“Seth knew and he—”
“Seth is not my concern right now . . . or yours.” Leslie reached up and kissed Niall tenderly. “You’re hurting. I’m hurting. Do you want to stand here and torture Seth or hold me so I can cry?”
“I don’t want you to cry.” Niall pulled her into his arms, though. “I couldn’t save him. I tried, Leslie. I tried, and . . . I failed.”
“Come on.” Her voice was muffled by how tightly he held her. “Will you rest with me, Niall?”
“I can’t. If I sleep, I dream about Irial,” Niall confessed. “I don’t want to sleep.”
Leslie leaned back and looked up at him. “I will be with you. I’ll wake you if you need. Just take me to the house. Please?”
He hesitated. “I . . . inside . . . I was upset.”
Leslie caressed his cheek. “You’re in pain, and Irial is dead. Do you honestly think I care about anything other than that?”
With one arm around Leslie, Niall grabbed the chain with his injured hand and yanked. Seth’s cage ascended. Once it was up at the rafters again, Niall fastened the chain to the bar.
Then, without another word, he and Leslie walked into the shadows of the warehouse and left Seth alone in the dark.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone very long. A few hours later, he was awakened by a caw of laughter.
Bananach walked across the empty warehouse. Behind her was a parade of faeries, familiar and unfamiliar to Seth.
Bad to worse. Seth watched the mad raven-faery stroll into the Dark King’s domain with enough blood on her that he knew someone was dead or severely injured. Ask or wait? He didn’t know Bananach well enough to know which path was better.
Her steps were even as she crossed the warehouse to the Dark King’s throne.
The raven-faery herself looked up at Seth as he stood and gripped the bars of his cage.
“My, my, little lamb. Aren’t you a pleasant surprise?” She opened her wings full-width and lifted up to hover in front of him. As she did so, Seth could see that one wing was badly torn. Logic said she shouldn’t be able to rise with such an injury, but he didn’t think that pain was much of a deterrent to Bananach.
“Look, my lovelies: the old king left me a coronation present.”
Seth wondered if she could taste emotions as Niall did. Does she know I’m terrified? He hoped not. He held his voice even and told her, “The Dark King—”
“Is gone.” She dropped to the ground in front of the throne.
Did she kill Niall? Between the blood and her words, Seth wasn’t sure. He searched to see Niall’s threads, but there was only darkness. Which doesn’t prove anything.
The assembled faeries were silent as Bananach stood before the empty throne. Their collective breaths sounded as a gasp as she stepped onto the dais and reached out to touch the arm of the chair.
She turned, her gaze sliding across the faeries watching her, and then she sat in the Dark King’s throne. For a long moment, she closed her eyes and was silent. Then her eyes snapped open. “I am the Dark Queen. This is my throne, my court, and you”—she spared him an unsettling look—“are my prisoner.”
Seth’s eyes widened. “You can’t just declare yourself queen. There are rules, processes, and—”
“Those are for subjects, and I, my lovely little lamb, am over being anyone’s subject. When a regent is meant to be, she can make it so, and I am meant to be queen. I am the Dark Queen.” She lifted her voice then. “My subjects? Come.”
The room began to fill with even more faeries. Faeries that should belong to the Summer and Winter Courts joined Ly Ergs, some thistle-fey, and solitaries that Seth had seen around town. They all came crushing into the warehouse. With mad grins and bloody hands, they expressed their joy.
Bananach sat in the regent’s place and gestured regally. “Come, my errant ones, and offer me your fealty.”
To Seth’s horror, they did. One after the next they knelt before her and bowed their heads. They retracted their oaths to Niall and called Bananach “my liege,” and they offered vows of fealty.
At least he’s alive. . . .
Seth had seen Niall fight Bananach twice, and he doubted that anyone else had the skill to do so—especially if Bananach had control of the Dark Court—but the unbalanced Dark King was currently in no shape to fight anyone successfully.
I don’t want to oppose Niall.