Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely 4)

PROLOGUE

LATE 1800s

Devlin stood immobile as the spectral girl approached. The plume of her hat and the dark ringlets that framed her face were motionless, despite the breeze that swept over the field. The air did not touch her; consequently, he was unsure if he could.

“I seem to be dreaming or, mayhaps, lost,” she murmured.

“Indeed.”

“I was resting over”—she gestured behind her, frowned, and gave him a shaky smile—“in the cave that seems to have vanished. Am I still resting?”

The girl presented Devlin with a dilemma. All those uninvited to Faerie were to be brought before the High Queen—or dispatched if he deemed them threats. His function was to assure order, to do what best served the good of Faerie.

“In a cave?” he prompted.

“My guardian and I had a quarrel.” She shivered and folded her arms over her chest. The dress she wore was not this season’s fashionable attire, but it wasn’t horribly outdated.

When he didn’t reply, she added, “You look like a gentleman. I don’t suppose your manor is near here? Your mother or sisters? Not that my aunt expects me to make much of a match, but she would be… displeased if I were to be found unchaperoned in the company of a gentleman.”

“I am not a gentleman.”

She blanched.

“And meeting my mother-sisters is not something I’d wish on the innocent,” he added. “You should turn back. Call this a bad dream. Go away from here.”

The girl looked around at the field; her gaze took in the landscape of Faerie—the spider-silk hammocks that hung in the trees, the pink-and-gold-tinted sky that the queen had fashioned for the day—and then settled on him.

Devlin did not move as she observed him. She did not falter at the sight of his opalescent hair or inhuman eyes; she did not flinch at his angular features or otherworldly stillness. He wasn’t sure what reaction he expected: he’d never been viewed as he truly was by a mortal. Over in their world, he wore a glamour to appear like them. Here, he was known for what he was, the Queen’s Bloodied Hands. The girl’s assessment was a singular event.

Her cheeks became pink as she boldly stared at him. “You certainly look like a kind man.”

“I am not.” He stepped toward her. “I exist to keep order for the queen of Faerie. I am neither kind nor a man.”

The girl fainted.

Devlin leaped forward to catch her and knelt on the ground, arms empty—as her form settled inside of his skin. He couldn’t hold the insubstantial, but she apparently could take residence in his body as if it were her own.

Her voice was in his head. Sir?

He couldn’t move: his body wasn’t his to control. He was still inside of himself, but he was not animating his body. The girl’s spectral form had filled his skin as if it were her own body.

Can you move? he asked.

Of course! She sat up and, in doing so, left his body.

He swallowed against the burst of peculiar emotions coursing through him. He felt free and excited and a number of the things that were unlike the restraint of the High Court—and he liked it.

She lifted a hand as if to touch him, but it passed through him. “I’m not dreaming, am I?”

“No.” He felt unexpectedly protective of her, this foundling mortal. “What is your name?”

“Katherine Rae O’Flaherty,” she whispered. “If I am awake now, that means you are an ethereal creature.”

“An ethere—”

“I have three wishes!” She clapped her hands and widened her eyes. “Oh, what do I wish for? True love? Eternal life? Certainly, nothing frivolous like gowns! Oh, perhaps I just want to save my wishes!”

“Wishes?”

“You cannot force me to make my wishes now.” She squared her shoulders and looked at him. “I’ve read texts. I know there

is dispute over the goodness of your kind, but I do not believe for a moment that you could be other than kind. Why, just look at you!”

Devlin frowned. He did not idle away his time with foolishness; he did only that which his queen required. Except for those stolen moments of pleasure in the mortal world. His queen knew of his indulgences, looked the other way even. What harm an indulgence here? She was a specter of a mortal girl, no threat to the queen of Faerie. Sheltering her violates no order. He tried to smile at the girl. “Katherine Rae O’Flaherty, if you’re going to stay in our world, the term you will want is sidhe, faery, or fey.”

“I will use those… since I am staying.” She scrambled to her feet. “I have read Reverend Kirk, in fact. My uncle’s library has quite a few books of your people. I have read Mr. Lang’s fairy tales as well. The sweet—”

“Books are not the same as reality.” Devlin stared at her. “My world is not always kind to mortals.”

The look in her eyes was no longer guileless. “Nor is the mortal world.”

“Indeed.” He looked at her with a pleasant burst of curiosity.