it, the paper was revealed to be leaves. The shape of the package was oblong, and the weight of it was heavy enough that it spoke of the fae man’s strength that he’d held it with barely one hand.
“What is it?” Alkamy asked as she came to stand near Lily.
Apprehensively, Lily turned it over in her hands. The other package from the Hidden Lands had been a crown. Lily wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to open this one.
It wasn’t that having a crown was awful. It was that this crown was changing her. She didn’t mention it to the others, but she felt it. Her affinitie
s were magnified, growing stronger by the day. In the few short weeks since she’d agreed to be the heir to the Hidden Throne, Lily had become so adept in her affinities that she felt certain that she could be mistaken for full fae already. It was terrifying. Opening another gift from her fae family was equally so.
As she started peeling the leaves back, the package shifted in size. Removing each layer of plants seemed to make the contents expand. By the time the third layer was removed, Lily knew what she held in her lap.
“A sword,” she pronounced, removing the last few layers more quickly.
She slid it from the leaf-etched scabbard.
It was a beautiful weapon. The metal blade had a greenish-white tinge to it, and the edges glinted, making clear that neither side was dulled. The hilt was a thing of beauty, but not such that functionality had been sacrificed. The pommel was a metal fish-tail, not as blocky as some pommels, but still good for bashing if she needed to use it that way. The guard was elegant, if a bit elaborate for her taste, as if vines had become metal. The blade itself, however, was the finest part. It was light enough to let her fight for a while without tiring, but it was still carefully balanced.
Alkamy reached out. Her fingers grazed the sword. She flinched.
“Kamy?”
“Oops,” Alkamy said in a fading voice.
And that was it. She didn’t move, didn’t speak further. Only her eyes moved, darting from the sword to Lily to the letter on the floor. Whatever had just happened was not good.
“Shit!” Lily tore open the letter and scanned it.
LilyDark,
Our queen has instructed that I send you a sword attuned to your particular needs and size. Enclosed is the sword wrought for you. As an additional aspect of its usefulness, the Queen of Blood and Rage has enticed one of the plants from her poison garden to meld with the metal. Anyone attempting to lift the sword without your handing it directly to them will experience accelerated hemlock poisoning.
Lily looked at Alkamy. “Hemlock. There’s hemlock and . . . What does hemlock do?”
Alkamy couldn’t reply.
And Lily had never seen anyone poisoned—or caused it herself. It was an aspect of her affinity with earth that she’d never even considered. The queen, however, apparently had no qualms doing so. Hurriedly, Lily continued reading.
The plant is a “devil’s blossom” that will begin external paralysis that will numb the lungs. If a fae (or fae-blood) is exposed, they will be debilitated so they can be delivered to the Queen Mother for justice. Humans, of course, will be prone to dying as they expire so much more quickly than our people do.
Yours in faith,
Rhys.
Lily dropped the letter to the floor and went to Alkamy, who appeared to be in increasing pain. “I don’t know how to stop it.”
Carefully, she leaned Alkamy toward her. Her body was hardening, taking on the rigidity of a corpse. Simultaneously, she was becoming colder by the moment as if each exhalation eliminated her warmth and life.
“Poison,” Lily muttered, trying to think of something, anything to do when someone was poisoned. Emetics were a bad idea when someone was paralyzed. Having Alkamy throw up would result in choking right now. Activated charcoal? That was used a lot, but it wasn’t something they had lying around. What they needed was help.
“Come,” Lily breathed into the air, sending her summons to whatever fae or fae-blood she could draw to her. “Any of you who hear me and can heal, come. Please.”
As gently but quickly as she could, Lily dragged Alkamy to the soil-filled sofa where they’d had to let Zephyr rest and heal recently. The soil alone wasn’t enough, but it was something. It would help pull the toxins from Alkamy’s body. Perhaps that would slow the progress of the poison.
“Kam? Lily?” Creed’s voice came from the door.
Violet followed his words with the start of a question. “Where are . . .”
Creed and Violet walked into the room as Lily was hefting Alkamy into the vat of dirt. They stopped suddenly.
“What happened?” Creed asked.
If they were summoned by the words Lily had sent into the air, they wouldn’t be so shocked. They’d know that she needed a healer. Lily didn’t have time to worry about whether or not her summons would bring more help. Creed and Violet were present now, and their help was better than what she’d had a moment ago.
“She’s been poisoned,” Lily said, feeling somewhere between panic and idiocy. It looked like she was hauling a corpse to a dirt-filled box. If they weren’t all fae, this would be the sort of thing that could send her to jail.
Alkamy was immobile and her lips were bluing. Rhys’ letter gave her reason to think that Alkamy might survive, but Lily wasn’t sure. How the poison would work on someone who was only half-fae might be different from how it affected someone who was wholly fae.
