Prince of Air and Darkness (The Darkest Court)

They obey without hesitation, even the two Unseelie I disciplined, who pause long enough to thank me for my mercy before scurrying off to lick their wounds. As they flee, I inspect the mess I’ve created. The scar on my palm is obscured with tarry, black boggart blood. I drop the eye, absently tracking the way it rolls to the edge of the grass and stops near Smith’s feet. Picking the blood from under my fingernails is an impossible task, so I let my magick spark and engulf my hands in the delicate blue flame I’ve worked with since childhood.

Mother was surprised with my affinity for fire. Her magick is drawn to water and wind, the base elements of our Winter Court. My elder brother Sláine can’t manipulate fire either. Among my family, my talent is odd.

I love flame. Watching it consume is like looking in a mirror. Primitive hunger, raw power, and a continual search for that next fix. Anything the flame wants and gets, it devours, until there’s nothing left but ash and dust. Sometimes it will kill itself in its efforts to consume everything it can. There is never enough to fill it, and I understand that emptiness all too well.

The fire dances over my knuckles, cleansing the blood away, a flickering blanket of the Northern Lights coating my skin. Like everything in my Court, even this fire is cold. Maybe that’s part of the reason I’m so drawn to Smith. The ley line burns under his skin all the time. He’s always warm, like he’s heated from the inside out. Even now, petrified by my curse, his magick surges against mine like a wildfire.

A quick look confirms we’re alone. I flick my hands and the flames vanish, allowing me to turn my undivided attention to Smith. Petrified or not, there’s no mistaking the rage in his gaze. I should be grateful for that: It simplifies so many things I don’t have time to worry about.

Instead, a defense springs to my lips, thrown out between us like a flimsy shield before I can stop myself. “You shouldn’t have spoken. This had nothing to do with you.” I raise a hand cautiously and hold it, palm out, toward him to unwind the curse. “This was a Court matter—”

“Bullshit,” he snaps. Probably should have left his mouth for last. “You really expect me to stand back and watch you torture others? Me?” His voice breaks on the word, the jagged pain digging in under my skin. “Your mother considered me a Court matter, too. Or have you forgotten?”

We’ve danced around this topic for so many years I’m unprepared when he hurls it at me point-blank. The blow reverberates, shattering what’s left of my control and canceling out the rest of the binding curse instantly. “No,” I whisper, but he’s too angry to hear me.

“You’re just like her,” he growls. “Hurting innocent people for no reason.”

“I didn’t have a choice.” He scoffs, but I push on. “Smith, I swear to the Goddess, I wasn’t—”

“Stop lying to me!”

The faint prickle at the back of my neck is the only warning I get. I should have noticed the other signs earlier—things being drawn toward him. Refuse. Loose dirt. Grass. Me. Instead, I couldn’t look away from the raw pain in his face.

I don’t notice that we’re long past his tipping point until it’s too late. Ley lines aren’t discrimin

atory and Smith can’t control their power worth shit. The vacuum of space around us shivers once before exploding outward.

Or maybe he explodes outward.

I barely have enough time to throw my glamour out over the area, hiding us from prying eyes. It surges just ahead of that unchecked power as it blossoms outward.

I slam into the back of the amphitheater. My skull cracks against the brick and the world shudders with darkness as I fall back to the ground. If I were a human, I’d be dead. Thank the Goddess fae are hard to kill.

Smith blazes like phosphorous, melting the grass and dirt and Goddess knows what else at his feet.

Living fire. A vessel for the ley line. As beautiful as it is deadly.

“Smith,” I croak as I clamber to my feet.

The ley line’s power retreats back into him, but not to go dormant; it’s rebuilding for the next storm surge. The air crackles with it. He’s too pale. Sweat soaks his shirt and runs in rivulets down his face and neck. If the ley line lashes out again, it’ll hollow him out before my eyes. After all this time, after all the sacrifices I’ve made to protect him, he’ll die in front of me. Because of me.

No.

I hurl what’s left of my glamour at him. If he were fae, our magicks could catch against each other and blend. If he were fae, I could bear some of this weight. If he were fae, he wouldn’t be dying right now.

The moment my glamour lands against him, the ley line rushes to meet me. It blisters, scraping my magick away layer by layer, peeling my glamour back until I’m left as little more than an exposed nerve. The world tilts on its axis and I stagger. Every muscle viciously contracts against the movement, and the unexpected pain rips a gasp from me.

At the noise, Smith blinks. Looks at me. The ley line vanishes, like someone snuffed out the wick, and he’s all that’s left, confused and shivering.

“Sorry.” The word is a glass shard in my throat.

He opens his mouth. I step toward him, but my leg can’t hold my weight. A horrible emptiness roars up in me as my glamour fizzles out, exposing us and our chaos to the rest of the university. The ground rushes to meet me.

Phineas

When I reached down into that magickal river and let its power course through me, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. I just knew Roark was standing in front of me with blood on his hands, just like there had been blood on her hands, and I wanted him to hurt. I wanted him to experience a fraction of the pain I’d felt under Mab’s blade so he could understand why I couldn’t let anyone else experience it.

I held it together until he lied. Until he denied what he was doing to my face, as if I were a confused child. The little control I’d clung to cracked and all the power dammed up burst out. I should have channeled that flood of magick. Instead, I let it rip me apart as it burst toward Roark.