Aisling paddled through the lake, icy water chilling her webbed feet. It would be winter in Underhill soon. Snow would fall from the sky and pillow the earth with a pristine, untouched blanket. And yet, she still couldn’t force herself to enjoy the beauty and the crisp quality of the air.

There were more changelings showing up every day through the portals Bran had left open. They reached out for her with their minds now, or some contacted the sluagh directly.

Bran was losing control over his famed army. The sluagh disappeared constantly. Some of them found changelings or returned with new human souls already added into the midst of their black cloud. Others never returned at all.

These were the ones she worried about.

She began to ask the sluagh directly if they were hearing voices other than hers or Bran’s. And it seemed as though they were lying to her. Each always said there were no other voices, even the sluagh who had told her about Carman’s voice in the first place.

She couldn’t go to Bran with a rumor. They had to be honest with her, to say one more time that the ancient witch was trying to contact them.

The changelings were distracting her, however. They cared so much they had a home. So many of them wanted to help rebuild the palace. Others wanted to create homesteads away from the crumbling walls, to rebuild an entire populace of people deep inside the earth.

Bran hesitated to keep them here as more and more joined their ranks. He worried too many changelings would capture attention and start another war. He wanted them to return to the courts they had been ripped from, to do what the faeries had wanted to do.

Give them justice or give them death.

Aisling couldn’t believe those were the only choices. She wanted to keep them close to her, to give them the lives they should have enjoyed long ago.

She refused to believe it was an impossible task. Every night when the moonlight touched her skin, she raced back to the palace to help them with whatever she could. If that was spells to strengthen the walls, then so be it. If it were carrying sheets of fabric to help create the temporary housing, then she was the first in line.

She couldn’t say the same for Bran.

He looked at all her proceedings as if she had done something terrible. His eyes would widen and his mouth compress into a hard line. “The faeries won’t stand for this very long,” he had growled. “They’re going to want them back. We can’t keep them forever.”

“I can save them. Why wouldn’t they be able to stay here? They aren’t hurting anyone, Bran.”

“Of course, they aren’t hurting anyone, though they could. They don’t know our ways, and that’s dangerous.”

“Neither do I.” Her eyes had flashed in anger, and her heart beat fast. “Am I a danger, Bran? Am I also part of the problem?”

They hadn’t spoken since their last argument, and she couldn’t blame him. Both had said things out of anger they didn’t really mean.

Once upon a time, they might have made up because they would be thrust together in an impossible quest that forced them to work side by side. Now? They only saw each other for fifteen minutes before their curses ripped them away from each other.

The low rumble of a purr stretched across the water. Aisling lifted her head and saw Lorcan stretched out on his side, his favorite perch nearly obscured by his dark fur.

She drifted closer to him and called out, “What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t going to return for a few more weeks at least.”

“A little birdy told me you had returned home early from the Wild Hunt and you were saving changelings now. Do you really think that’s wise?”

“Why is everyone asking me that?” she grumbled. “Even Bran doesn’t like the idea. I thought he would be the most welcome to it, considering he brought them here in the first place.”

Lorcan slowly lifted a paw and licked it. “He would do anything for you, even go against the laws of the Fae. Foolish woman, don’t you know he’s mad for you?”

“Not mad enough to let the changelings remain here.”

“That’s because the faeries will attack Underhill instead of the human realm next. You have too many creatures here that aren’t supposed to be, and…” Lorcan flexed his paw. The sharp claws glinted in the sunlight, reflecting magical sparks over the lake. “Well, it’s not pretty when the faeries decide someone has taken something that is theirs.”

“Changelings are faeries. They cannot be owned by anyone just because their family didn’t want them.”

“I didn’t say it made sense. Faeries rarely do, which is why I’ve always told you to stay away from them.”

Aisling let out a honking laugh. “A little hard to do when I’m one of them, Lorcan.”

“All I’m saying is that you’re inviting too many eyes that will watch you like a hawk when it spies a mouse.” He gave a little shudder. “And I’ve tangled with enough hawks to know you don’t want their eyes on you.”

“I’ve used many hawk feathers in spells before, and I don’t intend to let them take away these changelings. They’re my family now, Lorcan. My family.” She swam closer. “Don’t you remember what it was like when it was just you and me? How badly we wanted to have someone other than just each other?”

“I haven’t forgotten anything, Aisling. I also remember the family we wanted never came. You and I were all that was for each other. I take care of you first, and anyone else who comes into our life had better have a damned good reason for being there.”

Their story was painful from the first moment they drew breath and hadn’t gotten much better when they found each other. She shuddered every time she remembered the amount of rats and bugs they’d survived on, and this was before Lorcan had been a cat.

Back when he was a gangly teenage boy, their lives had been far more difficult. No one wanted two scraggly children around. If they did, then it was for payment neither Lorcan nor her were open to paying.

They’d found food at farms that had dumped the slop to their pigs. They’d cast spells by moonlight only, sometimes on small nubs of candles they had found thrown out by inns. Even then, it was hard to do magic when everything around them was falling to pieces.

She sighed and brushed a tip of her wing against the water. “Have you found anything else out about…this?”

“Your curse?”

Aisling hummed out a yes.

“Not really. Too many people think that it’s tied somehow with Carman, and we both know that’s a dead end. You can’t talk to the dead witch, and I can’t find her.”

“She’s here, though. Somewhere.”

Aisling didn’t want to talk to the dead witch either. There was something infinitely dangerous about the idea. The witch wanted more than just a conversation. She wanted something Aisling knew wasn’t on the table for payment.

What could something like that want, anyway? Carman was dead. Or at least, that’s what the rumors said. A dead woman couldn’t come back to life, and her soul could only have so much power. Even the darkest of magic said that was impossible. Death was death.

So what did she want? Or was she not as dead as everyone seemed to think?

Lorcan shifted, slowly getting up to his feet and stretching. “I’d tell you to reach out to her through another sluagh if I didn’t think you would have to kill it. That wouldn’t end well in the slightest. That poor sluagh would be dead on the ground, and I’d have to pick you back up. I refuse to do that.”

“What?” Aisling flinched back. “A dead sluagh? Again?”

“Oh, that’s right. I never gave you that memory back. On your desk in your room, there’s a silvery memory. You can probably drink that again, but you shouldn’t do it while Bran is around.” Lorcan’s face scrunched up. “He’d yell at me again, and I don’t like it when he yells. My ears are sensitive.”

Gods, had she killed a sluagh? Aisling wanted to rush back to her room and drink the memory immediately. How could she promise them she would watch out for them when she had killed one of their own kind? What kind of queen did that?

“Damn it, I can see you spiraling already. Aisling, pay attention to me right now. I have something important to tell you.”

She shook her head, snapping her beak wildly before focusing on the cat. She could do this. She could pull herself back together and not get lost in the what-ifs. The vial contained all the information she needed to know, and one day wasn’t that long to wait.

“What other declarations do you have to make?” she snapped.

“Just that I think you should talk to Bran sooner rather than later. I came back because I overheard an Unseelie talking about something that was rather troubling.”

“Which was?” Aisling hated it when Lorcan had a secret. He always tried to dangle it over her head, and her patience was running thin.

“They said there was a war brewing.” Even the cat didn’t hesitate this time. His voice shook with concern. “A war within the Unseelie court. That one of Bran’s brothers decided he wanted the throne sooner rather than later.”

“Why should I care what the Unseelie Court does?”

“Because technically Bran is part of the Unseelie court. They could call him to war any second.”