by M. A. Grant
“But I was reckless and hurt him badly. I’ve lost him forever and no amount of magick will bring him back. Nothing will break the spell I set on him now. He is lost to us.”
“Darling—”
“Please, leave this, Mother. You know where my loyalty lies. Let that be enough.”
The delicate, bell-like chime of ice cracking. The flames gutter and gasp for breath while they reignite. My mother struggles to keep silent and eventually nods.
“Your guests await,” I say.
I squeeze her hands and walk with her to the door. The pain is still here, buried just behind my ribs, stabbing me every now and then when I try to catch my breath, but at least it’s honest pain now. That I can handle.
We return to the ballroom without another word. Mother’s composed, gracing her guests with delicate smiles and amusing anecdotes. Near midnight, a servant appears at her elbow. I excuse myself from my dance partner and join her.
“What’s going on?” I murmur, sensitive to the vast number of courtiers surrounding us.
“We have an unexpected guest,” she warns me.
“Shall we clear the room?”
There’s no time. A commotion toward the front of the ballroom forces us to make a decision. Mother takes her throne. I take my place at her right shoulder. Taking their cue from our composure, the crowd parts and offers a narrow aisle for our guest.
My skin crawls as a hooded figure steps into the ballroom. Mother’s chin lifts, her eyes narrowing. Something’s wrong...
The icy bracelet of my mother’s fingers on my wrist as I summon my rapier warns me to cease my efforts. I do, but I can’t bury the rising dread. The fae’s glamour splinters and flakes away with every step. The leftover magick floats in its wake like oil slicks on water, spreading the sense of wrongness through the murmuring crowd.
The figure halts before the throne and Mother shifts her weight forward, gaze fixed on him. “Welcome to our Court, traveler—”
A gloved hand rises and clutches at the edge of the hood. And when it falls back, Mother’s words die in her throat, just as my heart dies in my chest.
Sláine tilts his head and gives us a wan smile. “Hello, Mother. Roark.”
This is how the world ends.
“Leave us.”
The ballroom empties on Mother’s hissed command. The doors creak shut behind the last of the servants. All is silent, except for our breathing.
“You dare force your way into our home?” she whispers.
Sláine makes a face. It stretches the scar slicing across his face into a macabre angle. “It’s been a long day. May we dispense with the lectures, Mother?”
“As long as we forgo the pleasantries, as well,” I say. “Oh, wait, we’ve already done that.”
Our eyes meet, and I wonder how my brother lost himself so completely. His supposed Seelie lover was simply the tipping point. He’d been breaking apart long before. It would be a lie to say I hadn’t been relieved when he fell. The slow destruction of our bond only left me grateful when he ran from our Court. At least there was no longer the fleeting hope that he would someday return and remove his burdens from me, thank me for my sacrifice. In some ways, the absence of hope becomes its own comfort.
“Speak your message,” Mother commands.
Sláine bows deeply, slipping into a mocking genuflection at her feet. “My mistress’s message is short. We deny you.” His eyes remind me of obsidian, black and sharp, cutting too cleanly. “Consider this a formal declaration. The power will only leave our Court when you claw it from us.”
“You can’t do that,” I say.
His lip curls when he looks at me. “We can and will.”
I take a half step forward, torn between wanting to shake and wanting to stab my brother. “Think beyond your hatred of us. This will destroy what little balance is left. This is an act of war.”
“The balance was already gone, brother. And you make war preparations even now.” His low voice hums with despair. “There was no hope of saving this Court.”
“You are the High Prince. You could fulfill your obligations instead of running from them—”
It cracks his façade, and I finally hear my brother’s voice, not the polished words of the Seelie Court. “And rule a Court where my every move is questioned? Where I’m stacked against you at every turn and always found wanting?”
“I would never take your crown.”
He doesn’t trust my sincerity. “The moment it touched my head, I would be seen as the imposter.” His snarl eases, slips back to the barely tethered calm he’s always hidden behind when his pain and rage grow too strong. “I do not want your kingdom.”
