Chapter 26

“The equinox is upon us,” that booming voice announced, and I whirled toward the sound.

The center of the clearing, where I could have sworn was a grassy patch before, now held a wide dais with three throne-sized chairs made of twisting branches. A Sleagh Maith stood in the center of the dais, his brown hair reflecting red and gold highlights as the light of dawn glimmered off it. On his head a circlet of fall leaves formed his crown.

I leaned close to Rianna. “So that’s the Fall King?”

“He prefers Harvest King, but yes.”

Behind the king, his queen wore a diadem of twisting red twigs decorated with mums in cool tones of cream and salmon. She held the hand of a boy who couldn’t have been more than three. He lacked the brown hair and dark eyes of his parents—as well as the angular Sleagh Maith features. Instead he had a round, cherublike face with wide blue eyes and a mop of blond hair.

“The boy’s human?” I asked in a hissing whisper.

“Leave it be, Alex. Now stay quiet,” Rianna warned, recognizing the outrage in my face.

Folklore was full of stories in which beautiful children were kidnapped or switched for fae changelings. Treaties had been signed to prevent such behavior in modern society, but I knew it still occurred—Falin was proof of that. He’d told me how the queen had put him in the place of a human child so that he would grow up with an understanding of the mortal world and more resistance to its iron. The child he’d been switched with? He was in the winter court.

“Welcome, friends of the changing season,” the king said. He wasn’t yelling, but his booming voice reached every corner of the clearing. “Be one with us, make merry with us, and enjoy the bountiful harvest.” He threw his arms over the top of his head in a wide “Y” shape, and a wash of magic flooded the clearing.

The magic wasn’t overwhelming the way Briar’s spells had been, but had a gentle, joyous feel to it, and where it passed, Faerie changed. The trees around the clearing filled with fruits and nuts, the bushes with berries. Banquet tables appeared, as did large casks.

A cheer rang out, and the music started again in earnest. Folk laughed, danced, and gathered around the buffet tables. The fall royalty sat on their thrones, watching. Someone brought the king a goblet and he toasted the fae as a whole—many of whom returned the gesture. Other fae approached the throne. All were greeted with boisterous joviality, but even though I was out of earshot, I could tell that some requests set before him were—however cheerfully—turned down and sent away.

“So this is it then?” I could feel the heady excitement in the air, but I wasn’t exactly in a “merry” mood.

Rianna smiled, her lips curling at the edges as if she were holding back a secret. “Just wait.”

A chime sounded, its crystal clear note ringing through the clearing, and the music changed, growing softer, more somber. The fae turned toward the hawthorn-ringed copse of trees we’d passed through to enter the large glen. Curious, I turned to look as well, but saw nothing under the arch of oak branches. Then as if a shroud of gloom had rolled away, a giant, pure white stag with arching antlers appeared. On its bare back sat a woman. I recognized her on sight.

The Winter Queen.

Frost kissed her dark curls and eyelashes despite the relative warmth of the glade. She wore a gown dripping with icicles that sparkled like diamonds, the long train falling over the stag’s rump and blending with her white cloak that glistened like freshly fallen snow. No, not like snow, the cloak was snow. As the stag took each graceful step forward, the cloak blanketed the ground in their wake. But it was fall, not winter, and the snow melted immediately, revealing crisp, colorful fallen leaves once more.

An entourage followed the queen, some guards, based on their weapons and ice-scaled armor, but many were gentry Sleagh Maith, dressed in all their finery and moving with the haughty attitude of their station. A gaggle of nonroyal courtiers finished out her procession, many with their eyes as wide as their smiles as they looked around the glade.

Rianna and Caleb had said the revelry would give me a chance to interact with fae from all the courts, but I hadn’t expected the Winter Queen to make an appearance.

“I have to get out of here,” I whispered, backing toward the tree line. What if the queen saw me? This wasn’t a bubble of Faerie like the Bloom. This was Faerie. Her domain and place of power.

Caleb grabbed my arm, stopping me. “Wait and watch.”

The Winter Queen guided her stag to the dais where the Harvest King and Queen sat on their thrones of woven wood. She held out her hands, and two Sleagh Maith stepped forward. The first was Ryese, the second, Falin. My heart twisted in my chest as Falin took one of the queen’s outstretched hands.

