I edged over to Coral, who stood wrapping a bandage around another half-Sidhe’s arm. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I got an update from the jail. He’s not there. Lord Daival never came to the Court, Hazel.”
“He didn’t need to.” I swallowed, tasting anger like bile in my throat. “He tricked the Sidhe into slaughtering their own people.”
I would have thought Lord Daival would have gone for a more personal kill, but this way, he didn’t have to risk showing his face in person. The Sidhe would see him as a faceless, terrifying killer. Once again, he was one step ahead of me.
But someone among the guests had helped him lay his trap. I left Coral and Willow and made my way to the door, spotting a flash of light glinting on silver hair. Darrow held Aila in his grip, his knife pressed to her throat. A whimper escaped as she tried to struggle free, but he held her fast.
“She’s the one who raised the signal so the Sidhe would slaughter one another,” he told the others, breathing hard.
“I didn’t!” she squeaked, a sob in her voice. “I saw the illusion and panicked. I thought it was him.”
Darrow glared down at Aila. “Who put her in charge of raising the signal?”
“Nobody did,” said Coral. “In fact, I thought you said you didn’t want to get involved in this ridiculous plan at all. Who did you bribe to let you in?”
Aila’s cheeks reddened. “I—”
Darrow’s eyes narrowed. “Search the room for other spies and see to it that this one gets what she deserves.”
Aila shot me a furious glare as though I’d forced her to betray the Sidhe myself. Anger rose in my throat, thick and potent. “What did they promise you? That you’d get to serve alongside Lord Daival himself, or carry the Seelie Queen’s bags for her? Maybe act as a footstool? You make me sick.”
Aila spun around and ran, but she didn’t make it a metre before the Sidhe had her surrounded. As they closed in on her, the anger faded from Darrow’s face, replaced with an expression I couldn’t read. Damn, he’d sobered up fast.
“I’m sorry,” Coral murmured. “I should have known she was eavesdropping on our plans. I made the mistake of thinking she was harmless.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “I bet that’s precisely why Lord Daival picked her out. Should have figured he’d have his own spies among the Court.”
“Seven people are dead,” Lord Niall said. “Seven Sidhe slaughtered in my own house. There will be justice for this.”
The moon rose over the forest, blood-red tinged with dark shadows, like an omen from the gods themselves.
15
“You’re sure the heir wasn’t one of the Sidhe who was killed?” asked Mum.
“No.” I rubbed my tired eyes. “I’m pretty sure he said ‘potential heirs’, which means the sprite hasn’t cracked yet, but that’s not much of a consolation. Can I please go and get some sleep now?”
I’d stayed behind for ages, searching for any signs of the real Lord Daival within Lord Niall’s estate, but once again he’d been one step ahead of us. Seven Sidhe lay dead, slaughtered at the hands of their own, but none bore the mark of Lord Daival’s thorns. By now, blood soaked my ruined dress and I ached down to my bones, and while my mind was far from satisfied, my body cried out for rest.
Mum called me into the kitchen. “Hazel, I know you’re tired, but I need to talk to you for a moment. Alone.”
I walked into the kitchen and began removing my weapons, dropping them onto the table one by one. “What is it?”
She pursed her lips. “I saw you with Darrow earlier. Before Lady Aiten accosted you.”
“Ah.” Awkward. My mother had seen me making out with my ex-mentor. “Yeah. That was a thing. The guy’s a lightweight, apparently.”
“It’s none of my business who you spend your time with,” she said, “but if you decide to take your relationship to the next level, you need to be prepared for the consequences.”
“Mum, you can’t seriously be giving me the sex talk right now,” I said, wishing I could glamour myself invisible so we could both avoid the rest of this conversation. “You didn’t even give us a proper talk when we were kids. I had to ask Agnes of all people.”
“Yes, well,” said Mum. “You need to remember that now you’re Gatekeeper, there is no heir. If you have children of your own, they’ll be the next in line.”
