that the High Queen shouldn’t be lost in sorrows at all. Emotional flux was not a High Court trait: it was out of order.
“I want him home,” Sorcha whispered. “Their world is unsafe. Bananach grows stronger. The courts are in discord. If there is true war there, the mortal world will suffer. Do you remember the times she has been strong, Brother? The mortals die so easily. He will not stay out of her path.… He is too recently mortal. He needs to be here where he is safe.”
“Soon.” Devlin didn’t try to reach through the thorns that now twisted around his queen like a cloak. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her that he was there, but such displays of untoward emotion had always offended her. He’d made a life of hiding the emotions that proved that he was not truly High Court, not truly hers, not worthy to advise the Queen of Reason. The rest of the court might not realize that he was filled with illogical emotions, but she knew. She’d always known—and found it abhorrent.
Sorcha watched the translucent figures silently. In the hazy images, the Summer Queen startled and looked up. She smiled, looking hopeful. Whatever or whomever she saw was invisible to them, and in a blink, Aislinn vanished as well.
“He’s there,” Sorcha murmured, “with her.”
“Perhaps.” Devlin suspected that it was Seth, but there were others whose presence was invisible to Sorcha—some of whom Devlin had hidden from her.
“Do you think he is well?” Sorcha caught and held Devlin’s gaze. “What if he needs to talk or … art supplies … or … to come home? Maybe he wants to come home. Maybe he is unhappy. How am I to know?”
“I will visit him again.” Devlin would rather bring Seth back to Faerie, but Sorcha had given Seth a choice, and he had chosen to return to the mortal world where his beloved Summer Queen lived. Devlin had objected. Killing Seth or keeping him in Faerie would be better for Sorcha—and therefore for all of them.
“Perhaps you should stay there.” The High Queen’s voice didn’t sound noticeably different as she said this, but Devlin felt increasingly uneasy. In all of eternity, Sorcha had never sent him away for more than a quick trip.
“Stay there?” Devlin had traveled back and forth to the mortal world too often of late, and, as a day in Faerie was almost a full week in the mortal world, the disconnect of such travel was beginning to wear on him. His own emotions, more easily contained when he stayed in Faerie with his queen, were becoming increasingly present. His sleep was restless, leaving him tired—and prone to emotions.
“You would have me stay in the mortal world?” He spoke the words slowly.
“Yes. In case he needs you. I’m … I need you more there than here.” She stared at him, as if daring him to question her.
He wanted to: there was more to this than Seth’s protection, but Devlin didn’t know what his queen was hiding. “He’s with Irial and Niall, my queen. Cloistered safely in the Dark Court but for when he’s with the Summer Queen. Surely—”
“Do you refuse my orders? Have you finally decided to disobey me?”
He knelt. “Have I ever refused your orders?”
“You have acted without direct orders; but refused? I don’t know, Devlin.” She sighed softly, a whisper of air that made the garden seem to hold its breath. “You could, though. I know that.”
“I am not refusing your order,” he said. It was not a real answer. Truth would lead them into a discussion he had avoided for fourteen mortal years: it would mean admitting that he had disobeyed her direct order to kill one half-mortal child.
An offense for which I could be executed, abandoned, cast out of Faerie … and rightly so. A feeling that he recognized as guilt twisted inside him. I am High Court. I am Sorcha’s to command. I will not fail my queen ever again, he repeated his daily reminders silently to himself. Aloud, he added, “I am not refusing, but I am your advisor, my Queen, and I do not recommend leaving you alone when you seem …”
“Seem what?”
Devlin’s position was one of obeisance, but he caught and held her gaze with a boldness none other in Faerie would dare. “When you seem to be developing emotions.”
She ignored the reality he’d spoken and said only, “Tell him I wish he would come home. You will stay there … for as long as he needs you.”
“I am yours to command, my Queen.”
“Are you?” Sorcha leaned into the veil of thorns that had grown around her, and just as the jagged edges would pierce her, they vanished. Then, thorns sprouted from the earth at his knees, around her feet. The vines climbed her body, and crept over her arm to her fingers. She raised her hand and pressed it to his cheek, so that the sharp edges pierced them both. “Are you truly mine, Brother?”
“I am.” He did not move away.
“You will see her.” Sorcha’s blood dripped onto his skin, mingling with his own.
His body absorbed the blood she offered. As with the twins who’d created him, Devlin needed the nourishment of blood. Unlike them, he needed the blood of both Order and Discord.
“I will see Bananach,” Devlin admitted, “but she does not command me. Only you. I serve the Unchanging Queen, the High Court, Faerie.”
The vine crawled from her flesh onto his, where the nourishment she’d filled it with was his to take.
“For now.” Sorcha brushed her hand across his cheek. “But nothing lasts forever. Things change. We change.”
Devlin couldn’t speak. This was the closet to open affection his mother-sister had ever shown him. He wasn’t sure whether to be happy or alarmed. Reason wasn’t to act thusly, but in some hidden part of his mind, he’d wondered if she felt tempestuous emotions, if she merely hid them away better, if she’d chosen to let logic reign over her.
“Everything changes in time, Brother,” Sorcha whispered. “Go to Seth, and … be wary of War. I would rather you were not injured.”
He opened his mouth to question her, but she turned away, leaving him silent in her gardens.
Ani had gone to the Dark Kings’ home knowing it would be another painful experience—and not the fun kind of pain.
Irial held one of her hands in his. It was a comfort of sorts. “Are you ready?”
“Take it.” Ani extended her other arm toward the former Dark King. She stared at the fleur-de-lis wallpaper, at the flickering candles, at anything other than the faery sitting beside her. “Take all of it if that’s what you need.”
“Not all, Ani.” He squeezed her hand once more before releasing it. “If there was another way—”
“You’re my king. I will give whatever you ask of me. Do it.” She watched as he jabbed a thin tube into her skin. Bruises from the last several tubes decorated her skin like love bites.
“Not your king now. Niall’s the Dark King.”
“Whatever.” Ani didn’t resume the argument she’d lost too often: Irial might be king-no-more, but he had her loyalty. Truth be told, he had the loyalty of many of the denizens of the Dark Court. He might not rule them, but he still looked after them. He still handled those matters too disquieting for the new Dark King. Irial cosseted Niall.
Ani, however, wasn’t sheltered. Not anymore. When Irial learned that Ani could—that I need to—feed from both touch and emotion, he’d begun trying to find out how to use that for the Dark Court. According to Irial, as a halfling, she shouldn’t have either appetite. She certainly shouldn’t have both; and she definitely shouldn’t be able to find nourishment from mortals.