He’s not mine. And he never would be, unless I was willing to bind myself to the frosty bitch he served. Probably not then either.

The Winter Queen dismounted with more grace than I ever would have thought possible, but it didn’t surprise me. She was beautiful, elegant, and powerful—in other words, everything I wasn’t. I’d have fallen on my face if I’d tried that move in a gown with a train that took three attendants to lift. Hell, I probably wouldn’t have managed to mount the stag in the first place.

The knot tightening in my temples made me realize I was scowling and had been for some time. I forced the muscles in my face to loosen. I aimed for neutral, but clearly didn’t succeed because when Caleb glanced at me he shook his head.

“You’ll see,” he whispered before turning his attention back to the center of the clearing.

Rianna locked her arm with mine again. “He’s right. It’ll be fine.”

I wasn’t convinced. Leaving without taking any chances sounded like a better plan, even if I lost a day. But I waited obediently, watching as the Winter Queen stepped forward.

“Hail majesties of the plentiful harvest,” she said, and though she didn’t yell or raise her voice, I could hear her crisp words as if she stood feet from me instead of more than a dozen yards away.

“Hail queen of the long slumber,” the Harvest King said. It was a title I hadn’t heard before, but winter was a time when nature appeared to sleep, so I guessed it was apropos. The king continued. “The oak is still ablaze with color and it is not yet time for your cold touch.”

The Winter Queen inclined her head. “The time in which the oak’s boughs are weighted with snow will come soon enough, but I am content to wait.”

“Then for this day and night, join our revelry. Be welcome in our court and make merry with us as we celebrate the bountiful harvest of fall.”

The words—actually, the entire exchange—had all the formality of a ritual. Which was confirmed when the Winter Queen curtsied and said, “The winter court joins the fall, debts and grudges forgotten for the span of this festive occasion when night and day are equal.”

The gathered fae, of both courts as well as all the independents who had already joined the festival, cheered. Folk rushed forward, enticing the new revelers to join dances or lift overflowing flagons. But as the winter fae dispersed, attention turned to another group of newcomers.

“Did I understand that correctly,” I whispered to Rianna as a couple crowned in woven flowers stepped into the clearing followed by their own entourage. “Did the winter court just join the fall court?”

Rianna nodded. “Only for the equinox.” When I continued to stare at her, she went on, “Remember how Caleb said that all doors open to the fall court for the equinox? That means all the power from human belief is flowing into this court, making it the most powerful for the entirety of the festival.”

And the rest are at their weakest, I suppose. I turned my attention back to the center of the clearing. A very similar ritualistic greeting was being exchanged, only this time the bit about the oak was something about budding and new life. This must be the spring court.

“Will all the courts attend?”

Rianna shrugged. “Maybe. The equinox and solstice revelries are unmatched, but debts and grudges truly must be forgotten for the revelry, and not every monarch can make such a promise.”

That made sense.

As the sun continued to rise, the party around us grew livelier and more courts arrived to join the revelry. I watched as the summer monarchs and their court were greeted and invited to join, followed closely by my great-granduncle, the King of Shadows. His entourage was the smallest I’d seen, with only two Sleagh Maith attending him and a small group of nonroyals, most of whom were monstrous in appearance. Of course, until the High King decided to sever the Nightmare Realm from Faerie, my uncle had ruled that as well, so monstrous was to be expected.

I turned as yet another troupe of fae emerged from between the hawthorn bushes and my breath caught in my chest. I blinked, and then blinked again. All unglamoured Sleagh Maith had an ethereal glow, as if lit softly from within, but the woman making her way into the clearing went beyond an otherworldly shimmer to a radiance that brightened everything around her. An involuntary smile spread across my face as unbidden tears gathered in my eyes. She floated more than walked toward the dais, and had an ephemeral quality to her, as if she were a wisp of brilliance that a breeze would steal away.

“Who is that?” I asked, my voice coming out choked.

When I received no answer, I tore my gaze away from the apparition long enough to realize Rianna wasn’t watching the procession of courts anymore, but staring at something—or someone—to our left. I had to repeat my question before she turned to me.