Absolutely fucking not. It was bad enough being involved myself, let alone my hypothetical offspring. “Mum, I became Gatekeeper five minutes ago. Give me time to adjust to that first. Besides, do you think I could ever raise a child in this mess? The Sidhe are like toddlers and I sure as hell can’t wrangle them into obedience.”
Mum had raised three of us, but not while fending off a potential coup and a leadership changeover. I didn’t even know if I wanted kids in the future, but I’d make that decision on my own terms. Not the Courts’.
“I was just telling you,” she said. “Your ex-mentor likely doesn’t know all the potential consequences of sleeping with the Gatekeeper.”
“I’m not pregnant,” I said. “And I’m not sleeping with Darrow. Even if I was, I know fifteen different kinds of fae contraceptives. Teenagers get curious.”
“How do you know… I don’t want to ask, do I,” said Mum. “Just remember that the rule against romantic involvement with faeries was put into place because a half-faerie cannot be chosen as Gatekeeper.”
“Because they’d be more powerful than the average Gatekeeper and Winter would see it as unfair, I know. I haven’t screwed Darrow, and I’m careful.” As far as I’d heard, no Lynn had ever had a child with a faerie or half-faerie, but I shuddered to think what the Sidhe might do to them if I did.
“I hope so.” Mum gave me a long look. “You can go to bed now, Hazel.”
She left the kitchen, while I stood there in the dark, a pile of knives next to me on the table. I can’t believe she actually thinks I’d consider bringing a child into the world with all hell breaking loose.
It was bad enough still living in the same house as my mother at twenty-four years old, but working for the Sidhe had put the final nail in the coffin on my chances of ever having a normal relationship. Mum and Dad had stayed together until he hadn’t been able to stand living in a house where piskies nested in the ceiling and his hay fever acted up all year round. None of the Lynns could leave the Ley Line, so anyone I entered a serious relationship with would be tied to this house for life. Add in my penchant for attracting faerie trouble whenever I went into the human world, too, and my options were depressingly limited.
Ilsa entered the room, and the ceiling lights snapped on. “Hazel, why are you standing in the dark?”
“Mum just sprang the sex talk on me. I’m mildly traumatised.”
Her brows shot up. “Seriously?”
“I wish I was joking.” I pulled out my last knife and dropped it on the table, then went to the sink and washed the blood from my hands. “She saw me with Darrow at the party and drew her own conclusions. Did she do the same when you met River?”
“No, of course not. Are you and Darrow—?”
“No!” I scowled. “I can’t believe she didn’t lecture you, too. You lost your virginity before I did.”
Ilsa went scarlet. “Thanks for that, Hazel. You’re technically the younger sibling, so maybe she’s overprotective of you.”
“Overprotective? She always let me do whatever the hell I liked when we were kids.” It wasn’t like she could watch us while she was in Faerie. “No, she’s going on about my responsibilities for raising the next Gatekeeper. Since if I have any kids, they’ll be potential heirs.”
Nausea swirled in my stomach. I knew enough of our family history to be aware that every Gatekeeper had tried evading their responsibilities at some point or other, but all had succumbed to said duties in the end. Including the child-bearing part.
A plate of cookies appeared on the table. As usual, the house had picked up on my mood and tried to
comfort me in its own way. Forgetting my nausea, I picked one up, and Ilsa did the same.
“I’m not dealing with this now,” I added. “Not with the Court falling apart.”
“But you do like Darrow.” She tilted her head. “Right? You talk about him often enough.”
“Etaina sent him to bring the Erlking’s talisman to her, and you know how it’ll turn out when he realises I have it,” I said. “Even if I did like him—which I don’t—it’ll all go up in flames soon enough. Better to pick out a normal human like Mum did. I’m not sure how she convinced Dad, to be honest. Did she ever tell you?”
“Nope,” said Ilsa. “You know what she’s like. She probably told him the bare minimum, so he knew what he was getting himself into.”
“That, or she took out an ad in the local paper saying, wanted: potential father for my offspring who are destined to be enslaved to Faerie. Pros: hot sex and no responsibilities.”
Ilsa choked on her cookie. “Hazel, please never say that in front of Mum. Ever.”
