“She’ll have me slit his throat before she allows you to wed,” Rhys announced bluntly.
Torquil said, “The king—”
“Does not control my mother, even a little,” Rhys interrupted. “She is Unseelie, and angry, and has pinned every hope she has left on Eilidh and the halflings.”
Torquil frowned at him. “The . . . ?”
“The Sleepers.” Rhys spoke slowly, as if Torquil should’ve known that secret. When he realized that Torquil didn’t, his gaze turned to Eilidh. “You didn’t tell him?”
“If the queen or king wanted it spoken, it would be,” she pointed out.
“You are more like her than I realized,” Rhys said, and from his tone, she was fairly sure it wasn’t a compliment.
Eilidh nodded. “I am their heir.”
“Until she has another child or finds the missing daughter.”
“The baby died at sea. Everyone says so,” Eilidh said mildly.
“Can you say that she died?” Rhys prodded. “Tell me I’m wrong, Patches. Tell me you aren’t aware of where our missing sister had been hidden. Tell me that I missed some of your machinations, and you actually planned this mess with”—Rhys gestured at Torquil—“him.”
“You know I can’t,” she said.
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “You are the heir, my replacement at the head of the Unseelie fae, as well as Nacton’s replacement for the other court.”
“There is only one court,” Torquil started.
Rhys ignored him, speaking only to Eilidh. “I realized that I could serve you or hate you. Calder and Nacton chose hate. I think Mother was right to unify the courts. I will support that path, which means protecting the heir. To do that, I had to know your secrets—and the queen’s secrets.”
“Oh.” She wasn’t expecting this, not his support and certainly not his implied knowledge. Eilidh wasn’t sure where to go or what to say. She glanced at Torquil again.
Through it all, he had sat silently, the slight widening of his eyes the only true clue to how shocked he was. He’d maintained his calm facade well enough to convince Eilidh that he might make a fine consort after all.
“Eilidh?” he prompted.
She sighed. “Which disaster do you want to discuss first?”
eight
LILY
Choices matter. That was the greatest and the first of the Abernathy Commandments. Some families had the Ten Commandments hanging in their foyer; the Abernathy household had security cameras and a framed list of the first eleven Abernathy Commandments. There were more than eleven now, and the original ones had evolved a bit, but that framed list would never be replaced. Her mother had given it to her father before Lily was born. Daidí had said that it was how he knew that she was his soul mate.
Abernathy Commandments
#1: Choices matter.
#2: Be yourself.
#3: Never get caught.
#4: Weigh the consequences before beginning a course of action.
#5: Be bold.
#6: Never confess your vulnerabilities if you can avoid it.
#7: Secrets are valuable. Don’t part with them for free.
#8: Make use of opportunities that arise.
#9: Be kind to those who deserve it.
#10: Know when to be assertive.
#11: Know when to walk away from trouble.
Lily had grown up in the shadows of those commandments—thinking that every family had a set of rules to avoid “complications,” thinking security cameras and bodyguards were normal, thinking that all good fathers were opposed to sending their daughters to school.
In truth, Lily had been perfectly content with the way things were. She didn’t want a change. Being around people her own age, especially people who weren’t raised in a world where there were different kinds of “good,” was far from appealing. Being around normal people would make it hard to hide her own peculiarities too. Learning at home meant not making many friends, but it had also meant not having to hide herself. It seemed like a fine trade-off.
Daidí had always said she was like her mother—drifting away on flights of fantasy. But unlike her mom, Lily had no desire to write. Sure, she wanted to read, maybe watch movies . . . and pretend that she was the girl smiling at Zephyr Waters or getting caught skinny dipping in a fountain in Roma with Creed Morrison in the pages of a magazine.
But now, her isolation was being yanked away. Her bodyguard, Hector, was escorting her to the city of Belfoure in a black car with tinted windows, bulletproof glass, and heated leather seats. Lily stared out the window until the hum of the road and the soft patter of rain on the car roof lulled her into some semblance of calmness.
“This is a bad idea,” she pointed out yet again as Hector made a left turn.
“It’ll be fine. You’ll meet kids like you.”
Lily shook her head. The school was a haven for special people. All of the students were somebody: child prodigies; children of diplomats, politicians, and rock stars; glitterati; and of course, those whose wealth was inherited. Those like her—kids whose parents earned their money in less ethical ways—didn’t attend fancy boarding schools.
“Your father is a smart man,” Hector reminded her.
“Smart men make mistakes too. Being around others . . . like me . . . it’s not a good idea,” she said gently.
Hector wasn’t going to overstep by arguing with her—or by siding with her against her father. He kept his mouth shut and drove through the streets toward the campus that sat on the hill above Belfoure like a medieval fortress.
As Hector started up that winding drive, Lily thought back to the night she’d met Creed. She wasn’t going to lie to herself about what she thought about him. Creed was captivating, but that was precisely why she didn’t want to see him.
He’s probably forgotten all about me.