“Oh, the Queen of Light,” she said, her attention wavering before she finished the short sentence.

Light? That fit her, and her court who shared that slightly out of reach ephemeral quality and radiance. From what I’d learned from Caleb and Rianna’s crash course in all things Faerie, I knew that just as each season had an opposing season that balanced it, the court of light balanced the court of shadows. Or at least it once had. When the nightmare realm was severed, the shadow court lost the fear and night terrors that supplied most of its power. The counterbalance for the nightmare realm was supposed to be the realm of daydreams, which fed the light court through human creativity and imagination. Now my uncle had the smallest court, while the court of light was by far the largest I’d seen tonight. The darkness fading while the light thrived. But isn’t Faerie supposed to be about balance?

Once the court of light was invited to join the revelry, I turned toward the entrance. All four seasons were now present, as well as light and shadow. “So all that’s left is the high court,” I said, waiting, watching. Out of all the courts, the high court was the one I was most curious about. Both Rianna and Caleb dodged my questions about the high court, so I knew the least about it. I was more than a little curious to see the High King, who ruled over all the other courts.

But no one appeared.

“The high court won’t be here. They never attend,” Rianna said, her voice more than a little distracted. She dropped my arm, taking a step away before stopping and saying, “Al, I have to go.”

I started to protest, to stop her, or at least ask what was wrong. But when she turned to face me, the smile she wore was real, radiant. She grabbed my hands and beamed at me.

“Oh, Al, don’t look like that. Today, tonight, Faerie is transformed and dedicated to making merry. Until dawn tomorrow many taboos are lifted and bonds broken.” She tugged at the fingers of my right glove, pulling it up, almost off.

I jerked back, trying to stop her, but only ended up with a bare hand, my glove in Rianna’s grip. Her smile widened and I stared in wonder at my pale, unbloodied palm. I opened my mouth. Closed it again. Pulled off my other glove. That hand was clean too.

“Make merry, Al,” she said. Then, catching me off guard, she lifted onto her toes and kissed my cheek.

I gaped as she turned, and without another word, she wove through the throng of fae around us. My gaze moved past her, to where her beeline was headed, and her actions made more sense. Weaving toward her was Desmond, not in his familiar dog form, but in that of a man.

His smile matched hers as they met in the middle and he lifted her in his arms, kissing her. I looked away as that very deep kiss reached the point I was sure one of them would pass out if they didn’t break for air. While their public display of desire might have made me uncomfortable, it didn’t phase the revelers around them. In fact, I noticed more than a couple of fae pairing off.

“Please tell me a Faerie party isn’t code for an orgy,” I muttered, turning.

And found that I was alone.

Okay, I wasn’t actually alone as I was in the middle of a crowd of fae who, now that all the courts had entered, were talking animatedly or passing around drinks in cups made of trumpet flowers. But Caleb and Holly were gone. I looked around, searching, which was harder to do than normal. Unlike in the mortal realm, I wasn’t exactly tall in this crowd as it boasted plenty of Sleagh Maith, not to mention giants, trolls, and other larger-than-human fae. I turned back to see where Rianna and Desmond had gone, but the crowd had swallowed them, blocking them from sight.

Great. Abandoned. Now what was I supposed to do?

“What I wouldn’t give for a Dummies Guide to Faerie.” I’d said the thought out loud, which earned me odd looks from the revelers around me. I gave a fae with too few eyes and too many heads a tight-lipped smile. Only one head smiled back. Another fae, with legs like a goat but a very female—and completely naked—torso held out a buttercup filled with golden liquid. I waved a hand in refusal and slipped past her. Weaving my way through the crowd, I tried to look like I knew where I was going, but I was wandering aimlessly, hoping to run into someone I knew.

I should have been more specific in my hopes.

“Lexi,” a chimelike female voice said from behind me.

Crap. I turned, finding myself face-to-face with the delicate and perfect features of the Winter Queen.

“I have to go,” I said, pointing in the direction I’d been headed before she’d stopped me. I didn’t know where it would take me, but almost anywhere was better than here, with her. “Some other time, maybe.”