“I don’t have a death wish.” Though at this rate, I’d never live long enough to have a first date with a human, let alone procreate. “I also wouldn’t know the first thing about dating humans. At least with River, you have common ground.”
“Mm.” She turned the remainder of her cookie over in her hand. “You still want to break the curse? After it’s over, I mean?”
“If this crap ever gets sorted out?” I said. “The instant another heir takes the throne and the staff is taken care of—however that works out—then yes.”
Ilsa chewed on her cookie. “Mum spent ages looking for a way to undo it, too. She told me. So did Grandma. Not that I don’t want to give it a try, I’m just reminding you what we’re up against.”
“But the Sidhe aren’t immortal anymore,” I said, undeterred. “Okay, they’re still long-lived, but we aren’t playing by the same rules as Thomas Lynn did. The Courts are changing. Fast.”
Too fast. Given the Sidhe’s shock and horror at Lord Niall’s house, the tide of change might well sweep them all away, and whether we won or lost this conflict, I’d lose the title of Gatekeeper one way or another. I was already struggling to remember what it felt like not to have the Erlking’s talisman weighing on my mind, like a constant nagging in the back of my head.
“I was thinking future Gatekeepers can opt in,” I added. “It’s not like having contacts between Faerie and the mortal realm is a bad idea, I’m just a little leery of my future offspring being volunteered to deal with them. Hell, I’d like the option to drop out without my body being torn to shreds by a curse. Choice is a good thing. The Sidhe could use more flexibility.”
I collected up my knives and took them through into the storeroom under the stairs where Mum kept her weapons, spells and other junk. The ping of a message on someone’s phone drew me into the living room, where my mobile phone lay discarded among the notes on the Erlking’s family tree. Morgan had sprawled on the sofa, the faerie dog curled up against his side on top of a pile of Ilsa’s notes. The phone pinged again, and I picked it up. A message from Dad. How’s life?
His texts rarely varied—always how’s life or how’re things. I generally sent him a generic response, the best I could do without giving information that might make the faeries target him. The less he knew of the current drama in the Courts, the better.
Sometimes I wondered what he thought my life as Gatekeeper was really like. When he’d lived here, he must have seen hints of the world beyond the Summer gate, but after the faerie invasion, he didn’t need the Sight to see piskies flitting around, half-faeries dancing on the hills, Vale beasts hiding in the shadows waiting to snack on unsuspecting humans. The horrors of the real world sometimes made it hard to remember why the faeries managed to entrance so many people, but the horror was part of the attraction, and the longing they evoked had no rational basis.
The faeries and the talisman had that much in common, at least.
The faerie dog whined in his sleep, knocking a stack of notes off the sofa. I scrambled to pick them up before Ilsa noticed and got mad at Morgan for making a mess of things, and my gaze snagged on a name on the topmost page.
“No fucking way,” I murmured.
“What?” Ilsa entered the room behind me. “Oh, Dad texted you again.”
“Never mind that.” I showed her the page. “Look.”
She blinked. “At what?”
“That.” I pointed at the line connecting the Erlking’s name with his wife’s at the top of the family tree. On the other side, the Seelie Queen’s name was connected to one other… the Lady of Light.
Ilsa’s brow furrowed. “The Seelie Queen’s sister?”
“Etaina’s people called her that. The Lady of Light.” I looked up as Mum entered the room. “Does that give her a claim on the throne?”
“No,” said Mum. “She isn’t related to the Erlking, only his wife.”
That didn’t reassure me, but it explained how Etaina had known the Erlking. Did the Seelie Queen know her sister was alive? If the entire Court believed the Aes Sidhe extinct, maybe she didn’t.
“What’re you all yelling about?” Morgan looked up blearily from the sofa.
“You fell asleep on my notes,” Ilsa said accusingly.
I tuned out their argument and looked more closely at the page. On the list of heirs, the name Lord Garin leapt out at me. “Lord Garin was one of the Sidhe who died.”
Ilsa looked sharply at the page. “He was the heir?”
