“Marius?” Faelan stands. “Where is he? How is he in danger?”
“She said poison, but that’s all I know.” And if it’s anything like what happened to Niamh, there’s no time to waste.
Faelan blanches. “We need to go. Now.” He starts for the door.
“I’m not going with you, Faelan,” I say.
“What? What do you mean?” He frowns. “Marius is your master; he’s mine. We have a loyalty to him.”
“You do,” I say. “I don’t.”
Conflict fills Faelan’s eyes.
I move closer to him, hoping he hears me. “I have to go to Lailoken, Faelan. I know it doesn’t make sense, but to this thing deep inside me, he’s my truest friend. I can’t let anything happen to him.”
Faelan nods. But then he shifts his feet, torn. “I can’t allow you to be harmed.”
Kieran sets the iron poker back in the rack. “I know this old monk well enough. I’ll take her to him. You go to your master, hunter.”
“No fucking way,” Faelan says. “She’s not going anywhere with you.”
“Faelan.” I give him a look, not wanting to argue in front of Kieran. I understand where Faelan’s coming from, but he has to loosen the leash. “I can take care of myself now, remember. Thanks to you.”
Kieran looks back and forth between us.
Faelan runs a hand through his hair, then releases a growl and kicks the chair with a crack of wood. He nods, saying through his teeth, “Fine.” He steps over to Kieran, getting close and pointing a finger at his neck. “You let anything happen to her, I’ll rip your throat out.”
Kieran smirks. “And here I thought we were becoming friends.”
I fall to my knees in the clover, stomach heaving. I have a vague awareness of trees around me, but I’m focused on the spasms of pain racking my body.
“Apparently you’ve never traveled like this before?” I hear Kieran saying over me. “It can be a shock the first time.”
“I’m fine,” I lie. Another surge rips through me, forcing me to vomit.
Kieran crouches nearby. “You have to breathe deep when the initial vibrations hit.” He mimics slow breathing. “In and out, three times. Long and steady. Focus on a single spot on the ground while you do it. Like you’re convincing your body you’ve arrived.”
I nod, breathing in through my nose like he is.
“Yes, then out.”
I release the shaky breath slowly, focusing on a single blade of grass near my hand, and my stomach actually settles. Another spasm ripples through me, but it’s smaller and I don’t throw up this time. I breathe in and out again, pacing myself, then I try to stand. I stumble.
Kieran takes me by the arm to steady me. “You’re good,” he says.
I lean on him, and reality hits me. I almost burst out laughing. How did I get here, being propped up by the freaking dark prince? This guy pretty much murdered me in an alley only a week ago. His sister is apparently trying to torment me and control me, and maybe did the same to my sister. But somehow I’ve ended up walking through a magical doorway beside him.
What the hell is wrong with my head?
“What did Brighid say about Mara?” he asks.
“That she’s poison.” I brush leaves from my pants. “And chaos. And destruction—my mother’s not a fan.”
He considers that for a minute as we begin to walk. “The goddess isn’t wrong.”
I shrug, not wanting to talk with him like I would with Faelan. I decide to ask my own questions. “So you figured out Lily’s spirit was inside me. Do you know how that happened?”
He shakes his head. “That I don’t know. I only knew she’d be within a new vessel that could eventually help her hide for a time.”
And now she’s stealing my body? That’s extremely creepy. “Why did you say that you had some kind of rights to me then? Was that just because of your brother marrying my sister?”
“When she was free, Lily told me her sister would belong to me.”
“Excuse me?” Belong? “How did she even know she’d have a sister? That would’ve been long before I got here.”
“I don’t know. But I trusted her. She was good to me, even though I was a boy, young and annoying. All I knew of her was how happy she made my brother.”
So he’s been waiting this whole time, thinking I’d show up and be his? And instead I hate him.
Maybe if he wasn’t such an asshole . . .
“What are your powers?” I ask. “Besides being a weirdo raven man, I mean.”
He gives me a crooked smile. “Why do you wish to know?”
“For self-defense reasons, obviously.”
“Well, in that case,” he says, clearing his throat, “as a son of Morrígan, my element is spirit, so that is what I manipulate. I can walk into dreams, change emotions, and take away a person’s will.”
My pulse speeds up as he rattles off the list.
“Oh, and I can be a weirdo raven man,” he adds. He moves a branch out of the way and allows me to pass first. When he follows, he says, “This also means I can see through the eyes of other ravens. Which is how I followed you most of the time.”
My feet stumble in the moss. “Followed me?”
“Before you came to us, when you lived on the street, I was watching. And then once you were at Marius’s house, I kept my birds close.” He looks at me. “I saw many things.”
His words hang in the air. I don’t want to think about what “many things” might mean. But that must be how he knew about Niamh.
“So what’re we going to do about your sister?” I ask, trying not to think about the pixie she killed, the horrifying death. Instead I need to focus on how to get revenge.
Kieran is quiet for a few seconds like he’s thinking. “I was only going to hide you from her. I’m not sure how to destroy her. And the Cast is behind her, always.”
“I can’t hide forever, Kieran. We have to do something.”
“Lily assumed something could be done,” he says, his voice full of sadness. “She was wrong.”
“Your sister hurt her—is that why Lily went crazy and killed your brother?”
“In a way,” he says.
“If you know what happened to them, tell me.”
“It’s not my story to tell.”
I stop walking and turn to glare at him. “Really? You’re gonna be coy? People have died.”
“Some stories kill as well. Even a demi.” He moves ahead on the path, and I hear him say quietly, “And I won’t be the one to put you in the crosshairs of that mess.”
I watch him go and then follow a few paces behind. He’s impossible to understand. And he’s obviously not going to tell me anything. But if Lily’s really a part of me, I need to know what she knew about Princess Mara. I need to understand where everything went wrong, why Lily killed the king.
“Did your brother and sister get along?” I ask.
“No, never,” Kieran says. “My brother felt my sister’s way of living, of feeding, was undignified. He never allowed her to be a part of the court. At the time I felt he was unfair to her. Now I understand why.”