“I was afraid of that.” She leaned forward and plucked the tissue from my hands. “That won’t help.”
I glared, though she was right. I’d rubbed at the blood, but I glared, though she was right. I’d rubbed at the blood, but it stil coated my palms and fingers, as if I’d dipped my hand in paint.
“Now, about fae inheritance,” she said without pause.
“The fae are not truly immortal, just unaging. Death for humans is expected, anticipated, and in some ways prepared for. Death among fae is always a shock. They do not prepare for it, and as a culture have few precedents for it. Property and titles are not passed down along family lines because such things are assumed to be owned forever unless traded, gifted, or lost in duels. There are dozens of faerie princes and princesses, but none wil rule a court unless they duel or kil for it.”
“Okay. Why the culture lesson, and what does it have to do with this?” I lifted my hands.
She motioned me to be patient and continued. “Most duels are held under court supervision. Rules are established before the duel begins, but if it is a duel to the death, the winner takes al : property, titles, possessions, whatever the loser claimed as his own. When a fae is kil ed outside of a duel, it is less clear what happens to his property. But Faerie, wel , sometimes Faerie has its own idea.”
The sick feeling in my stomach told me I knew where this conversation was going. “Coleman?”
Rianna nodded. “You kil ed Coleman outside a duel, but because of the magic of that night, we were technical y in Faerie. The courts tried to claim Coleman’s property, but thus far, al claims have failed.” She took a deep breath and looked at my hands again. “I wasn’t sure, with how things played out that night, if you would be credited with his death
—I mean, the Winter Queen’s knight shot and kil ed the body Coleman inhabited. But you, wel . . . you have Coleman’s blood on your hands, so I think Faerie transferred his property to you.”
A sour taste crawled up my throat, and I swal owed, trying to rid the taste from my suddenly dry mouth. “His blood?” I to rid the taste from my suddenly dry mouth. “His blood?” I stared at the red, tacky liquid and then scrubbed my palms on the thighs of my pants, desperate to wipe them clean.
It didn’t work.
“Here.” Rianna dropped something in the center of the table between us.
I tore my gaze from my palms, hoping she’d had baby wipes or hand sanitizer on her. No, she’d dropped a pair of white gloves on the table.
“I’m just supposed to cover it up?”
Rianna shrugged. “Fae blood can’t be washed away.”
I stared at the gloves and my throat constricted. I had blood on my hands. My eyes burned, my vision clouding over as moisture gathered. I blinked it back. I was angry, and freaked, but I wasn’t going to tear up. I wasn’t. I have a man’s blood on my hands. But he’d been a monster. If I hadn’t stopped him, others would have died.
I took a deep breath. Then another. It took three deep breaths to ease the tightness in my chest enough that I could speak again. I picked up the gloves, sliding them on with slow, careful movements to keep from jerking them on frantical y. Then I looked at Rianna.
“It’s been a month. Why did the blood appear now?”
“I’d guess because this is the first time you’ve come to Faerie since the Blood Moon.” There was no accusation in her words, but I stil felt the sting and cringed anyway. One of the few things she’d had time to say to me that night was to ask me to come here, to the Bloom, to see her. I hadn’t.
She wrapped her fingers around her wooden mug and stared at its contents, not meeting my eyes. “Faerie tends to take things more literal y than the mortal realm does.
When you’re not here, you probably won’t be able to see the blood.”
But it would stil stain my soul—not that I hadn’t already felt it there.
“You talk about Faerie like it’s sentient. It’s a place.” The fabric of her dress rustled as she shrugged. “Faerie is . . . It fabric of her dress rustled as she shrugged. “Faerie is . . . It just is. I wouldn’t say the land is exactly a being, but it is certainly ful of very old magic, which appears to have grown aware, for lack of a better word.”
“And you think the land decided I should inherit Coleman’s property?”
We both looked at my now covered hands. Then she pressed her lips together and nodded. “Like I said, the courts tried to claim it, but al of his former holdings moved to a type of no-man’s-land, outside any of the courts’