She was in front of him then. Up close, he could see that the feather-hair falling down her back was singed in places. Shadowy wings blinked in and out of existence. Ashes had dried into patterns on her arms and cheeks. She looked like she’d come to his yard fresh from a battleground.

“Who are you?” Seth asked.

“You may call me Bananach.”

He took another step and picked up his phone. “Why are you here?”

“To take you to Sorcha.” She nodded as she spoke.

“Why?” He didn’t look at the phone as he slid his thumb to the key that would ring Niall’s cell.

“Don’t. I’m not going to bleed you unless you make it necessary. Doingthat would make it necessary.” The madness in her words and expression had suddenly gone, and she was all the more frightening for it. She gave him a serious look. “We all have dreams, Seth Morgan. For the moment, yours and mine line up. Consider yourself fortunate that your use to me does not require me to injure you today.”

Then she stepped past him into his home.

Seth paused, finger still resting on the key that would call Niall. “You’re offering to take me to Sorcha?”

“You seek her. Niall won’t help you. The ash-queen won’t give you what you want. Winter will refuse you…. Reason can help if she deigns to do so. Your changing will help me. I’ve been whispering words to get us here, Seth. Telling secrets to Winter.” She stopped and cooed at Boomer. The boa was resting atop one of his heated rocks. She didn’t look his way as she said, “Gather your traveling things.”

He knew enough by now to realize that she spoke the truth as she saw it.

And as I see it.

The things Bananach said were true: neither Aislinn nor Niall was willing to help him in his pursuit of being a faery. The High Queen could make it happen.

Bananach stood making kissy noises at Boomer—who was undulating in a way Seth had never seen. Then she glanced back at him. “Ask your question. The window is short.”

Seth held Bananach’s gaze and asked, “You’ll take me directly to Sorcha and not harm me?”

She corrected, “I will deliver youunharmed to Sorcha. You must be more specific in your words if you’re to do me any good. Suppose I’d had someone else harm you as we travel? Precision is the key to strategy. You have the boldness, but not the precision. I need you to be both brave and calculating.” Her gaze was assessing. “You’ll do. The ravens tell me that, but you must listen well to Sorcha’s wisdom. Tedious she is, but Reason will aid you in what we need.”

“We? Whywe ?”

“Because it serves my purpose.” She opened Boomer’s terrarium and lifted the boa. “Answering you further does not.”

“Right.” He swallowed against a suddenly dry mouth.

From outside the door, Skelley called, “Seth, are you well?”

Bananach held a finger to her lips.

“I am.” Seth didn’t open the door. The guard couldn’t stand against Bananach—and Seth wasn’t sure he wanted her to leave. She had answers. She could take him to Sorcha.

Skelley was silent. “Do you need company?”

“No, I think I have what I need.” Seth glanced at the faery, who stood sentinel-still watching him. “I just needed a moment alone to find it.”

Skelley said his good-bye through the still closed door, and Seth turned to Bananach. “I don’t know how you know what I need, but I want to see Sorcha.”

The raven-faery nodded somberly. “Call your queen to tell her you’re leaving. You can’t go there. Not tonight. Not with me. They wouldn’t welcome me in their home. And if they saw me—” Bananach made a happy sound Seth felt embarrassed to hear before she added, “Nasty, bloody fun, but it’ll wait for another day.”

Some residual bit of logic told Seth that he had ventured much too far from the path of good sense.

You can still say no,he thought.Right now. Tell her you were wrong. Tell her to leave. Maybe she’ll listen.

But that same logic reminded him of how much farther Aislinn seemed to drift each day, of how helpless he was against the weakest faeries, of how short a time he’d had with her as a mortal.

He pushed “1” on his cell.

When the voice mail picked up, he started, “I’m leaving tonight, and—”

Bananach suddenly stood in front of him then, invading his space, whispering, “Tell her nothing else.”

Seth looked away from the faery. He knew better than to trust her, but he did obey her. He spoke into his phone. “And I’ll call…later. I just need to go now. I don’t know when…if—I need to go.”

He disconnected.

“Good boy.” Bananach uncoiled Boomer from around her arms and handed the snake to him. Then she opened the door. “Hold tight to my hand, Seth Morgan. Reason doesn’t wait for us. We must go before the pieces move.”

Seth wasn’t at all sure what the raven-faery meant, but he took her hand and went into the night with her. He locked the door. A heartbeat later they were far from the railyard, past the guards, and in a street that took a good half hour to reach on foot. She moved faster than Aislinn, and Seth stood trying not to retch.

Boomer shivered a bit from where he was coiled around Seth’s shoulders.

“Smart lamb,” Bananach murmured as she patted Seth’s head.

Several ravens fluttered into the broken windows in the building across from them. They tilted their heads to watch him. Bananach tilted her head in the same gesture, in time with the black birds.

He forced the nausea back. “Where is Sorcha? I need to see the High Queen.”

“Hidden.” Bananach strolled away, and he ran after her.

She’d offered him his answer, and he wasn’t going to let the opportunity escape him—regardless of the risk.

Better to take a chance on forever than wonder “what if” later.

Chapter 19