Fragile Eternity (Wicked Lovely 3)

“Mortals aren’t meant to love faeries.”

“So agreeing to my terms wasn’t any big deal, right? Seth and I will fall apart and you…you’d just…No.”

Keenan stared up at her, and she thought back to Denny’s comments on experience and age and admitted to herself that Denny had had a very good point. If Keenan didn’t let up, what would that mean for her? He’d spent most of nine hundred years romancing girl after girl. They all succumbed.

And none of them were his queen.

His look was sorrowful, but his words weren’t any gentler. “It’s better to love someone and know they go on to happiness than to destroy them. Cursing someone you love is not a kindness, Aislinn. I regretted it each time.”

“Seth and I are different. Just because Donia’s pushing you away doesn’t mean it can’t work for me. It could still work for you two. You can sort this out.”

“I wish you were right—or that you accepted that I am. Why do you think Don’s pushing me away, Ash? Why do you think Seth wants to be cursed? They see what you refuse to admit. You and I are inevitable.” Keenan’s smile was rueful. “I’m not wrong, and I won’t help you make a mistake like this.”

She all but ran from the room.

And like she had when she was still mortal, she needed the help of the faery who loved Keenan. Donia’s forgiving him for whatever mistake he made would convince him that love could make things right. Then maybe he’d help her. At the very least, he’d stop pursuing her if he had Donia’s love. Donia had to be with Keenan.

Everything will be fine once Donia takes him back.

The trip to Donia’s house was a blur. It wasn’t until Aislinn stood alongside a quiet street on the outskirts of town that she admitted how many kinds of fear she felt—not just of what would happen if Donia rejected Keenan for good, but of what would happen when Aislinn went inside the Winter Queen’s gorgeous Victorian estate. They had a tentative friendship, but that didn’t mean that Donia couldn’t be terrifying. Winter hurt, and Donia’s home was always Winter.

Winter fey moved soundlessly through a thorn-heavy garden; icy trees and sun-capped shrubs made the yard look out of place among its verdant neighbors. As Aislinn had walked down the street, she’d seen dogs lazing on stoops, a girl sunning herself in languid bliss, and more flowers than she’d seen growing outside in her entire life. Beira’s death and Keenan’s unbinding had brought a balance that was letting life flourish. But in this yard, the frost would never melt; mortals passing on the street would still look away. No one—mortal or fey—crossed the Winter Queen’s frigid lawn without her consent. Consent she’d denied Keenan. What am I doing here?

Keenan needed Donia; they loved each other, and Aislinn needed them to remember that. Once-mortals could love faeries.

As Aislinn crossed the yard, the frost-heavy grass thawed under her feet. Behind her, she heard the crackling as the ice re-formed instantly. This was Donia’s domain. It was where she was at her strongest. And where I am weakest. After centuries of Beira declaring it as her seat of power, this place existed both inside the lines of Faerie and in the mortal realm, a thing that Keenan had been—and was still—unable to accomplish.

Her skin prickled uncomfortably as she walked through that icy world. Aislinn was an interloper, and Winter was as unpredictable as Summer. Donia might deny it, but Aislinn had spent her life cringing at the ravages of the seemingly endless snows. She’d seen bodies dead and frozen on side streets; the lifeless expressions of pain were things she’d not forget. Aislinn had felt the pain of that ice wielded as a weapon when she and Keenan stood against the last Winter Queen.

That wasn’t Donia, Aislinn reminded herself, but it did no good. Something about the very opposition of their courts made Aislinn want to clutch Keenan’s hand in hers, but he wasn’t there.

As Aislinn stepped onto the porch, one of the white-winged Hawthorn People opened the door. The faery was soundless in her movement. She did not speak as Aislinn came through the doorway and shivered in the chill that pervaded the room. She did not speak as she glided through the dim house.

“Is Donia available?” Aislinn’s voice echoed in the stillness, but there was no answer.

She hadn’t truly expected one: the Hawthorns were silent. It added to how unsettling they were. They never wandered far from Donia’s presence and typically only left the Winter Queen’s home if it was necessary to stay at Donia’s side. Their red eyes glowed like hearth coals amidst their ash-gray countenances.

The girl led Aislinn past several other quietly watchful Hawthorns who were lingering in the main hall. A fire crackled in one of the rooms they passed; the spitting and popping of logs was the only sound other than the fall of Aislinn’s feet on the aged wood of the floor. The Winter Court could move with an eerie stillness that made the back of Aislinn’s neck prickle uneasily.

At a door that was closed, the Hawthorn stopped. She made no movement to open the door.

“Do I need to knock?” Aislinn asked.

But the girl turned and drifted away.

“That’s helpful.” Aislinn reached out a hand just as the door opened inward.

“Come in.” Evan motioned her into the room.

“Hey, Evan.”

“My queen would speak to you in private,” he said, but he followed that with a friendly smile, crinkling his face into an expression that eased Aislinn’s tension a bit. Like the Hawthorn People, his berry-red eyes stood out, but where the Hawthorn were tinted like ashes of a dying fire, rowans like Evan were the image of fecundity. His gray-brown barklike skin and dark green leafy hair spoke of trees that moved across the earth untethered. They were creatures of Summer, of her court. It soothed her to see him.

But he was leaving already, and Aislinn was alone with Donia and her wolf, Sasha.

“Donia,” Aislinn started, but there suddenly weren’t words she could think of to go any further.

The Winter Queen did not make matters easier. She stood watching Aislinn. “I assume he sent you.”