“One of the potential heirs.” A wave of nausea rose in my throat. “He’s the guy who got into a brawl with the bear shifter at my party when he claimed he was the Erlking’s successor. Guess he wasn’t that far off the mark after all.”
“So he was on the list?”
“Unless this is a different guy.” Half the Court might be related to the Erlking. It didn’t mean they were all suitable heirs, and it sounded as though the Erlking had hand-picked someone based on trust, not status.
But it seemed Lord Daival had kept his word, and now we had a list of the next potential murder victims right in front of us.
16
What with the chaos of the day before, I’d forgotten all about the executions scheduled for the following morning. When I entered the ambassadors’ palace, I found Coral sitting on a bench inside the hall, her gaze downcast and her eyes dull. The other half-faeries gathered in groups, milling around, but Willow was notably absent and so was Aila. Last I’d seen, the latter had been hauled off by armed guards for an extended prison sentence.
“Shit, Coral.” I walked over to her side and hugged her. “I’m sorry.”
She looked at me through red-rimmed eyes. “Don’t be. I should have known the Sidhe would go ahead with the executions despite what happened at Lord Niall’s party yesterday.”
“They have to feel like they’re in control somehow.” The Sidhe’s grief and anger yesterday would come to a head sooner or later, and it was probably for the best that they had an outlet rather than blaming one another for the deaths. Still, it seemed unfair that after Coral’s brother had been the one who’d chosen to kill the Erlking and conspire with the Seelie Queen, it was his sister who’d suffer the most for his crimes. “Is Aila being executed today, too?”
Coral dipped her head. “Yeah. Small consolation, huh.”
I’d never liked Aila—her bitter hatred towards me made that difficult—but it seemed tragic for her life to come to such a brutal end, even if she’d brought it on herself.
“Where’s Willow?” I asked. “Lady Aiten didn’t give you a hard time yesterday, did she?”
“No…” Her forehead crumpled. “Why?”
“She’s Willow’s mother,” I said. “I worried she’d give you grief. She told me she disapproved of her daughter associating with another Court’s heir, and I had to stop her from interrupting you at the party yesterday. Just giving you a head’s up.”
“Oh.” She blinked, tears trembling on her lash
es. “I didn’t see. But thank you for stopping her.”
“What are friends for?” Not that I’d been a great one lately. “I really am sorry. Forget Lady Aiten. You don’t have to stand on bodyguard duty or anything, either. I can put someone else in charge.”
She shook her head. “I still have a responsibility as your bodyguard. Some of the Sidhe seem to think Lord Daival might target the executions.”
My heart sank. “What, and use them as a diversion to free the Seelie Queen?”
His own escape proved the jail’s magic could be fooled, and since the executions were the first time any Sidhe had been put to death in Summer for a long while, there’d be quite a gathering. Perhaps I should go and keep an eye on things, but there was no telling who’d be the next potential heir to suffer death on his orders.
The door opened and Darrow entered the hall. My cheeks seared with heat at the memory of our kiss at the revel—and Mum’s lecture, too—but one look at his stern face told me he was back to his usual, distant self. He met my eyes without humour as he walked over to us.
“He looks pissed,” said Coral in an undertone.
“Uh, yeah, he was kinda drunk yesterday,” I muttered. “Not my doing, but I’ll talk to him.”
If he planned to pin the blame on me for how he’d acted, I would not be amused. I’d been more sober than he had.
I halted in front of him. “Hey. Need a hangover cure?”
“No.” He did look tired, his eyes shadowed and his glamour not quite as glossy as usual. His gaze flicked to Coral and the others. “Are you going to the executions?”
“Depends if Lord Daival’s more likely to target the jail or sneak around the Court and find the other potential heirs while everyone’s distracted. Who the hell knows.”
“He’s unlikely to try a direct assault,” he said. “With the list of heirs… is he following a specific pattern, or picking them at random?”
“Depends if he has a copy of the…” I trailed off. “What list are you talking about, exactly?”
The Gatekeeper's Trials: The Complete Trilogy Page 37