Fragile Eternity (Wicked Lovely 3)

As Seth turned, the other faeries vanished; the room vanished; and he was alone in a vast garden with only her. To one side, flowers twined around one another to the point of chaos. Enormous blue orchids seemed to be choking daisies that tried to push between snarls of blossoms. On the other side of the path, orderly arrangements of roses and birds of paradise were growing at equidistant intervals from flowering cactus and blossoming cherry trees.

Seth looked behind him. The faeries, the room, the building, they were all gone. It was garden and forest and ocean as far as he could see. Sorcha’s hidden city wasn’t a simple area behind a barrier. A whole world existed here.

“It’s just us,” the High Queen said.

“They vanished.”

She gave him a patient look. “No. The world was reordered. That’s how it works here. What I will is what is. Most everything here is controlled by my thoughts and requirements.”

Seth wanted to speak, to ask questions, but he couldn’t. Even with his charm securely fastened around his throat, he felt like he was caught in a glamour stronger than anything he could’ve imagined. Sorcha, the High Queen, was speaking to him in a fantastic garden…in the middle of a hotel.

The High Queen looked at him and smiled.

His phone buzzed. He held it up. Messages scrolled over the screen. As it was still blinking messages, he got a voicemail indicator too. He stared at his phone, at one message in the center of the screen—“where r u”—and then he looked around him.

“It is not like over there. No mortal rules or trinkets function unless I think them useful. Things here are at my will alone,” she added.

Seth knew exactly where he was. He lowered his arm, holding the phone tightly as he did so, and caught the High Queen’s gaze. “This is Faerie. Not like just that you’re a faery, but…this is it. I’m in another world. It’s not like Don’s house or the park….”

Sorcha didn’t smile, not truly, but she was amused.

“I’m in Faerie,” he repeated.

“You are.” She lifted the hem of her skirt and took three steps toward him. As she did so, Seth could see that her feet were bare. Tiny silver tendrils spoked from between her toes and over the tops of her feet. It wasn’t the illusion of silver. It wasn’t tattoos like in the Dark Court, or living vines like on the Summer Girls. Thread-thin silver was inside her skin, part but not-part of her.

He stared at those silver lines. If he looked closely, he could see silver tracery on the whole of her skin; faint outlines of veins showed under and through her skin.

“You are in Faerie”—Sorcha took another step—“and you’ll stay here unless I determine elsewise. In the mortal realm, there are several courts. Once upon a time, there were only two. One left to find the depraved things they sought. Other faeries followed…a few were strong enough to create courts of their own. Others could have but chose to exist as solitaries. Here, there is only me. Only my will. Only my voice.” She dropped her hem so her skirt covered her silver-twined feet. “You won’t call anyone. Not from here or without my permission.”

Seth paused. His phone had transformed into a handful of butterflies that took flight from his palm.

“There will be no communication between my court and theirs. I would prefer you behave properly.” Sorcha glanced at his hand and the phone re-formed. “The decisions made here are mine alone. I have no co-ruler. I have neither successor nor predecessor. Your once-mortal queen’s happiness doesn’t matter here. Ever.”

“But Ash—”

“If you are here, you are subject to my will. You sought me, came to my presence, stand in a world that innumerable mortals have dreamed of and died for. Nothing comes without cost in Faerie.” Sorcha was nonplussed by his concerns. Her face was a silvered mask, no more flexible than a costume. She extended her hand palm up.

He gave her the phone.

“Why should I listen to your plea, Seth Morgan? What makes you special?”

Seth looked at her. She was perfection, and he was…not. What makes me special? He had been trying to figure that one out for most of his life. What makes anyone special?

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Why do you want to be changed?”

“To be with Aislinn.” He paused, trying to find the right words. “She is it for me, the one. Sometimes you just know. No one, nothing will ever mean even half as much as she does right now. And tomorrow she’ll mean even more.”

“So you ask for eternity because you love a girl?”

“No,” Seth corrected. “I ask to become a faery because I love a faery queen, and because she deserves to have someone who loves her for who she is, not what she is. She needs me. There are people—good people—I love and I’m a liability to them because I’m a mortal. I’m fragile. I’m finite.” He felt himself saying things aloud that he wasn’t sure he’d even been able to articulate to himself before, but here with Sorcha in front of him, he knew the right words. “I am in this world. People I care about, the woman I love, friends in all three of the courts…This is where I belong. I just need you to give me what it takes to stay with them and be strong enough not to fail them.”

Sorcha smiled. “You’re a curious mortal. I could like you.”

He knew not to say “thank you” so he said only, “You are kind.”

“No, that I am not.” She looked for a quick moment as if she might laugh. “But I am intrigued by you…. If you are to be changed, you’ll spend one month of every twelve here with me.”