We’re children again, facing off in a centuries-old argument. I have no desire to be High Prince and my brother will never believe me. The pain of his distrust is as sharp as ever.
“What do you want, Sláine?” Another step brings me close enough to see the new lines and shadows on his face, proof that something malevolent still eats at him. “Do you want power? Is that why you abandoned us?”
“No.”
“Then why? For her?” My voice rises. “For love?”
“Yes, despite my regrets.”
So soft, so gutted, I nearly miss it. But I don’t.
Sláine watches me with an unnerving sideways tilt of his head. “Yes,” he repeats, clearer this time, “I want love. I intend to find love, no matter the cost.” His gaze turns to our mother. “Don’t you want that, Roark? To experience it once, of your own volition, without the plotting and the permission?”
Tonight’s disaster with Edward breathes hot and foul against my neck. Further back, the memory of Mother negotiating my housing at Mathers. Allowing me to live in the apartments like a normal student instead of a private residence, if I spied on a human for her. That first year of tracking Smith, falling deeper in love with him every second and denying it until the gory sight of his tortured body shocked me to my senses.
Don’t ask me this. Don’t tempt me to follow your path.
He holds my gaze. “To finally burn after living in this wasteland?”
To burn.
My eyelids flicker, trying to block the blazing figure I can’t forget or avoid or give up.
Finn.
Sláine’s eyes widen at my exhalation. But if I said it aloud, he makes no sign of it. He simply tilts his head and says quietly, “She will poison you, too, my brother. She will take all you love and leave you an empty husk and convince you both it’s a kindness—”
I will be the Knight of the Winter Court. Goddess, could he already know my intentions?
Our mother stands abruptly, stretching to her fullest height, watching Sláine down the pale curve of her nose. “You never deserved your title.”
Her cool, passionless words cut him more effectively than any knife.
“You were sent here as an insult,” she continues, as if she doesn’t notice the tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. “You were sent as proof of my weakness.” Her lips twist into something too terrifying to be a smile. “But tell your masters I am coming. I will shatter their frozen corpses as I pluck the crowns from their severed heads, save they grant me that which is mine by natural law and hard-fought succession. We are not as weak as they believed and we will make their hallowed woods shake for it.”
She flicks a hand and the doors at the end of the hall open. Two of her redcap guards enter warily.
“Ensure his safe passage back to the Seelie Court,” my mother orders. Her tone brooks no argument. They bow so low their hats leave bloody smears on the floor, and march Sláine out.
I stand there, aching and burning. Sláine’s arrow wounded me far better than he knows. How is it possible to want something so treasonous? Shouldn’t this kind of longing kill you?
“Roark—”
I turn woodenly. My mother’s face is angles and edges and shadows and cruel, cruel beauty. “It is to be war. Declare it through our host.”
An order. A death senten
ce.
I nod, and the noose tightens around my neck.
“I will inform Lugh and the Hunt. The sealing will begin at dawn. Deliver your announcements before then.” Her eyes soften. “Save your university for last.”
Goddess bless her, she’s giving me a chance to say goodbye. Again, I nod.
That passing moment of kindness is gone, swept away by the oncoming storm. “Return swiftly. Do not tarry. Now go.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Phineas
“Just text him,” Herman tells me. “It’s not that hard.”
I look up from my sandwich. “You are full of shit.”
He grins and takes another bite of his salad. “What’s so difficult to type, Finny? I was a dick so let me make up for it by sucking yours. Call me.”
Sue looks up from her book long enough to make a face. “You didn’t just say that.”
“What, too blunt? Fine. Roses are red, violets are blue, I owe you big time, will a BJ now do?”
He laughs and dodges the silverware Sue and I throw at him. The sounds of the spoon and fork clattering against the floor are too loud for the dining hall. Despite the fact that it’s lunchtime, there are no fae in sight, and the other students are keeping to themselves. Even without the ley line, I sense the unease in the air.
