“Later, once you’re away from Sorcha, we need to talk. Come see me when you are home? Youare 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 passed 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 glass 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. “Ineed 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 chastisements 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. Heis 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. “Seththreatened 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 Iam telling you,” he said. “Quinn ought to have kept—”

“No.” She pulled away. “Quinn wasright 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.