Guests. He couldn't leave, but he could have guests if Sorcha allowed it. His heart was thundering. "A guest? Ash? She's here?"

"Not her." Sorcha sounded almost sad as she said it.

The Dark King appeared out of nothingness behind Sorcha. "I see my advice was completely ignored," he said.

Seth embraced Niall. Aside from seeing Aislinn, nothing else could please him as much as seeing the Dark King. He stepped back and said, "You were wrong."

Niall laughed. "More arrogant already...you've been spending time with the wrong court, little brother."

The High Queen's tense expression relaxed ever so slightly. "I'll leave you to roam with Niall then. I'll be in the dining hall after." To Niall, she only said, "Return to me when you're ready to talk about other matters. Mayhaps we can discuss regrets...."

Seth couldn't help but watch her as she left. He could count the heartbeats between each movement. He had: they never altered. The rhythm of her motion was one of perfection. When her hand lifted to open the door, it was with the same arc each time she reached out. If he measured the distance, Seth knew she'd match it with precision. Today though, she hesitated for a heartbeat extra on several steps. The beat of her movements was imprecise.

"She's upset," Seth said.

"What?"

Seth explained the counting and added, "Like music. Her song is not as it always is." He glanced at Niall. "You unsettle her."

Niall's gaze went to the doorway through which Sorcha had left. The flickering dancers surged forward as if they would step from his eyes to pursue the High Queen. "It's a natural antipathy."

"Perhaps she would be pleased by your attention. If it would please her, maybe-"

"I don't know if you realize it or not, but your sudden devotion to her is creepy." Niall shook his head.

Seth bit his lip ring, thinking the words over before he answered. "My closest friend rules the court of nightmares. My girlfriend is the embodiment of a season. I'm not sure you can really call this 'creepy.' Sorcha makes me feel peaceful. I like it."

"There are going to be consequences."

"I made the right choice. This is what I want."

Niall shook his head. "Let's hope you're still saying that later."

Seth walked over to the window that led to his garden. He pushed it open. "Come on."

When Niall followed, Seth resumed speaking. "I find a different sort of peace in Sorcha's court. It's taken years of meditation to reach the calm I had before, and it felt like it was going to slip away every time I saw Keenan's influence growing stronger...but in one moment, one promise, complete peace. One month a year with her and I can have everything I need. Out there, I will be as you used to be-with faery weaknesses and faery strengths. I can be with Ash forever. I can be there for you forever. Don't you see? It's perfect."

"Except for the month here. Just come with me. I took you into my court's protection and...my court is the one that balances hers. We can take you home now."

"I am home, Niall. Aside from missing Ash-" Seth stopped himself. "Why do you know I'm here but she doesn't?"

"Seth..." Niall dropped his gaze.

"What?"

"Keenan hasn't told her. He knows. Everyone knows."

"Except her." Seth swallowed the words of anger and fear that rose up. Panic wasn't the answer. He was in Faerie; he had peace; and he'd have forever with Aislinn. "Why?"

"Come home with me," Niall repeated. "We can go to her."

"Keenan is taking advantage of my absence." Seth said the truth that Niall was avoiding. "Already? I've only been here a few days. Thirty days without me isn't going to change everything."

Devlin appeared in the path in front of them. "Tread carefully, Niall. Sorcha will not be pleased if you say what you would reveal." To Seth, Devlin said, "Sorcha requires that you do not pursue this matter."

And just like that, Seth was unable to continue the conversation. "I believe we need to talk about something else."

"Is that what you want? Give me the word..." Niall glared at Devlin. "Think, Seth. If you choose to, you can resist her wishes. It's harder with her. Harder in Faerie, but I know you can-"

"She's my queen, Niall. I want what she wants. She gave me the world."

"Do you have any idea how disturbing you are?" Niall's expression was raw. "You're my friend, Seth, and you're vacant."

"I'm not vacant. I'm just"-Seth shrugged-"at peace."

"I think I should go."

"It would be best. I have work yet, and she is oddly possessive of my attention. There's a door you can use." Seth gestured toward a thorn-hidden doorway in the distance, one of the openings from Sorcha's demesne into the mortal world.

"Be safe."