“Have you guys seen Sebastian or Gumba today?” I ask.
Utensils retrieved, Sue returns to her seat with a frown. “I haven’t. Haven’t really seen anyone, though. That seems odd to you, too, right?”
I nod. The pall of the dining hall extends over the rest of campus, too. When I went to class this morning, the normal crowds of people were thinned. There was none of the usual lighthearted banter or last-minute magickal practice.
“Are we missing something?” I ask.
Sue starts to answer, but is interrupted when Herman points toward the entrance. “Hey, there they are.”
Sebastian and Gumba come in. They notice our waving and come to join us, forgoing food for some reason. Gumba’s craggy face is emotionless. Sebastian, normally the brightest of us, looks like someone’s snuffed out that light.
“Where were you?” Herman asks.
I look between them when they sit on either side of me. “Are you guys okay?”
“Emergency meeting of the Unseelie,” Gumba says. The gravel of his voice is rougher than normal and I wonder if he’s slept yet.
I set down my sandwich. The vague sense of foreboding has become abruptly specific. “For what?”
Sebastian gives a brittle laugh. “For the beginning of the end.”
“Dude, you like riddles now?”
Sebastian rips off a chunk of my crust. “Queen Mab announced a formal declaration of war this morning.”
“Oh, fuck.” I push my sandwich away, gut churning. Sue’s gone pale and even Herman doesn’t have any kind of response.
It takes her a few tries, but Sue finally gets the question out. “War? Actual war?”
Gumba nods. Sebastian’s given up on nibbling at my crust. Instead, he crushes and grinds it between his fingers, sprinkling its crumbs on my unfinished pasta salad.
“All Unseelie are required to return to the sídhe by tomorrow morning,” Gumba says. “If you don’t make it by the sealing...” He trails off and rubs a hand over his eyes. “Either you’re in, or you’re on your own.”
Tremors work their way from my feet up into my legs and through the rest of me. Not the strength of the ley line, which I’ve buried too far down to reach now, but a terrible, fearsome panic. “Sealing, as in, keeping people from getting in or out?”
Sebastian flicks a few crumbs off his fingers. Some hit my wrist.
I don’t care, focused on my next question. “For how long?”
Gumba watches me, expression far too gentle. “We don’t know.”
“What time is the sealing?” Sue asks. “Do you need help packing? Have you called your families?” Even in this moment, she focuses on the specific details. God, she’s wonderful.
“Roark had warned us it might come to this yesterday,” Gumba says. “I’ve been getting ready.”
“Me, too,” Sebastian agrees quietly.
“Yesterday,” I say, mind spinning. “That’s why he was back on campus.”
Gumba nods and clears his throat. “They’ve been sending messengers to anyone living outside the sídhe. Most of the Unseelie have already taken shelter.”
Roark is delivering news and then he’ll vanish into the sídhe with everyone else for only God knows how long.
I hit the table so hard when I stand that Herman has to reach out and keep our drinks from spilling. I can’t look at any of them. I focus on the table instead, staring at the fake woodgrain and the crumbs Sebastian dropped on it.
Denying the ley line’s power wholly made sense at the time, but now I could use it to try to find him. Maybe he’s not too far from Mathers. Maybe I can text him and ask him to meet me somewhere—
“He said he would be around if we needed him. Queen Mab made him responsible for getting the underclassmen safely to the sídhe,” Sebastian says.
“He’s still here?”
Four sets of eyes fix on me. My trembling gets worse.
“Finny,” Sue says slowly, “you should try to find him.”
“He’s busy. He won’t have time for me,” I protest on instinct, too scared at the prospect that if I find him now, he’ll be the one to turn away from me. That he’ll treat me with the same disdain I treated him yesterday. It would be only fitting.
“He said the same thing when I told him to find you,” Sebastian mutters, shredding lettuce on top of the crumbs.
