by Melissa Marr
Seth was stretched out on his sofa, his hands over his head, his feet dangling over the arm. He didn't seem alarmed or even surprised by her panicked arrival.
Do I look different to him now?
She thought, invisible, and walked over to him. He didn't get up, didn't look at her, or speak.
He really can't see me.
She ran her fingers over his arm, pausing on his biceps.
"Is it easier to be aggressive when you're like that?" He looked right at her.
She yanked her hand away. "What? How…"
"The stuff in Donia's recipe. You're all shadowy, like the faeries outside, but I still see you." He didn't move, staying exactly as he had been when she walked into the room. "I don't mind, you know."
"I'm already as bad as them."
"No." He rolled onto his hip so there was room on the sofa for her too. "You weren't touching some stranger on the street. It's me."
She sat down on the far end of the sofa. He wrapped his legs around her—one behind her back, the other resting on her lap.
"Keenan is convinced I'm the Summer Queen."
"The what?"
"The one who can give him back the powers he lost. If he doesn't find his queen, it'll just keep getting colder. He says everyone, humans too, will die. That's what this is all about. He thinks I'm her, this queen who'll change it all." She leaned forward just a little so Boomer didn't get tangled in her hair as he made his way across the back of the sofa. "They made me a faery. I'm one of them."
"I got that when you did the invisible thing."
"They did this to me, changed me, and I'm…I don't want to be their freaking queen."
He nodded.
"I think I am, though…I don't know what to do. I met the other one tonight—the Winter Queen." She shivered, thinking of the terrible cold, the ache of it. "She's awful. She just walked up and attacked Keenan, and I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to bring her to her knees."
She told him about the ice that Beira left in her wake, the hags, the kiss that made everyone so convinced that she was their queen. Then she added, "I don't want this."
"So we find a way to undo it." He used his legs to pull her toward him so she was lying on his chest. "Or we figure out how to deal with it."
"What if I can't?" she whispered.
Seth didn't answer; he didn't promise it would be all right. He just kissed her.
She felt herself warming up, like a small glow starting somewhere near her stomach, but she didn't think anything of it until Seth pulled back and stared at her.
"You taste like sunshine. More and more every day," he whispered. He ran his fingertip over her lips.
She walked away, wanting to weep. "Is that why things changed with us? Me becoming something else?"
"No." He was calm, slow, like approaching a frightened animal.
"Seven months, Ash. For seven months, I've been waiting for you to see me. This" — he picked up her hand, which glowed like Keenan had earlier—"is not why. I fell in love with you before this."
"How was I to know?" She twisted the edge of the stupid blouse Donia had given her. "You didn't say anything."
"I said lots of things," he corrected gently. "You just didn't hear them."
"So, why now? If it's not this, why?"
"I waited." He undid the bow on net blouse, twirling the ribbon around his finger. "You kept treating me like a friend."
"You were my friend."
"Still am." He put one finger in the topmost lace and tugged the ribbon looser. "But that doesn't mean I can't be other things, too."
She swallowed hard, but she didn't move away.
He pulled the next cross of ribbon free.
"He didn't. We didn't, I mean," she stammered.
"I know. You wouldn't have gone there looking like this if you had." He looked at her, slowly letting his gaze travel up over the vinyl pants and slightly gaping blouse, until he was looking at her flushed face. "Unless you want him. If you do, Ash, tell me now."
She shook her head. "No. But when he, it's not him, it's some faery thing…"
He tipped her head up. "Don't give up. Don't leave me before you're even here."
"If I, if we…" She took a deep breath and tried to keep her words from tumbling over each other as she said, "If I wanted to stay here, be with you tonight?"
He stared at her for several seconds. "This stuff with them, it's not the right reason."
"Right." She bit the inside of her lip, embarrassed.
But like an echo, she heard Keenan's silence earlier at Rath and Ruins, his careful avoidance of her questions when she asked about faeries and mortals. There was a chance that if she was their queen, she'd lose Seth. She closed her eyes.
