Fragile Eternity

“A lamb?” The High Queen’s gaze passed over him with the attentiveness of a hummingbird, pausing and darting away. She returned her eyes to the board in front of her. The game looked to be something akin to chess but several times larger and with six sets of gemstone pieces.

“All of his wet parts are still inside.” Bananach reached over and stroked Seth’s head. “Do you remember when they brought us sacrifices?”

Sorcha picked up a translucent green figure with a sickle-looking weapon in its hand. “You shouldn’t have brought him here. You shouldn’t even be here.”

Bananach tilted her head in that disturbing birdlike gesture. Her voice was singsongy as she asked, “Shall I keep him then? Shall I carry him back through the veil, take him from the field of play? Shall I leave him on the right regent’s threshold; tell them I brought him to the door from inside your demesne? Shall I, sister mine, take the lamb?”

Seth paused as something unreadable flickered in Sorcha’s eyes. He’d only just arrived here, so he couldn’t imagine where Bananach could leave him or what she could say that would cause trouble. The only regents who know me are Ash, Don, or Niall, and I could explain—the thought stopped as clarity hit: she wouldn’t be leaving him alive at anyone’s door. If Sorcha didn’t allow him to stay, he was about to die.

He looked around, as if a weapon would suddenly be lying in reach. There wasn’t anything. Sentences from the lore he’d read rushed to mind in a jumble. Hawthorn and Rue, thistle and rose… He knew there were herbs and plants that offered protection. He kept a number of them in his train and often with him. He began rummaging in his pockets. Words…vows… What could he offer not to die? Bananach had promised to deliver him safely to Sorcha, but nothing beyond that.

Sorcha held the figure aloft before setting it in a square adjacent to the one it had been in when she lifted it. “Fine. He can stay.”

The raven-faery pressed one taloned hand over his chest, her fingers curling in ever so slightly, as if she’d pierce him with her fingertips. “Be a good boy now. Make me proud. Make our dreams come true.”

Then she turned and left.

For a few heartbeats, Seth stood and waited for Sorcha to speak. He’d heard enough about her—not in direct revelations but passing comments that painted her as impeccably proper and uptight—that he thought he should wait for her to speak.

She didn’t utter a word.

Boomer shifted, sliding down Seth’s arm and lower until the boa was resting at Seth’s feet.

Still the High Queen sat silently.

Now what?

Waiting her out was unlikely. He glanced at the doorway through which Bananach had just left and then back at the High Queen. She wasn’t looking at her puzzle board now; she gazed into the distance, as if she saw things in the empty air.

Perhaps she does.

After several still moments, he figured he’d try to speak. “So, you’re Sorcha, right?”

The look she gave him was not cruel, but it wasn’t inviting at all. “Yes, and you are?”

“Seth.”

“The new queen’s mortal consort.” She lifted another game piece absently. “Of course you are. Not many mortals would know my name, but your queen is—”

“She’s not my queen,” he interrupted. Somehow that particular clarification felt important just then. “She’s my girlfriend. I’m not anyone’s subject.”

“I see.” She lowered the violet carving and straightened the voluminous skirts she wore. “Well then, Seth who is not a subject, what brings you to my presence?”

“I want to be a faery.” He looked at her without flinching.

Sorcha moved the game board away. A flicker of what might be interest flashed over her face. “That’s a bold request…and not one to answer without contemplation.”

She could fix everything. She has the power to do it.

An elaborate tapestry was pushed aside, and another beautiful, seemingly emotionless faery appeared from behind it. He could’ve been one of her game pieces: perfectly still and inhuman. As Seth looked at him, he realized that this was the same faery who’d watched Niall fight with Bananach in the Crow’s Nest.

“Devlin,” she murmured. “I believe my new mortal needs a resting space for the time, and a reminder of the dangers of impertinence. Would you tend to that while I ponder things?”

“It is my honor.” The faery bowed slightly, and then he calmly reached out and gripped Seth’s neck.

Devlin lifted Seth by the throat and squeezed, applying pressure to his windpipe.

Seth couldn’t breathe. He struggled, kicking out at Devlin, but everything went dark and he fell into unconsciousness.

Chapter 21

“You all right?” Carla asked Aisli

“No.”

“Do you want to talk? You look…off.” The words were hesitant, but they were still there. Carla had become mothering with both Aisli

“Seth and I—” Aisli

Carla hugged her. “It’ll be okay. He loves you. He’s been waiting around for you forever.”

“I don’t know.” Aisli

“Seth?”

Aisli

“He’s gone.” She looked at Carla and at the faeries behind her and whispered, “And it hurts.”

Her friend made comforting noises, and her faeries stroked their hands over her hair and face. Once that would have terrified her, but now their touches comforted her. The faeries were hers. They were her reason now, her focus and her responsibility. I need them. And they needed her; they weren’t going to ever leave her. Her court needed her. That truth was a comfort as she went through the motions of the school day yet again.

Faeries weren’t often in the school. The metal and plethora of religious symbols made them uncomfortable. Yet, throughout the day, her faeries surrounded her. Siobhan sat beside her in an empty desk during study hall. Eliza sang a lullaby during lunch. The soft cadence of her words was matched by affectionate brushes of faery hands as her guard and other assorted faeries came by without any reason but to show her they cared. This is my family. Her court was more than a collection of strangers or strange creatures. Their love didn’t make all the pain go away, but it helped. They helped. That sense of being cosseted in her court’s embrace was a salve on her injured heart—and it was all that helped.

After school, Aisli

She still went to school, and she still spent some nights at home with Grams, but in the eighteen days since Seth had vanished, her attempts to reenter her old life had stopped. She didn’t see or call her friends. She didn’t go anywhere alone. She was safest with Keenan. Together, they were stronger. Together in their loft, they were safer.

After the first couple days, he’d learned not to ask any awkward questions about how she was doing or how she felt or—worst of all—if Seth had called yet. Instead he gave her tasks to keep her distracted. Between schoolwork and court business and the new self-defense training, she’d been exhausted enough that she slept at least a few hours every night.