“Oh, fucking Hades,” Herman grumbles. “You deserve each other. Morons, both of you.”
“We’ve got this,” Sue informs me. “Herman and I will help Sebastian and Gumba finish packing tonight. You need to find Roark.”
“Sue, it’s not that simple.”
Gumba growls and points a giant finger at me. “Yes, it is.”
Sebastian goes for the jugular. “Do you love him back?”
The truth tries to break free and I smother it. Deny it and burn it and burn its ashes and bury them where the light can never touch them because there’s no way it could be true. Because while the world likes to throw me to the wolves, it couldn’t be that cruel.
Except...
I look at the entrance of the dining hall.
Sebastian sighs, but when I glance back at him, he’s fighting down a weary smile. “Go.” Gumba nods. Herman grips Sue’s hand tightly, but there’s no condemnation in his eyes.
Sue tilts her head toward the door. “Go, Finny.”
I do.
* * *
I start in the Delphi lecture hall, since that’s where Roark met with the Unseelie before. He’s not there. No one is. I head toward the commons. No sign of the Unseelie prince, but I do find a nervous baobhan sith on her way back to her dorm. I’m pretty sure my intensity frightens her, but after explaining twice that I’m just trying to find Roark, she takes pity on me.
And thus the impossible hours-long chase begins. Each time I’m sent to someone else, I find Roark’s already gone, a few steps ahead of me. I try texting and calling him, but my phone dies sometime between walking from a first-year student’s dorm room to the Unseelie frat. Before I know it, I’ve walked most of campus and dusk is falling. There’s no choice but to go home.
When I push open the door, it’s a surprise to find the lights on. Herman usually turns them off when he leaves, but he may have forgotten.
“Guys?” I call out as I head toward my room to plug in my phone.
No response. Makes sense. They’re probably with Sebastian still, or maybe Gumba. I should find them and help, too.
Phone charging, I flop on my bed and try to find the will to get up. Roaming campus alone after the fae declared war on each other isn’t a smart idea, even if I want to keep looking for Roark. Besides, I owe it to my friends to push off this funk unt
il after they leave. I’ll have plenty of time to wallow then.
Yep. That’s what I need to do. Use the time I have now and dissect my misery later.
I reach above my head out of habit and tap twice against the wall. There won’t be a response, but maybe the closure will make the next few hours easier.
Tap. Tap.
That’s impossible.
I shoot up and stare at the plaster. My mind’s playing tricks on me. After wandering everywhere looking for him, there is no way he could be here, in his room. Except, that’s totally the kind of dick move he would pull.
I lick my lips and clamber to my knees. The wall’s cool under my fingertips and I press the side of my face to it, ordering myself to slow my breathing and pulse so I can actually hear. I lift my hand and rap a second time.
Nothing.
I try again.
The silence stretches out longer, killing that early fluttering of hope. I scrub at my eyes with the heel of my palm, swearing under my breath. But when I drop my hand, there’s a shadow in the doorway.
He’s gaunt, exhausted, but he stands in my doorway with quiet resignation. I drink him in, too confused to form words. I kneel, he waits, and we watch each other.
I only speak when I’m afraid my heart’s too full and is about to burst. “You’re here.”
“I thought it was appropriate to say goodbye properly.” He holds out his hand. A flash of gold between his fingers. “And I needed to return my key.”
“I was looking for you,” I say while he sets his key on one of my bookshelves.
“Oh?”
“I need to ask you something.”
“I’m all ears.”
There’s so much more to Roark than this glass-smooth calm. It’s my fault he’s hiding behind it now.
I feel like a stupid kid again, all gangly, uncoordinated limbs. I nearly tangle myself in my covers as I clamber off the bed, never taking my eyes from him for fear he’ll disappear. Each step I take toward him makes him tighter, sharper, until his fingers turn white from how hard they clutch his crossed arms. A scant space between us.
“Well, Smith?” he asks, tilting his chin up those few inches so his lips are a breath from mine.