"I am. I'm happy here. She knows things. Everything makes so much more sense when she explains it." He let his thoughts wander to the late-night conversations they'd been having in the garden. Philosophy, religion, so many things were clear when he spoke to his queen. Then-br.i.m.m.i.n.g with art and pa.s.sion and epiphanies-he'd return to the studio she'd given him and create until he could barely stay upright.

"Later, once you're away from Sorcha, we need to talk. Come see me when you are home? You are coming home, right?"

"I am coming back. Aislinn is on the other side of the veil." Seth reached out to clasp Niall's forearm. "But I will only discuss what Sorcha permits. Even when I am not here, I'll honor my vows to my queen."

"I'll see you when you come home-and are yourself again." Niall turned away.

Seth walked a few moments longer, and then he returned to his art. A little more than two of his four weeks were over in Faerie. Soon he'd be able to see Aislinn.

Chapter 28.

More than four months had pa.s.sed since Seth left. There were no calls or messages from him, nor was there any news from Niall. Skirmishes between Summer and Winter Court faeries happened more and more. Dark Court faeries attacked the increasingly vulnerable Summer Court fey, who were weakened by Aislinn's inability to move forward. Choosing to be happy was far easier to say than to do. She and Keenan were in a stasis of sorts, and their court was suffering for it. They sat side by side in the study as guards shared reports from around Huntsdale and beyond. It wasn't a new event, but the tone was worse yet again.

"The Ly Ergs grow bolder every day," a glaistig reported. She was not as disappointed by this as most Summer Court faeries would be, but the glaistigs were mercenaries. The hooved faeries roamed all of the courts, hiring on for trouble at times, living as solitaries at other points.

Keenan nodded.

Aislinn felt her court face lock into place, a mask to hide her worry.

Beside her, Keenan squeezed her hand. Sunlight slipped from his palm to hers. Comfort but not enough. He let her stay quiet as guards reported troubles, as if she were fragile. I am. She felt like that some days, that she was nothing more than spun gla.s.s that would shatter if she moved the wrong way.

Then Quinn spoke. "When Bananach was out and about, the guards looked in her nest. There's no evidence that Seth was ever there."

"What?" Aislinn's slight grasp on calmness fled. Hearing Seth's name so casually tied to Bananach's was bone chilling.

Keenan held tighter to her hand; he was an anchor tethering her to some semblance of stability. "Quinn-"

"No evidence?" Aislinn tried to keep her voice steady, and failed. "What do you mean?"

Quinn's posture didn't shift. He stayed focused on her although the other guards shifted anxiously. "She's the carrion crow, my Queen. If she'd killed him, there would be evidence. Neither blood nor bone there is his-"

"Enough," Keenan snarled. He kept her hand in his and pulled her closer to him.

Aislinn felt as much as saw a shimmer of fog uncoiling in the room. "No. I want to know." She looked over and caught Keenan's gaze. "I need to know."

"I can deal with this, Ash," Keenan spoke in a low voice, feigning privacy. "You don't need to hear if there's...unpleasantness."

"I need to," she repeated.

He stared at her silently for several breaths before saying, "Continue."

Quinn cleared his throat. "There were strange things. A shirt of yours"-he paused as he stumbled over the words and glanced at Keenan-"hers, our queen. A bit of the pet serpent's shed skin. A book of Seth's."

"Why would she have any of that?" Aislinn had begun to accept that he'd simply left her. Now, with Seth's things at Bananach's nest, she wondered if she'd been completely wrong.

Keenan looked at the guards, at Quinn. The Summer King was angry. "Leave us."

The guards vanished amid murmured chastis.e.m.e.nts to Quinn. After turning his back on the departing faeries, Keenan pushed the coffee table away and knelt on the floor in front of her. "Let me handle this. Please?"

Aislinn rested her head on his shoulder. "I need to know why our things are there. He wouldn't go to her as a friend."

"Maybe he would. He is friends with Niall. Bananach is of that court." Keenan stroked her hair. "Seth's already accepted the Dark Court's protection. He was angry with me. We had words before, Aislinn. He told me that he'd use what influence he had to strike me if I...if I manipulated you."

