“Too what?” She took a step back. That was even more dangerous than invoking Ninian. Seelie was an illegal word, one not used casually in public. Lily needed to get the hell away from Zephyr. Blowing things up, kissing her, accusing her of being fae, he was frightening. He could get them killed . . . or worse.
“Seelie.” He started walking, propelling Lily with him along the pier. “Come on. We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t.” She pulled out of his hold. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”
They were still. Then, after several moments, Zephyr nodded. “I’ll see you around, Lilywhite.”
He walked away. She returned to campus in hopes that her room was ready. She’d been here not even an hour, and she’d been accused of being fae, kissed, and witnessed a bombing. She wasn’t entirely sure which was the most disturbing. Any of them were dangerous.
As she walked the couple of miles back to campus, Lily debated what to do. Zephyr was clearly involved in something—either as a fae sympathizer or zealously anti-fae. Either option wasn’t one she wanted any part of, but there were such similarities in what both Creed and Zephyr had said to her that she wasn’t sure she could stay clear of it without more information. Both knew about her, her ancestry, and seemed to have been “waiting” for her. How that was possible, she didn’t know.
However, what she did know was that it was better that Daidí not hear about her “welcome surprise” from Zephyr until she investigated. Abernathy Commandment #4: Weigh the consequences before beginning a course of action.
ten
EILIDH
Eilidh was grateful that Rhys had decided to help her, to protect her and potentially Torquil. She knew that he was limited in what he could do, but knowing that she had an ally was a relief she hadn’t expected. Of course, none of that made it easier to face him or Torquil. She’d admitted that the missing child had survived, been raised in the human world, and had a life there for years.
“Who are you?” a ten-year-old Eilidh asked the woman standing inside the Hidden Lands.
“Iana.” The woman looked around the somewhat bleak landscape. “Where am I?”
“Hidden Lands.” Eilidh walked closer to her. “You look like Mother.”
The woman squatted down in front of Eilidh. She didn’t stare at her in horror the way some of the Seelie did, and she didn’t ease away as if she couldn’t see Eilidh the way a lot of the Unseelie did. They weren’t technically to use those terms any longer. The courts were one. They were simply . . . fae.
“Who is your mother?” she asked.
“Endellion, Queen of Blood and Rage, once queen of only the Unseelie, but now . . . she protects all of us.” Eilidh was proud of her mother. The queen was their guardian, the warrior who would keep the humans from destroying them all. “She had no sisters. So how can you . . .”
“Do you have sisters . . . ?”
“Eilidh. I’m Eilidh.” She sounded her name out carefully—Ay-leigh—for the woman. “I had a sister. She died in the sea, and Mother had to kill the bad men.”
“Oh.” The woman brushed Eilidh’s hair back. “I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t know her. She was a baby, waaaay before I was born.” Eilidh smiled at the woman.
She looked like Mother would if she was happy sometimes. Her hair was night-dark, and when she moved, it looked like tiny stars glimmered in it. The woman’s skin was more like the king’s though. Leith looked like he’d been forever in the sun and was as dark as bog-soaked wood.
Quietly, Eilidh told her, “You look like Mother’s face, but you have Father’s skin.”
Over the years, Iana and Eilidh had become close, and by the time that Iana confessed that she’d been plucked from the sea and raised by human parents, a fisherman and his wife, Eilidh had already figured it out. She kept that secret—and the secret that Iana had a daughter.
As Eilidh told the story to her brother and betrothed, Torquil interrupted, “The missing heir to the fae kingdom was raised where?”
“In a small village on one of the islands.”
“How did she hide what she was?” Rhys asked.
“Her mother—”
“Foster mother,” Rhys interjected with more anger than was typical of him.
“They found someone, a faery, who helped and taught her everything she needed to know. She learned it all, everything but who she is.” Eilidh got up and paced to the edge of the room. Down below her, faeries stared up at the tower. They didn’t usually watch her this closely, but then again, she didn’t usually have the queen’s son or one of the most sought-after pureblooded fae in her home. Having either of them in the tower was new; having both here was drawing a disturbing degree of attention.
“They’ll think we’re plotting against our queen,” Rhys said.
“I know.”
“She will ask questions of me,” he continued.
“I know.”
“And I will lie.”
Eilidh looked over her shoulder at him.
“But we aren’t plotting against the queen . . . are we?” Torquil asked.
Neither Eilidh nor Rhys answered.
After several moments passed, Eilidh looked back out the window of the tower, staring at the dozens of fae who unabashedly gazed up at her. Quietly, she offered, “I will accept the withdrawal of your betrothal should you see fit to change your mind.”
“And I will slide the knife across your throat if you go to Mother with what has been spoken here,” Rhys added conversationally.
“Is your family always like this?” Torquil sighed. “No. To both of you, no.”
He stood. Eilidh knew without looking that it was Torquil and not Rhys approaching her. Rhys was too silent to move so obviously through the sitting room. He had to make a conscious effort not to move like shadows.
She didn’t turn around.
“I’ve held your secrets our whole life, Eilidh. Why would that change now that you’re my betrothed?” His hands landed on her shoulders as they had often in their years as friends.
She felt his breath stir her hair as he stood behind her. Quietly, she told him, “We won’t ever be wed. You can withdraw now or later, but we won’t have a bonding ceremony.”
“Endellion accepted my choice.”
“No,” Rhys said, drawing their attention back to him. “Endellion allowed you to be Eilidh’s betrothed. There will be no wedding. She won’t risk Eilidh’s life that way. The heir is too important.”
Eilidh slipped out of Torquil’s hands and walked back over to her brother. “Is he in danger?” she asked Rhys.
Rhys was still as he thought. It was a look Eilidh had seen on their mother’s face often as she weighed the consequences of various plans of action. After several moments, Rhys said, “Not from Nacton or Calder. They’d like you to die. If there were a living child, the infant would be at grave risk, but for their purposes, you must die and leave no young.” Rhys glanced at Torquil. “You are not to bed the heir. Not now or ever . . . unless Iana’s daughter comes home. Then you are no longer of any concern.”