She’d done the right thing in not calling. She had. If not for her father’s ridiculous urge to send her to St. Columba’s, Lily would never see Creed again. That had been her plan, and it was a good one. As it was, the school should be big enough to avoid Creed to some degree.
As the car pulled up to the massive front gates at the school, Lily slipped her sunglasses on. It was a small comfort, like putting on a mask.
Stone walls surrounded the entire campus, but the front gates appeared to be iron or steel. They were made to resemble some sort of faux castle gate. It was modernized, of course, with a gatehouse and a guard. It also stretched across the road where she assumed the entrance to the inner walls of the fortress had once been.
Hector cracked his window and announced, “Abernathy.”
After a minute, the guard found her name on the list and buzzed them in. The heavy metal gate slid open with a series of clangs and clacks. If the myths about fae sensitivity to iron were true, Lily would feel wretched right now, but she’d never felt any weakness from iron. Maybe full-blood fae did. The media claimed that was so, but Lily herself hadn’t ever experienced any trouble with iron or its alloy, steel. Considering how often she wore a blade next to her skin, she was certain that she’d have known far before now if the metal was toxic to her.
As Hector drove onto the campus, Lily stared at the main building. It was imposing and dark, unlike the bright front of her home. This felt more like visiting the courthouse on the rare occasions when she’d been allowed to accompany Daidí to one of the government’s various attempts to convict him.
The central building of St. Columba’s was a towering black structure with gargoyles at the top, spires straight up into the gray sky, and doors that looked like they were meant to let in some horrific beast rather than mere people. The many steps up to those doors spanned the width of the building.
“Home sweet home.”
“Give it a chance,” Hector said. He parked the car at the top of the circular drive.
“Why?”
Hector opened her door, and in an instant, he was at the trunk pulling out the luggage. There w
ere only three bags. The rest would follow in the next day or so. These were just the essentials Shayla decided to send.
“Walk, Lilywhite.” Hector looked behind them, glaring at the gate that wasn’t shut yet before herding her up the steps with a terse one-word command: “Inside.”
At the top, she could see that a smaller door was nested inside the vast one. Hector opened it, and Lily went inside.
She pulled off her sunglasses and surveyed the hall, looking for potential exits and hiding areas. Abernathy Commandment #15: Always have a way out, more than one if possible. There weren’t any obvious egresses, unfortunately. It was a room designed for one way in and out, which made her nervous.
The foyer of the main hall was a vast high-ceilinged room. Sconces lined the walls, jutting out from the thick vines that covered the walls for as far as she could see. On either side of the room, staircases spiraled upward to the balconies that lined the second and third floors. In the center was a wide hallway. A small sign reading ADMINISTRATION was the only indication of direction.
They made it as far as the mouth of the hallway when a woman in a well-tailored suit walked toward them. “Miss Abernathy?”
Lily nodded.
The woman offered the sort of tight smile that didn’t bode well. “We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow. There are no suites presently available as a result, but if you give us an hour, we’ll get it all sorted out.”
Hector scowled, but Lily simply nodded and walked toward the plants clinging to the back wall of the massive room. Belatedly, she realized that she should’ve spoken, but there wasn’t anything that the woman could tell her that would be as useful as the plants would reveal.
“I’ll carry her bags to the office,” Hector said, drawing the woman’s gaze to him and away from her.
Lily’s affinity for earth was sacrosanct. Every new hire was told without fail that any time she needed to pause to touch nature, they must facilitate it. To do otherwise was a firing offense. They were also told exactly how horrific their deaths would be if they revealed her fae-blood tendencies to anyone outside the house. At least one employee had vanished suddenly after he’d allowed a reporter to capture a picture of her with waves seemingly bending toward her. The picture vanished, and both the reporter and her then-guard had never been seen again. Daidí left nothing to chance—at least he hadn’t until the night of her birthday when he’d invited Creed into their home.
Lily glanced down the darkened hallway. “Can I help in any way?”
The woman’s stiff smile softened into something close to approval. “I’ll get everything sorted out. You just take a look around your new home.”
“I’ll be right back,” Hector told Lily. He glanced after the woman suspiciously for a moment before following her away, dragging Lily’s bags with him like they weighed nothing.
“I’m in no rush,” Lily said.
She watched him as he walked away. Her hands absently twined into the plants, and she was grateful for this bit of the natural world inside this unfamiliar place. The plants talked in whispers and rustles, telling her of students, of sounds from the underground, of the spiders that draped the leaves in webs.
It wasn’t enough.
Once Hector turned the corner, Lily exited through the same door she’d just entered minutes prior. The woman had said Lily could look around. She hadn’t specified that she’d only meant look around inside, and when Lily didn’t have to stay inside, she didn’t.
The water in the fountain outside wasn’t pure, far from it in fact, but it was there. Lily could feel it tugging at her the way she suspected magnets drew metal. Soil and sea called to her; plants whispered to her. As she got older, she came to understand that most people didn’t hear words in the wind or feel the weight of moonlight. It had taken years for her to learn to rest without her windows wide open—and longer still to hide her need to be barefoot.
