Keenan looked from Aislinn to his mother. They stood facing each other like they were ready to wage a war the likes of which fey hadn’t seen in millennia.
Unable to focus, Keenan stared at the Dumpster down the alley, the half-asleep man curled in a nest of frayed cloth and boxes, and listened to the sound of his advisors and guards approaching behind them.
Beira moved closer, her bone-white hand lifting toward Aislinn’s cheek. “She has a familiar face.”
Aislinn stepped out of Beira’s reach. “No.”
Beira laughed, and Aislinn felt something cold and vile sliding down her back.
Whether or not she was angry about becoming one of them no longer mattered; it had stopped mattering when Beira bruised Keenan. An instinct to protect him flared to life in her—an urge she’d felt often enough for her friends but never for a faery. Maybe it was the way he’d looked in the club, the growing sense that he was as trapped as she was.
Beira couldn’t stand against us both. Not both the Summer King and Queen. As much as she didn’t like that possibility, it sounded right as she thought it.
“Until we meet again, lovelies.” Beira waved and two withered hags stepped forward, flanking her much the way ladies-in-waiting did in paintings of royalty. Under their glamours, these faeries shared none of Beira’s dark beauty; they simply looked like someone had sucked the life out of them, leaving empty shells, haggard and glassy-eyed.
Without glancing back, the three strolled down the alley. Shards of ice, cracked and angled like broken glass, glittered in Beira’s footsteps.
Aislinn looked over at Keenan. “What a bitch. Are you okay?”
But he was looking at her with awe in his eyes. He put a ha
nd to his cheek; the bruises were fading as she watched—leaving a red imprint where her lips had touched his skin.
His two “uncles” came up on either side of him. His guards moved out around them. Too little, too late. Several of the faeries were speaking at once.
“Beira’s gone?”
“Are you…?”
But Keenan ignored them. He lifted Aisinn’s hand to his cheek, holding it there. “You did that.”
One of the faeries stepped closer. “What did she do? Are you injured?”
“She didn’t see, did she? Beira?” Keenan asked.
His eyes widened, and Aislinn saw tiny purple flowers blossoming inside them.
She pulled her hand away, shaking her head. “This doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t change a thing. I was just…I don’t know why I even did that.”
“You did, though,” he whispered, taking both of her hands in his. “You see how different it is now.”
She trembled.
He was looking at her as if she were the grail he’d spoken of, and her only thought was to run, far and fast, run until she could run no farther.
“We were going to talk. You said…” Her words vanished as the weight of it hit her. It’s true. I’m the… She couldn’t even think it, but she knew it was true, and he knew it too. She shook her head.
“Is someone going to fill us in here?” The quieter faery uncle stepped up.
Still holding fast to her hands, Keenan tilted his head to motion them forward. His voice a low whisper, like the rumble of thunderstorms, he announced, “Aislinn healed the Winter Queen’s touch.”
“I didn’t mean to,” she protested, trying to tug free of his grasp. Any flash of friendship, of protective instinct, had vanished as he gripped her hands too tightly in his.
“She kissed Beira’s frost, and it’s gone. She unmade Beira’s touch. She offered me her hand—by choice—and I was stronger.” He let go of one of her hands to touch his cheek again.
“She did what?”
“She healed me with a kiss, shared her strength with me.” Still holding one of her hands, Keenan dropped to his knees, staring up at her, golden tears running down his face like rivulets of liquid sunshine.