"Ash, I want to. I want you, but because of us, not because of something they do or don't do."
She nodded. He was right; she knew it. It didn't feel fair, though. None of it felt fair or right. The only thing that felt right was Seth.
"That doesn't mean you can't stay. Just no sex." He spoke softly, like he'd done the other morning when she was freaking out. "That still leaves a lot open."
Seth took Aislinn's hand as they walked back to the other train car, the one that he'd turned into a bedroom, but he barely held on. If she wanted to, she could turn and go the other way. She didn't. She wrapped her fingers around his so tightly it probably hurt him.
But now that they stood in the doorway, with a bed that stretched from one side of the narrow room to the other, she almost panicked. "It's…"
"Comfortable." He let go of her hand.
It really wasn't that big, a queen at most, but that left only a couple feet on either side of it. Unlike the Spartan interior of the front car, this room was a bit more dramatic. Dark purple, almost black, pillows were piled on the bed; a few had tumbled onto the floor, like shadows on the black rug. On either side of the bed were small black dressers. A sleek black stereo sat on one; a candelabra sat on the other. Wax trailed down the candles and onto the dresser.
"I could sleep out on the sofa." Seth kept his distance when he said it, smiling gently. "Give you space."
"No. I want you here. It's just that it's" — she motioned to the room—"so different from the rest of the house."
"You're the only girl who's been invited back here, ever." He walked to the stereo, his back toward her, and flipped through the discs in the wall-rack. "Just so you know."
She sat on the edge of the bed, folding a leg up in front of her, leaving the other foot on the floor. "It feels weird. Like it's more important now that I'm here."
"It should be." He stood on the opposite side of the bed, holding a clear jewel-case. "I've done it the other way, with people who didn't matter. It's not the same."
"Then why did you do it?"
"Felt good." He didn't look away, even though he seemed uncomfortable. He shrugged. "Drunk. All sorts of reasons, I guess."
"Oh." Aislinn did look away.
"It got old. There's, umm" — he cleared his throat— "some papers over there. I wanted to give them to you before…I was going to bring it up the other day…but, and, now…" He pointed.
Aislinn reached out and pulled the papers off the table with the candles. On the top sheet she read "Huntsdale Clinic." She looked over at him. "What?"
"Tests. I had them earlier this month. I get them regularly. Thought you'd want to know. I want you to know." He picked up one of the pillows, flipping it over in his hands. "I haven't been, you know, unsafe in the past, but still…things happen."
Aislinn skimmed them, test results for everything from HIV to chlamydia, all negative. "So…"
"I planned on talking about this before…" He squeezed the pillow between his hands, mashing it. "I know it's not all romantic."
"It's good." She bit her lip. "I've never…you know."
"Yeah. I know."
"There's been nothing that would, umm, put me at risk." She picked at the comforter, feeling increasingly shy.
"
Why don't I go…"
"No, please, Seth" — she climbed across the bed and pulled him toward her—"stay with me."
Several hours later Aislinn felt her hands curling, gripping the comforter. She'd been kissed before but not like that, not there. If sex was any better than that, she wasn't sure she'd survive it.
All the stress, the worry, had faded away under Seth's touch.
Afterward he held her. He still had his jeans on, scratchy against her bare legs.
"I don't want to be one of them. I want this." She put her hand on his stomach. She slipped her pinky nail in the edge of his belly ring. "I want to be here, with you, go to college. I don't know what I want to be, but it's not a faery. Definitely not a faery queen. I am, though; I know it. I just don't know what to do now."
"Who says you can't still do all that even if you are a faery?"
She lifted her head to look at him.
"Donia uses the library. Keenan goes to Bishop O.C. now. Why can't you still do the things you want?" He slid a handful of her hair forward, making it fall over her shoulder onto his chest.
"But they do those things because of this game of theirs," she protested, but even as she said it, she wondered. Maybe it didn't have to be all or nothing.