"Seth?" She pulled back and stared at her king. "Seth threatened you? When? Why didn't you tell me?"

Keenan shrugged. "It didn't seem the right choice. You and I had talked. I intended to...Donia had forgiven me. I thought it would be unwise to tell you, and then he left and I saw no reason to upset you further."

"You should've said something. You agreed to not keep secrets from me." Her skin was steaming from the pulse of sunlight shifting angrily inside of her. Had he been anyone else he couldn't have touched her just then.

"But I am telling you," he said. "Quinn ought to have kept-"

"No." She pulled away. "Quinn was right to tell me. I am the Summer Queen, not a voiceless consort. We've discussed this."

"You're upset."

"War has my things. Seth's things. You're telling me Seth threatened you. Yeah, I'm upset."

"That was exactly what I didn't want. I need you happy, Aislinn."

She leaned back into the sofa cushions, putting distance between them. "And I need answers."

The Summer Court had searched all over. She'd had no signs of where Seth could have gone-until now.

"But it doesn't make sense," she said. "I met her. Seth's not...she's not someone he'd go with by choice."

"Really? Seth's closest friend is the Dark King. There are parts of your mortal that you aren't seeing. What was he like before you?" Keenan stared up at her. "Seth isn't an innocent, and the Dark Court is filled with temptations that have called more than a few mortals into their embrace, Ash."

"Aislinn. Not Ash. Don't call me that." Her heart ached. She hated the way it felt, how wrong it was to hear Keenan call her a mortal name anymore. I am not a mortal. I am not that person now. She was a faery queen whose court needed a stronger monarch. Other courts were as enemies, threatening from crossways she didn't understand. Donia was distant; Niall was resentful; both were secretive. The two courts that the Summer Court dealt with were closed off. And through that tension was the shadow of Bananach's proclamation that war was pending.

"If you want me to find out more, I could ask for an audience with Niall," Keenan suggested. "Unless you want to invite War into our home...."

"No." Aislinn could still taste the smoke in the air when Bananach had spun her illusion in the park. "If we are on the edge of violence, I don't want her here. I'm trying to find a way to be the queen our faeries deserve, and bringing her to their haven is not the way. I can't just sit here doing nothing. She must know something."

"So what do you want, Aislinn?" Keenan looked wary. "Do you really want to put yourself in harm's way? Is that going to help? He wasn't happy. If he went with her, got ensnared in the temptations of-"

"Can we go to Bananach?" Aislinn thought she was out of tears, but she felt the sting in her eyes as she tried not to cry. "If she hurt him-"

"We don't know if Seth was there socially or if it was something else. Let me-"

"If she hurt him"-Aislinn began again-"I won't ignore it. If she'd injured Donia or me, you wouldn't ignore it."

Keenan sighed. "I can't risk our court over a single mortal, Aislinn."

"It's my court too," she reminded him.

"Even if she took him, you can't attack War."

"Have you ever tried?"

"No."

"Then don't tell me I can't," she said. If Bananach had taken Seth and killed him, Aislinn would figure out how to exact revenge. She had eternity.

"You'd risk our court for this?" he asked.

"Yes. For someone I love? Without a doubt."

Keenan sighed, but he didn't continue his objections. "Let's go to the lion's den, my Queen."

Accompanied by a full platoon of guards, the Summer King and Queen made their way to Bananach. After the way Aislinn had fallen during her visit to Donia and the way she and Keenan were both debilitated the last time they confronted Niall, Aislinn wondered if they needed still more. Entering the Dark Court, the court of nightmares-the home of the Gabriel Hounds, of the carrion crow-no matter how she phrased it, it sounded like an unwise plan.

But Bananach might have answers.

Aislinn didn't ask how Keenan knew where to find Bananach; she was too frightened to think beyond the possibility that she was walking into the court of a faery who was decidedly hostile toward their court-and into the presence of the epitome of war and bloodshed.

Keenan led her across Huntsdale to a condemned ruin with blacked-out windows. This wasn't a bright, airy loft like their home or an aging mansion like Donia's. Even the air outside the building felt dirty. It made her cringe, like being naked in front of a crowd of lecherous strangers.

Fear. Pure, raw fear. They were in the right place.