“Are you looking for someone? Should I guess who?” She tilted her head slightly, giving me a coy smile. “Could he be among my entourage?” She took a step back and swept a hand, indicating the circle of Sleagh Maith behind her.

I couldn’t have stopped my gaze from searching for Falin had I wanted to. But he wasn’t there. Without a word, I turned, intending to walk away.

“Dear Lexi, don’t be that way,” the queen said. “Perhaps one of these gentlemen are who you’re looking for.”

I didn’t want to turn. If she really was presenting Falin this time there would be a price. There was always a price and I didn’t want to face the temptation. I might fail. And yet, I found myself turning, looking to where her hand gestured.

“Falin.” The whisper escaped me before I was aware I’d spoken.

“Oh, poor Ryese,” the queen said, her voice dramatically pouty. But amusement danced under that act.

I honestly hadn’t noticed that Ryese was standing next to Falin. Ryese wasn’t looking at me, his pretty features shut down, but I could see the muscle above his jaw bulging as if he gritted his teeth. Hard.

“What’s the game?” I asked, turning away from the two men so I could face the queen.

“Game?” She batted long-lashed eyes at me. She really was too pretty. “Who said anything about a game? This is a revelry. They happen only four times a year. It is a moment of peace and merriment in Faerie. Tell me it wouldn’t make you happy to spend it with a man you care about?”

I opened my mouth, but if I said it wouldn’t thrill me, that would be a lie. She’d sidestepped my question though, which meant there was a catch. “The bonds you’d likely tie around me wouldn’t be worth the ‘moment’ of merriment.”

“You’ll incur no debt or bonds from me, dear Lexi. I promise.”

I cringed inwardly at both the endearment and the nickname, but I could feel the weight of that promise. It was genuine and she couldn’t break it. So what was I missing?

“You’ve ordered Falin to have no contact with me,” I said, because I was still trying to find the loophole she planned to exploit.

“I’ll lift it for the revelry.”

“Why?”

The skin around her eyes tightened, just slightly, but it betrayed her annoyance. “Must you ask so many questions? Perhaps I wish to engender goodwill from you. Perhaps I wish you to remember what you’d sacrifice if you decline my court. Perhaps I’m simply in a good mood as this is a joyful occasion—”

I seriously doubted the last.

“Now, pick your man before I change my mind,” she said, her voice turning sharp.

It didn’t escape me that she had yet again avoided my question. Something more was going on here.

I turned to the two fae. They were both Sleagh Maith, nobles of the winter court and currently both shimmering slightly without glamour to dampen their otherworldly qualities. And yet, the two men couldn’t have been more different. Oh, they were both handsome, but Ryese was softer, his features more delicate, and his body, while as toned as most Sleagh Maith, was that of the pampered elite. Falin, on the other hand, was rougher around the edges. His muscles were earned from hard work, his handsome face almost always guarded, his lips slower to smile, but when he did, it softened his features.

He wasn’t smiling now, but watching me with a predatory look. Ryese on the other hand, looked away as soon as I turned to him. I’d expected to see the same dark anger I had the other night in the Bloom—he didn’t deal with rejection well—but in that split second, what I saw in those pale eyes was uncertainty. Which struck me as wrong. Very wrong.

She wouldn’t have…?

I opened my shields. I could tell from the way the woman beside me stilled that my eyes lit from the inside, but I didn’t care if she noticed. She was playing a game, and I intended to See through it.

And I could.

Faerie had its own layers of reality, but the land of the dead and the Aetheric weren’t among them, so while I could sense the realities around me, they weren’t visible. That meant absolutely nothing obscured the fact both men were bound in glamour—a strong one, too. But while the glamour was thick, it didn’t change the fact that with my shields open, the men switched places.

So that’s her game. Now I knew why “Ryese” wouldn’t meet my eyes—the queen had likely ordered Falin not to reveal the trick.

“I pick him,” I said, pointing at the real Falin.

“Ryese?” the queen asked, those perfect eyebrows arching.

I almost said yes, as that was who Falin currently looked like, but stopped myself. She could drop the glamour at any moment. If I said yes to Ryese, she may do just that, and I’d be stuck with the real Ryese. “No.”