"So? They had reasons; you have different reasons. Right?"
It sounded so much easier when he said it—not easy, but not impossible, either. Could she really keep her life? Maybe Keenan hadn't answered her questions because he didn't like the answers.
"I do." She laid her head back down on him, smiling. "More reasons every day."
CHAPTER 26
If we could love and hate with as good heart as the faeries do, we might grow to be long-lived like them.
— The Celtic Twilight by William Butler Yeats (1893, 1902)
"It's her." Beira stomped her foot, setting frost rippling over Donia's yard like a glistening wave. "You cannot let her near the staff. Do you hear me?"
Donia winced at the bite in Beira's voice. She didn't speak or move as Beira's wind ripped through the yard, shredding trees, uprooting the fall flowers still clinging to life.
Beira tossed the staff on the ground and said, "Here. I brought it. Followed the rules."
Donia nodded. In all the times Beira had brought the staff to her, in all the times they'd played this game, there had never been any real doubt in the Winter Queen.
This time it's different. This girl is different.
Beira's eyes had bled to pure white, her temper so close to uncontrollable that Donia couldn't speak.
"If she comes for it, lifts the staff" — Beira held out her hand and the staff moved toward her like a living thing going to its master—"you can stop her. I cannot. Those were the terms Irial dictated when we bound the whelp: if I actively interfere, the mantle that makes that mortal the Summer Queen is unavoidably manifest. I lose my throne; she gains hers and frees Keenan."
Beira caressed the staff as she spoke. "I cannot act. Balance, damnable balance, those were trial's terms when we placed the limits on Keenan."
Donia could not speak much above a whisper, but she tried, "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that those pretty blue lips of yours could solve my problem." Beira tapped a finger twice against her own far-too-red lips. "Is that clear enough?"
"It is." Donia forced herself to smile. "And if I do that, you'll free me?"
"Yes." Beira bared her teeth in a cruel snarl. "If it's not done in the next couple days, I'll send the hags to her, and then I'll be back for you."
"I understand." Donia licked her lips and tried to match the cruelty in Beira's face.
"Good girl." Beira kissed Donia's forehead and pressed the staff into her hands. "I knew I could count on you to do the right thing. It'll be fitting for you to be the one to bring Keenan to his knees after all he's done to you."
"I haven't forgotten anything Keenan's done." Donia did smile then, and she knew by Beira's approving look that she looked as cruel as Beira did.
Holding the staff so tightly it hurt her hands, Donia added, "I'm going to do exactly what I should."
Keenan dismissed the guards, the girls, everyone but Niall and Tavish. The guards who'd followed Aislinn confirmed his suspicion of where she went. She knows now. How can she still turn away? Go to him?
Niall counseled patience as Keenan paced through the loft. It was what he had offered Aislinn earlier, but now, now that he knew, how could he wait?
"I've been patient for centuries." Keenan felt frantic. As he paced, his queen—the one he'd waited for his whole life, for centuries—was in the arms of another, a mortal no less. "I need to talk to her."
Niall stepped in his path. "Think about this."
Keenan pushed Niall aside. "Do you see her coming here? I'm here. I didn't follow her to his house, but she didn't come to me."
"A few hours?" Niall spoke calmly, as he'd done countless times before when Keenan's temper made him act foolishly. "Just until you're calmer."
"Every moment I wait, Beira has a chance of learning what happened, where she is." He went to the door. "She already knows of what the Eolas said. That's why she came out tonight. If she learns what Aislinn can do already, what we can do together…"
"Listen to yourself." Niall put a hand on the door, keeping it closed. "You aren't going to convince her when you're like this."
"Let him go, Niall," Tavish said, not raising his voice, but sounding even more assertive than usual. His gaze was terrifying as he told Keenan, "Remember what we spoke of. Nothing is too far to go in pursuit of this one. We all know it's her."
A horrified look came over Niall's face. "No."
