Fragile Eternity

Sorcha didn’t smile, not truly, but she was amused.

“I’m in Faerie,” he repeated.

“You are.” She lifted the hem of her skirt and took three steps toward him. As she did so, Seth could see that her feet were bare. Tiny silver tendrils spoked from between her toes and over the tops of her feet. It wasn’t the illusion of silver. It wasn’t tattoos like in the Dark Court, or living vines like on the Summer Girls. Thread-thin silver was inside her skin, part but not-part of her.

He stared at those silver lines. If he looked closely, he could see silver tracery on the whole of her skin; faint outlines of veins showed under and through her skin.

“You are in Faerie”—Sorcha took another step—“and you’ll stay here unless I determine elsewise. In the mortal realm, there are several courts. Once upon a time, there were only two. One left to find the depraved things they sought. Other faeries followed…a few were strong enough to create courts of their own. Others could have but chose to exist as solitaries. Here, there is only me. Only my will. Only my voice.” She dropped her hem so her skirt covered her silver-twined feet. “You won’t call anyone. Not from here or without my permission.”

Seth paused. His phone had transformed into a handful of butterflies that took flight from his palm.

“There will be no communication between my court and theirs. I would prefer you behave properly.” Sorcha glanced at his hand and the phone re-formed. “The decisions made here are mine alone. I have no co-ruler. I have neither successor nor predecessor. Your once-mortal queen’s happiness doesn’t matter here. Ever.”

“But Ash—”

“If you are here, you are subject to my will. You sought me, came to my presence, stand in a world that i

He gave her the phone.

“Why should I listen to your plea, Seth Morgan? What makes you special?”

Seth looked at her. She was perfection, and he was…not. What makes me special? He had been trying to figure that one out for most of his life. What makes anyone special?

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Why do you want to be changed?”

“To be with Aisli

“So you ask for eternity because you love a girl?”

“No,” Seth corrected. “I ask to become a faery because I love a faery queen, and because she deserves to have someone who loves her for who she is, not what she is. She needs me. There are people—good people—I love and I’m a liability to them because I’m a mortal. I’m fragile. I’m finite.” He felt himself saying things aloud that he wasn’t sure he’d even been able to articulate to himself before, but here with Sorcha in front of him, he knew the right words. “I am in this world. People I care about, the woman I love, friends in all three of the courts…This is where I belong. I just need you to give me what it takes to stay with them and be strong enough not to fail them.”

Sorcha smiled. “You’re a curious mortal. I could like you.”

He knew not to say “thank you” so he said only, “You are kind.”

“No, that I am not.” She looked for a quick moment as if she might laugh. “But I am intrigued by you…. If you are to be changed, you’ll spend one month of every twelve here with me.”

“You’re saying yes?” He gaped at her. His legs felt weak.

She shrugged. “You please me…and you have the potential to benefit Faerie, Seth Morgan. This is not a gift given lightly. You are binding yourself to me for as long as you live.”

“I’m already bound in other ways to two other faery rulers, and fond of a third.” He tried to push back the fear that was creeping over him. He wanted this, but it was still terrifying. It was eternity they were discussing. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on breathing, on calm spaces in his mind. It took away the edge of panic.

Then he said, “So what do I need to do? How’s it work?”

“It’s a simple thing. One kiss and you’ll be changed.”

“A kiss?” Seth looked at her; there were two other faery queens who could demand a kiss without making him uncomfortable. Kissing Aisli

The High Queen, however, held absolutely no sexual or romantic appeal. She reminded Seth of the statues in the antiquities sections of art books, austere and unyielding. Even before Aisli

“Is there another way?” he asked. A kiss seemed a strange request, and while faeries were clever, they also didn’t lie. Seth knew that questioning was not only expected, but also lauded.

The High Queen’s expression didn’t change, not even a flicker of an emotion crossed her face, but when she spoke, her voice hinted at amusement. “Were you hoping for a quest? A seemingly impossible task that you could relay to your queen afterward? Would you like to tell her that you found and slayed the dragon for love of her?”

“A dragon?” Seth weighed his words carefully. “No, not so much. I just don’t think Ash would be cool with me kissing you, and faeries aren’t always very forthcoming about the ins and outs of things.”

“We aren’t, are we?” Sorcha sat down on a chair that was almost as elegant as she was. Wrought of silver, it was all graceful lines that had no visible begi

“So, is there another way?” he prompted.

Sorcha smiled at him, a Cheshire cat’s grin, and for an instant he expected the rest of her to vanish. Instead, she fluttered a fan she slid from her sleeve, a demure gesture at odds with her now obvious amusement. “Not that I’m inclined toward. A kiss for your new monarch. It seems only fair to ask what you don’t want to give.”

“I’m not sure ‘fair’ would be the right word there.”

The fan stilled as she asked, “Are you arguing with me?”

“No.” Seth was pretty sure Sorcha was intrigued, so he didn’t back down. “Debating, actually. Arguing would involve anger or fear.”

Sorcha crossed her ankles, resettling her old-fashioned skirts and exposing the silver threads that crept up her ankles. “You amuse me.”

“Why a kiss?”

A spark of something dangerous slid into the High Queen’s voice as she asked, “Do you think she’d mind that much? Your Summer Queen?”

“It wouldn’t make her happy.”

“And that’s reason enough for you to not want to do it?”

“It is.” He tugged on his lip ring, hoping briefly that he wasn’t telling her the exact things she wanted to hear, but increasingly certain that Sorcha found appeal in the idea of Aisli

This no-lying-to-faeries thing is a bad plan. He wasn’t particularly fond of having a moral code just then. She’d lie to me if she were able.

Sorcha answered in a whisper-soft voice, “The simple things are perhaps the most difficult.”

Then she held out her hand in an invitation he suddenly wanted to refuse. Despite having been surrounded by faeries the past few months, her u

“This will make me like you? I’ll be a faery after?”

“You will, for all but one month of true fealty spent in my realm each year.” Sorcha hadn’t moved anything but that bone-thin hand and even that was unwavering. “During that month, you will be mortal.”