“I know,” I said. “But I’m taking a wild guess that if they don’t want me dead, they want a favour. Dad hinted that they want me on their side over the Unseelie Court.”
“You’re probably right,” Cedar admitted. “But I’ve worked rather hard at keeping up the appearance of running a stable court, and I think the Gathering will work to our advantage.”
“For you, it might. I’m only going because I want to see the Sidhe’s faces when they have to be polite to me.”
He smiled. “There’s that, too. Did I ever mention that I think it was a masterful plan?”
“A fair few times, but I’ll never get tired of hearing it.”
* * *
Ivy Lane, of all people, met us on the way through Seelie territory on the way to the Gathering.
“Nice to see a familiar face,” she said. “I promised not to drag any of my human friends into this realm, so I’m stuck waiting for their messengers to take me back to the mortal realm. Faerie meetings are tedious as hell.”
“Sounds fun,” I said.
“They hate me,” Ivy confided. “All of them. They don’t know I’m the one who messed up their immortality, but by walking in here and disrupting the peace…”
“Peace?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Status quo. Whichever. They want to carry on kidnapping humans for fun and throwing all responsibility for their actions out the window. I made it impossible. They won’t forgive that, even if I saved their lives.”
“Some gratitude.”
Ivy smiled. “You know, they’re not so different from humans.”
There was a flash of light, and three Seelie messengers appeared from thin air.
“Ivy Lane,” one of them said tonelessly.
“Hi, Lord Raivan,” she said. “I’m more than ready to go home, thanks.” She gave me a nod. “I’ll see you around, Raine.”
All the messengers vanished in a second flash, except Lord Kerien, who turned to face me. As before, he was tall and intimidating, his handsome face creased in a scowl.
“Raine Warren, the deceiver,” he said softly.
“It’s Whitefall, and I never broke my word.”
And I hadn’t. They’d hate me, true, but I’d never come here to make friends with the Sidhe. Like Ivy, I’d deal with them by necessity.
His eyes narrowed. “If not for your actions in service of the Courts, you would face punishment as severe as your mother’s. I trust the Unseelie have that in hand?”
“Yeah, they put her in jail for the rest of her life,” I said. “Tell me why you called me here. If you harm me, Cedar, my father or anyone else, you’ll face the wrath of the borderlands.”
“The borderlands,” he said, “have always been neutral. This is a problem, when two Courts are too close together. Summer and Winter are not meant to coexist.”
“Tell that to everyone living in peace in the mortal realm and here,” I countered. “There are no Sidhe left in the borderlands, right?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I want to petition to make the borderlands into Half-Blood Territory,” I told him. “They’re mostly abandoned anyway, and I think most half-bloods would feel more at home there than in the Courts. You clearly don’t need them, and neither does the Unseelie Court.”
He arched a brow. “You’d willingly give up your territory?”
“Not giving it up.” I smiled. “Expanding it. My neighbour’s, too. The new leader of the Hornbeams is all about second chances.”
“I would support this,” Cedar added. “A large number of half-bloods reside in the Courts when I think they would prefer the borderlands.”
His forehead creased in thought. “The borderlands are a lawless wasteland, under constant attack by the Vale. We have no need of them. Are you prepared to defend your territory, Hornbeam?” He addressed Cedar, ignoring me. Apparently he was fine with someone who hadn’t duped him taking over the borderlands. Too bad for him, because Cedar and I came as a unit, and wherever he went, I did.
“You mean Lord Hornbeam,” I added, and Cedar gave me a look. I shrugged innocently as Cedar answered Lord Kerien’s question in the affirmative.
“Hey, you are a lord. Own it,” I whispered to him, as Lord Kerien turned to converse with another Sidhe knight who’d appeared at his side.
“Maybe I’ll take another name,” he muttered back. “The last Lord Hornbeam was hardly a stellar example of good leadership.”
“Suppose not. It’s your choice. Maybe I’ll go back to Warren.”
Like Dad. I wanted to know him—the real him, the person my mother’s magic had tried to take away—until he was no longer a stranger to me. For that, I wanted to stay here in Faerie. At least for now.
“It’s up to you,” said Cedar, when the knights had gone. “I like the idea of keeping the borderlands for half-bloods. I guessed you were about to make such a suggestion.”
“It’s the obvious solution,” I said. “But the Sidhe won’t take my word alone, not after what I did.”
“You beat them at their own game. They have to acknowledge that, at least.”
“I think it’d kill them to admit it,” I said. “And to think I hoped I’d get through this Gathering without anyone dropping dead.”
“You never know,” he said. “This might well be the first non-violent Gathering in a century.”
“Would you bet on that?”
He briefly turned to me and stroked my face. “Yes, I would. Ready to join the party?”
I took out my talisman, and felt the sceptre’s magic humming inside me in conjunction with Cedar’s. “Maybe I’ll give the Sidhe a performance. Wait, do you reckon they remember I can hypnotise them?”
“Why do you think I’m so confident I’ll win the bet?” he asked. “Unless—unless you don’t want to use that power anymore.”
“Are you kidding me?” I frowned. “I didn’t just adopt that magic for the battle with Lady Whitefall. It’s mine.” More than the sceptre was, really. It’d take a while to disentangle the magic—and dancing, for that matter—from what Robin had done, but maybe I already had. I’d left that life behind, and with the last threads of Lady Whitefall’s influence gone, I had a lifetime to use the magic to carve out my own path.
“Good.” He smiled. “I’m glad.”
I held the sceptre and faced the path into the Summer Court. “The Sidhe won’t know what hit them. It’s show time.”
* * *
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Other books by Emma L. Adams
If you like kickass urban fantasy, you might like Faerie Blood, the first book in the Changeling Chronicles series.
When faerie-killer Ivy is hired to find a missing child, replaced with a changeling, she’s forced to team up with the seductively dangerous Mage Lord, at the risk of exposing her own dark history with the faeries -- and this time, running won’t save her.
Find out more!
* * *
If you’re looking for more fun urban fantasy, try Alight, Book 1 in the Legacy of Flames series. Dragon shifter Ember must risk it all to rescue her sister from the supernatural-hunting Orion League, even if it means kidnapping a lethal ex-hunter who’d like nothing better than to add her name to his kill list.
Find out more!
About the Author
Emma is the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of the Changeling Chronicles urban fantasy series.
Emma spent her childhood creating imaginary worlds to compensate for a disappointingly average reality, so it was probably inevitable that she ended up writing fantasy novels. When she's not immersed in her own fictional u
niverses, Emma can be found with her head in a book or wandering around the world in search of adventure.
Find out more about Emma’s books at www.emmaladams.com.
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