Keenan shoved Niall aside, wrenched open the door, and promptly collided with Donia. A hiss of steam rose from their bodies as he stood pressed against her frigid body for that too-brief moment.
As undisturbed as the winter's first snow, she came into his loft—of her own volition, no less—and said placidly, "Close the door. We need to talk."
Donia stepped past Keenan, exposing her worried expression to his advisors rather than to him. He didn't need to see that, not as upset as he already was.
Once she heard the door close, she said, "She wants Ash dead. She wants me to kill her." She stood inside the doorway, further in the room than she'd like, with him standing between her and the exit. "You need to do something."
He didn't answer, just stared at her with a panicked look.
"Keenan? Did you hear me?" she asked.
He made a dismissive gesture to Niall and Tavish. "Leave me alone with Don."
They both left, but only after Niall caught her eye and told her, "Be gentle."
Keenan knelt on the sofa. "She ran away from me."
"She did what?" She came closer to Keenan, ducking as one of his damnable birds swooped down at her.
"Ran." He sighed, and the room filled with the rustle of leaves. "It's her. She unmade Beira's frost, healed me with a kiss."
"You can convince her," Donia said in a low voice. She didn't need Tavish and Niall and whatever Summer Girls lurked in the loft to overhear her sounding so gentle to Keenan. "Let her have tonight to think, but tomorrow…"
"She ran to him, Don. The rowan-men went there, to see." He looked stricken, his beautiful eyes haunted. "It's her. She knows it, but she left to go to the mortal. I'm going to lose if…"
Donia took his hand, ignoring the pain at his touch, the steam that rose like a cloud from their hands. "Keenan, give the girl a moment to think. You've known forever. This is all so new to her…"
"She doesn't love me, doesn't even want me." His voice held such sadness that a small rain shower began in the room.
"Make her." Donia let her gaze rake over him, challenging him, trying to spark that arrogance that seemed so lost lately. "What? You've suddenly run out of ideas? Come on, Keenan. Go talk to her tomorrow. If that doesn't work, drop your glamour. Kiss her. Seduce her. Just do it quickly, or she'll be dead."
"What if—"
>
She cut him off. "No. I bought you a couple days at most. Beira thinks I'll do her bidding—kill Ash—but it won't take long for her to realize I'm not hers to control."
Before he could answer, she raised her voice, to be heard over the clatter of the ice that rolled off her where Keenan's raindrops touched her skin: "If you don't win Aislinn, she'll lose her life. Make her listen, or everyone loses."
CHAPTER 27
Citizens of Faery have one supreme quality in common— that of single-mindedness.
— Fames by Gertrude M. Faulding (1913)
When Aislinn woke the next morning—still curled in Seth's arms—she knew it was time, past time really, to tell Grams the whole truth. How? How do I tell her any of it?
Aislinn had checked in last night, a brief call to ease her grandmother's worries. Grams hadn't objected to Aislinn staying at Seth's place, only reminded her to be careful, to "use precautions and good sense." And Aislinn realized that her grandmother knew why Aislinn was staying. Despite her age, Grams was a believer in all sorts of women's equalities—a detail that had been shockingly apparent in her "birds and bees" talks not too many years ago.
Aislinn slipped out of bed for a quick bathroom trip. When she returned, Seth was propped up on one arm.
"You okay?" There was obvious worry in his voice. "With us?"
"Very." She climbed back onto the bed and snuggled close to him. Being with him was the one thing she truly felt right about. "I still need to go soon."
"After breakfast…" His voice was low, almost a growl, as he slid his hand under the edge of the T-shirt she was wearing, the one he'd had on last night.
"I should go. I need to talk to Grams about things and…" She swallowed as he pulled her onto his chest and sighed against her throat.
His breath was warm on her skin, tickling her. "You sure? It's early still."
She let her eyes drop closed again, let herself relax in his arms. "Ummm…just a few minutes."
His laugh was dark, different in a way she couldn't have imagined, filled with unspoken promises. It was wonderful.