“You have.”

“I see.”

“Do you really?” Sorcha paused, bringing their walk to a stop again. “She’ll feel your absence much longer than you’ll feel like you’re away.”

“I get that.” Seth tugged his lip ring, pondering for a moment. Another surge of fear rose up inside him. Would she think he’d left her for good? Would she worry? Would she be angry?Have I lost her? He wasn’t going to give up now, not when he had come so close to having everything.

Sorcha darted a doubtful glance his way. “You could stay here. I can keep you safe. You’re happy here….”

“I could stay on thechance that things there are wrong?” He smiled at her. “I didn’t get this far with her or with you by giving up on what I want. Fortune favors the bold, right?”

“Keenan knows you are here. Niall told you that.”

Seth wasn’t as calm as he’d like; there was a dark pleasure in the fact that Keenan’s deceit would be revealed. It didn’t entirely assuage the pain at the idea that Aislinn could’ve fallen in love with Keenan. “He’ll need to answer for that when Ash finds out. Won’t he?”

The idea of her with Keenan sickened him.But wehave forever. He had his one and only chance.

“If she is gone from you, you could come home. You will always have a home with me.” Sorcha didn’t press the subject, but he knew her well enough to understand that what she was offering wasn’t a minor thing for her. It wasn’t something he’d ever thought he’d have, and right then, it was a great comfort. The only other person he’d thought he could count on was probably drifting further away. Risking Aislinn’s love was not a price he’d have willingly chosen, but he hadn’t thought he’d gain so much either. Faerie was nothing if not unexpected.

“I’ll miss you,” he said. He wasn’t particularly inclined to hide his emotions, not from her. “Even if I don’t come running back to you, I’ll miss you.”

With the same casual gestures she used in most of her movements, Sorcha let go of his arm and pretended to examine a blossom-laden vine. “That’s to be expected.”

“And, you, my Queen, will miss me.”

The blossoms held her attention, and she lifted a shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “I may need to see how you adjust to that world as a faery.”

“It would probably be wise.” He wanted to bring her gifts, find perfect words, something to let her know that he valued her affection, that his missing her was no small thing. He moved closer. “Sorcha? My Queen? I would stay with you if not for loving her…but I wouldn’t be here except for loving her.”

“I know.” She brushed his hair from his face.

Sorcha felt it when Devlin entered the garden. Her brother wasn’t near, but she could feel his steps on her soil. This wasn’t just any garden in Faerie: it was her private home, warded well. Few faeries could enter it at all; only one could do so at will.

“I should go back,” she murmured.

“Fine.” He stepped away from her, seeming hurt for reasons she didn’t understand.

“Are you angry with me?” Strange that it mattered, this mortal child’s opinion. It did, though.

“No.” He gave her a curious look then, as calm as one of her own faeries. “Can I ask you a question?”

“For exchange?”

He grinned. “No. I just want an answer that only you can give me.”

“Ask.” She glanced up the path to assure that her brother was not approaching. She suddenly didn’t want him to hear this conversation with Seth.

“This kindness you show me…What is it?”

She paused. It was a fair question. The answer was one he could ponder while he was away in the mortal realm. Perhaps it would even convince him to come back sooner. “Are you sure that’s the question you want answered? There are other things you—”

“I’m sure,” he murmured.

“I am the High Queen. I am without consort”—she held up a hand as he opened his mouth to say something, and then she continued—“or child.”

“Child?”

“Children are a rare gift in Faerie. We live too long to have many young. To have one—” Sorcha shook her head. “Beira was a fool. She had a son, but she let her fear that he’d be like his father rule her. She kept her own affection bound away from him but for strange bursts of kindness he didn’t see. Had she done otherwise, Keenan wouldn’t have been a Summer King but…”

“Her heir.”

Sorcha nodded. “He was born of sun and of ice. Beira’s fears made him not hers.”

“And you?”

“I have no heir, no consort, no parent. If I had a child, though, I’d visit him if he wanted my…meddling.” She hadn’t spoken this to anyone. It was irrational, this desire to have a real family. She had Devlin. She had her court.

And one very disturbed sister.

It wasn’t enough. She wanted a family. Eternity with no true connections made sense; it helped her keep her focus. The Unchanging Queen had no business wanting change—but she did. “I want a son.”

“I’m…honored.” Seth didn’t look aghast at her words. He paused, and he lowered his voice to say, “I have one mother who gave birth to me as a mortal, so she’s been stuck with me because of that, and since you gave me a second birth, I guess that kind of means you’re stuck with me too.”

She felt warmth in her eyes, maudlin tenderness that made her leak tears. “To be remade means someone giving you of themselves. To be remade strong enough to withstand the dangers of that world and of my affection meant having a strong faery make that gift. I wanted you to be strong.”

Admitting what she’d done wasn’t her intention either—at least that was what she’d told herself when she’d made the choice.

He was following her implications, though. “Did a faery lose immortality for this?”

“No.”

“What was the cost? The exchange?”