“Then you mean him.” She pointed to the fae glamoured to look like Falin.

“No,” I said again and crossed the space to Falin. I opened my shields wider, until I couldn’t see even a shadow of the glamoured shape hiding Falin’s form.

Glamour is belief magic. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure how it worked from the fae side, but the basic principle was that if you believed what you saw, it became real—at least temporarily. If enough people disbelieved what they saw, reality would reject the glamour. Not all glamour was equal, and Faerie accepted it easier than mortal reality—so much so that the first time I met the Winter Queen she’d transformed my outfit into a ball gown, which still hung in my closet, complete with ice embellishments that never melted. But even Faerie wouldn’t accept that one man was another.

Normally it took a lot of like-minded people to disbelieve glamour, but reality and I had an interesting relationship. With my shields open, I could see the men as they truly were. I just hoped reality agreed.

“Him,” I said again, and reached out and touched Falin’s arm. As I did, I gave a push of power, willing reality to accept what I saw as true.

The queen’s top lip quivered, as if she were fighting a scowl and close to losing the battle. Reality had clearly accepted my truth over hers.

“Very clever, Lexi,” she said, the words clipped but even. The air tingled with her anger, but her face smoothed to controlled perfection. Then her lips curved into a cold smile. “Your prize then, I suppose. I promised you contact. I didn’t promise you conversation. Knight, come here.”

Falin didn’t hesitate, striding to her without so much as a glance at me. She wrapped one pale hand around his neck, pulling him down so she could whisper in his ear. As she did so, she pressed her body against his. My jaw locked, a mix of anger and jealousy twisting in my guts. I turned away, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of seeing my reaction.

I glanced back in time to see Falin’s eyes widen and then narrow, but whatever she told him, all he did was incline his head as she stepped back. She turned to me, that cruel smile still claiming her face.

“What ever will you do with my Knight for a day and a night? He’s all yours, except his words, but you don’t really need those.” She tilted her head, but if she was aiming for innocence, she failed. “Be merry, dear Lexi.” Then she glanced at her nephew. “Ryese, let’s go.”

While the Winter Queen might have control of her features, Ryese certainly didn’t. His expression wavered between confusion and anger. I doubted the confusion had anything to do with me breaking the queen’s glamour and a lot more with the very blatant thought of How the hell did I lose? When he stood there, staring, his expression darkening by the heartbeat, the queen called his name again. Ryese’s head snapped up, and I wiggled my fingers in a mock wave good-bye. Ryese scowled, but turned on his heel, following his aunt.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” I said once they disappeared into the crowd.

Falin didn’t answer, of course. He just laced his fingers into my hair and leaned down. His lips claimed mine, and he kissed me as if in that one kiss, he could make up for a month of lost opportunities. My body responded, warming under his attention, returning his kiss.

Then my brain rebooted, screaming warnings at me. I flattened my palms against Falin’s chest and pushed hard enough to get my point across.

He didn’t release me, didn’t let me step away from him, but he broke the kiss, giving me an inch or two as he stared at me like I could somehow save him. But I couldn’t save him. Hell, I couldn’t save myself. I’d won him from the Winter Queen, but for only a day and a night, and I had no idea what she’d told him. He’d spent the last month conducting raids on my home and being cold to the point of cruel because she’d commanded him to. I didn’t know her new game, but I wasn’t interested in playing.

Falin started to lean forward again, but I pressed my hands against his chest, feeling his heart beating fast and hard under my palms.

“Slow down, and let go of me.”

He cocked his head to the side, but the look he gave me was more bemused than confused. I couldn’t blame him. After all, we’d done a lot more than kiss several months ago. But now was different. The Winter Queen’s plots aside, I needed distance now for the same reason I couldn’t kiss Death yesterday.

Once I could have enjoyed the “right now.” Could have lost myself in the moment and had no regrets. Could have relished the fact that for a day and a night, Falin was mine.

But Falin would walk away from me at dawn. That was inevitable. The only question was how many pieces of my broken heart he’d take with him. Between Falin’s month long chill and Death’s long absence, I didn’t have many pieces left.