Lily walked back out of the administration building and into the courtyard. Her intent had been simply to be in the sunlight, maybe sit near the large fountain that filled the center of the circular drive, but when she walked down the steps, she saw that the gate to the grounds still yawned open like an invitation. The guard was talking to someone on his phone, and the gates were unwatched.
It was a sign.
She slid her sunglasses on and walked through the open gate as calmly as if she were walking into the theater with Daidí. She didn’t run or look around furtively. She didn’t glance back at the administration building.
Abernathy Commandment #8: Make use of opportunities that arise.
nine
LILY
Lily slipped her shoes off for a few minutes, tilted her face to the sky, and let the sun and air calm her. Like a plant, she’d wither and sicken without the elements against her skin, so she walked toward the sea, under the sun, and with the wind. If she was to move out of the comfort of her home, she’d need to find a way to balance her need for nature with the illusion of being mundane. She’d do so. She was an Abernathy, and that meant knowing how to survive in a treacherous world. Being sent to school was, in some ways, a test of her readiness to be an adult. Lily wouldn’t fail.
She followed the pull of the sea, and in no time at all, she was in downtown Belfoure. All told, it was about two miles from campus to the town, and in town there was a harbor. She could feel it tugging her close, as water always did.
Belfoure wasn’t the sort of city where a girl walking alone drew awkward attention. It was overcrowded, and she suspected that there were talented pickpockets in the morass of people that wound their way through the streets. All things considered, it was cleaner than most cities. Even if it had been dangerous, it was no matter. Lily had been taught to defend herself. If she happened to be unarmed, she’d had some interesting teachers who’d taught her how to look at the environment around her to select weapons.
Ignoring the people who clustered the streets and milled in and out of stores, Lily walked to the end of the pier. She couldn’t touch the water, but the wooden pier felt comforting under her feet and the air was relaxing on her skin.
Hector would come, but unlike her, he’d have to ask someone where the nearest body of water was—and ask it in a way that wouldn’t reveal her secret. She didn’t ever need words to find the water, so she had a few minutes of peace. The tightness in her chest that had started to seize her when she was in the St. Columba’s administration hall released as she stood with toes just over the edge.
If she had her way, she’d live on the beach, near one of the clear water zones that Daidí took her to see every year. In a lot of places the pollution was horrible, but some countries had instituted plans to keep beaches open. They’d positioned massive turbines both above and below the water to keep the debris and stench out, and they’d installed huge purification systems. Belfoure wasn’t as clean as a few of the places she’d visited, but it was better than most.
She had only been on this stretch of the harbor about ten minutes when she heard footfalls on the wooden pier.
“That was fast, Hec . . .” Her words faded when she glanced to her right and saw not Hector, but Zephyr Waters.
“Not really,” he said.
Her shoulders tensed, and she hoped she was wrong about the identity of the boy who stood beside her. After almost a minute passed, she peered at him out of the corner of her eye.
It was definitely Zephyr. She felt like her body was humming again as she stood next to him—just like it had with Creed. Something in her had reverberated like a beacon when she’d first seen the two boys in the media. She’d wondered why, had suspicions, but then she’d met Creed. Now, she knew: they were both fae-bloods. It was the only logical answer . . . and that meant that she needed to get out of here. She didn’t want to have a second stranger know her secret.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” Zephyr said casually, as if they were friends catching up. “I wasn’t sure when you’d get in, but I had a surprise planned. I thought y
ou might come to the water.”
Calmly, she glanced at Zephyr and said, “I think you must be looking for someone else. I don’t know you.”
He smiled.
The tension in her shoulders grew almost painful. Her hand went to the short knife she had concealed in her pocket. There was no way he could’ve been waiting for her. She wasn’t in the magazines like him. Perhaps Creed had mentioned her. It was the only answer that wasn’t completely troubling. The obvious alternative was that Zephyr could recognize her as fae-blood.
He held out a hand. “Zephyr Waters.”
“I still don’t know you,” Lily said, but she accepted his hand briefly.
Being this close to him made her realize that his photos weren’t touched up before they were published. Even more so than Creed, Zephyr really was flawless, so much so that she wondered how he’d escaped accusations of being a fae-blood. He had his mother’s shockingly blue eyes and 1940s starlet lips, but those combined with his slash of cheekbones and raven-wing hair practically screamed “fae ancestry.”
It wasn’t Lily’s business though. Abernathy Commandment #13: Don’t ask questions when you’d rather not know the answers. She concentrated on watching a ship heading in toward the harbor. Being here at the pier should’ve been a moment of peace before she had to figure out how to live around several hundred people. It had been . . . up until Zephyr freaking Waters decided to stand at her side and act like they were old friends.
“Perhaps you should go look for whoever it was you intended to meet,” Lily suggested. Unfortunately, the lilt at the end of her sentence made her words sound more like a question than she’d intended them to be.
“I’ve been looking . . . for years actually.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“No, I’m not,” he said just as decisively.
Alarm bells sounded in her mind. Creed had said that he took the job at her party to meet her. Now Zephyr claimed he also had wanted to meet her.
“I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m really not her.”