“I don’t know what to do. She’s stiff and freezing and—”
Violet was there next to her suddenly, her tiny frame seeming larger as it always did when she was in a mood. Her hands weren’t filled with fire, but they were glowing. Warmth poured from them as she tried to stop Alkamy from frigidity.
For a moment, Lily watched, hoping, but not seeing any improvement. She repeated her plea, sending her words through the air, “I need a healer. This is the queen’s heir, the king’s heir, and I need aid.”
She looked toward the door, willing it to fling open to reveal a faery healer.
“She isn’t breathing,” Violet said, voice edged with panic. “Someone—”
“Move.” Creed shoved past them and bent to kiss Alkamy.
Violet and Lily both gaped at him.
Ignoring them, he kept his lips pressed to Alkamy’s.
“Air,” Violet pronounced in a soft voice. “Creed is air. He’s breathing for her.”
“Oh.” Lily felt stupid for not thinking of it. The hemlock was making Alkamy’s lungs falter, so Creed was pressing air into them, pushing the toxins back, and making her breathe.
Alkamy’s hands started trembling, and her legs began to move. In another moment, her arms shot up in an oddly mechanic way and jerked Creed closer to her. She clutched him, and it almost looked like a passionate embrace—except that Creed was starting to struggle. He wasn’t pulling away yet, but he no longer seemed as willing to hold his lips to hers. After several moments, the fight went out of him, and he began to slump onto Alkamy.
sixteen
ZEPHYR
Walking into Alkamy’s room and seeing Creed and Alkamy both slumped over filled Zephyr with the sort of fear that knew no sane word or act. He shoved Creed to the side in order to reach Alkamy. “What happened?”
Creed stumbled back, not speaking but making a raspy noise in his throat. Zephyr glanced his way, saw Violet restraining Lily, and shook his head. Whatever was going on here made no sense. But his first priority was Alkamy. Looking down at her, he saw that she was breathing shallowly and her lips were shaded bluish-purple. Her skin seemed tinged gray, so pale that a winding sheet would be brighter.
Never had she looked quite so much like the fairy tale Snow White as she did in that instant.
“Creed helping,” Alkamy whispered. Her hand was shaking as she gripped his wrist. “Hurt him.”
Lily stepped closer to Alkamy and told her, “I’m so sorry.”
Her tears were rolling down her cheeks and spilling onto Alkamy. Where the tears landed Alkamy’s skin brightened, and the unhealthy gray cast lightened a little.
“Oh,” Lily murmured, and then she leaned down and pressed her lips to Alkamy’s too.
“For Ninian’s sake! What’s wrong with Kam?” Zephyr snapped as Lily kissed his girlfriend. “And why is everyone kissing her?”
“Sick,” Creed murmured.
He glanced at Creed, who was sliding to the floor looking almost as unwell as Alkamy did. His usually night-dark skin was ashy, and his hands were trembling.
Zephyr went to the ground in front of Creed. He had
just reached out to check Creed’s pulse and breathing when a peculiar woman drifted into the room. Her feet logically had to be touching the ground, but she moved as if there was a cushion of air conveying her forward. There was something so alien about her that Zephyr knew that she was far more than merely fae-blood. This was a full fae, on the grounds of St. Columba, in Alkamy and Lily’s suite.
With no thought beyond defense, Zephyr stood and put his back to Creed. Violet instantly came to his side. Together they weren’t much defense against a fae if she was trained, especially as they were unarmed.
“LilyDark?” the faery breathed the word, letting it take shape and drift over them.
The fae woman was willowy, and not simply in the way humanity used the word. She was thin and flowing, her very movement like the draping boughs of willows in a breeze. It was an elegance humans could never replicate.
“That’s Lily,” Violet said, pointing but not moving to allow access.
“Ah.” The willow woman slid closer to them. Myriad tiny pouches hung around her waist on cords of varying lengths. Bits of plant were tucked in her hair, and vials of liquids clinked together like glass chimes all over her. They were woven into her hair, affixed to her skin, made visible through the slits in her skirt as she moved.
“She summoned, and I came. You are witness to it,” the willow woman said, lifting one hand to point toward Lily.
At the gesture, Violet stepped farther forward as if she wasn’t entirely sure that the fae woman should be allowed nearer to any of them.
Creed stumbled to his knees. He lurched toward her, half crawling to pass them and reach the fae. He wasn’t usually so awkward in his gait. In fact, the only time he was so lumbering was when he’d been exceedingly drunk or, more recently, when he’d been injured in the Hidden Lands.
“Test with me,” he ordered in a stronger voice than seemed likely given his condition.
The willow woman drifted closer to him, her skirt shifting as she squatted in front of Creed. Tenderly, she touched his lips.