KARIS

Alistair led us through the maze of bone-covered walls, through archways and down steps, where the room finally opened up into a hollow swell in the earth, columns holding the stone up overhead. The ceiling was smooth, with a perfect mural of a spring sky, complete with wispy clouds and the warm sun stretching overhead. Along the walls was a meadow dotted with wildflowers. A fawn with a spotted brown coat sipped from a brook just to our right. And the tree of life, where all life is said to have begun, stretched up and into the sky to our left, its painted roots stretching across the smooth floor.

In the center of the space was a raised slab of rock. On it, lay the Queen of Spring. Alistair fixed his bloody eyes on me. “Queen Gwyndlyn,” he presented.

“You guard her?”

He shrugged. “She gave us a place in her court when no other King would,” he admitted simply.

“Where’s Finean?” I asked. “I thought he wanted to be here for this.”

“He’ll be along shortly. We can wait for him, unless you’re in a hurry.”

I shook my head, eager to begin.

She was beautiful. Waves of shiny hair spilled over the slab on which she lay like honeyed wheat, with a golden circlet around her head. Idly, I wondered what color her eyes were. Her cheeks were a rosy pink, and her skin was tan and flawless. Everything about her seemed delicate. From her pink fingertips folded carefully across her middle, to the delicate and detailed flowers embroidered along the hem of her pale green dress.

Her chest barely rose and fell with an almost imperceptible movement. Humans would have thought her dead and burned her alive, not knowing any better. I half-expected her to wake and fasten those eyes on me, and ask me why I was in her court, in her space.

Would she crumble in despair when she saw her palace and home in ruin? Or would she lash out instead?

In case she was in there listening, I introduced myself. “Queen Gwyndlyn, my name is Karis. I’m going to try to bring you back. I’m going to try and set you free.” I hoped like hell it didn’t hurt her.

Just then, the earth began to quake. Loftin and Alistair both glanced at me. “It’s not me this time!” I answered.

Then a familiar shriek echoed from down the hall.

“Banshees!” the Leancan roared angrily. “Follow me!”

“I could change them,” I panted, running after him with Loftin on my heels.

Alistair stopped and grabbed my arms. “If you want to get away from Finean, now is your chance. There’ll be time to help the Banshees later. Now, you run. And you,” he entreated Loftin, “keep her safe.”

Turning back to me, Alistair whispered, “Karis, it’s important that you listen. The Shades whisper to me, and they want me to tell you to conceal your heart.”

“You see them, too?”

He nodded and glanced around. All of a sudden, they were there. Shades. Surrounding us. The shadows of the dead. I searched each gray face for Iric or Gregoire’s among them, but came up empty. My stomach unclenched when I saw neither was there.

“Conceal your heart,” they warned. All of them. Echoing. Parroting one another. “Conceal your heart.”

“I will,” I choked. “Thank you.”

Loftin peered all around us, but I could tell he didn’t see them. I stepped away from Alistair and took Loftin’s hand, closing my eyes and wishing he could see what I did.

His startled gasp filled the air.

* * *

LOFTIN

“I see them,” I breathed.

“Good, good. Now, we need to run,” Alistair urged as another shriek came, this time closer.

Our feet pounded the floor as we followed him down corridor after corridor, up stairways and ladders whose rungs bent and creaked under our weight, until Alistair opened a hidden doorway. Light stung our eyes, but we were in the middle of the Eastern Wood. “Remember what I said,” the Leancan warned.

“Why are you helping us? I thought you were on Finean’s side,” Karis sputtered as he pulled her to the surface.

The Leancan chuckled. “I am on your father’s side. And while Finean thinks he exercises power in my lair, it’s time he learned that he is not my master.”

“Who’s my father?” She waited for his answer while I climbed out of the shaft.

Suddenly it clicked. Master of the Leancan, Master of the Shades… Now I knew exactly who her father was and couldn’t be happier, because it definitely wasn’t my father. Or the King of any of the Seasonal Courts. Why didn’t I piece it together sooner?

“He wants to introduce himself,” Alistair divulged, shooting me a look of warning.

The air turned cold and frost covered the dried leaves on the ground. “Run! I’ll lead her in another direction,” Alistair shouted before taking off through the woods toward the south so fast, he was merely a blur.

KARIS

Loftin and I ran north. Either Alistair hadn’t taken her attention away, or there was more than one in the forest, because a Banshee caught up to us quickly. She unhinged her jaw in a grotesque display and let out a howl, and then threw something at us. It fell on the forest floor between me and Loftin. He raised his sword, preparing for battle.

“See what it is,” he instructed.

A familiar smell wafted up from the forest floor. I dropped to my knees to find a strip of flesh. “No!” I wailed.

“What is it?” Loftin asked, crouching beside me, but keeping his eyes on the floating she-bitch. His eyes caught fire as the scent reached him.

“Did you do this?” I asked the Banshee.

Her rotten lips turned upward in a taunting grin. I rose to a crouch.

“Karis, no!” Loftin cried as he lunged for me, but I was already past him.

And lunging

for

her

throat.

She hissed as I grabbed hold and threw her to the ground, instantly transforming her back into the Seelie fae that lurked beneath. I unsheathed my knife. “Is he alive?” I asked, stalking forward.

“The boy lives,” she panted, clutching her side. “For now. Nemain wants to see you before midnight. Alone.”

“Who removed his flesh?” I screamed.

“Don’t hurt her!” Loftin bellowed, rushing to the faery’s side. “Lita,” he breathed, gathering her into his arms tenderly.

She whimpered, grasping for him and holding him tight. “Loftin?” Her voice chimed like one of the tiny iron bells that had tormented me for so long.

He held her tight. “I had no choice,” she cried. “You have to believe me.” Tears gathered in her eyes. Loftin pinched his eyes closed.

Did he really believe her? “There’s always a choice,” I growled. The two finally remembered I was standing in front of them.

“Not for us. We are bound to her, which means we are compelled to follow her orders. No matter how bad or wrong, we have to do it,” she whimpered, but then turned to Loftin. “I’ve done terrible things.”

“So have I,” he admitted quietly, raking his hand down her yellow-orange hair. He placed his lips on her forehead tenderly. “We all have.”

Someone cleared his throat behind us, and I turned to find Finean standing there. How did he find us? “I’m so glad I was able to find you.” He flicked his eyes to Loftin and Lita, and with a smirk chided, “I take it you two know each other?”

I didn’t know why it bothered me; whether it was true, or the fact that he’d voiced it, or why I hated that Loftin was so familiar with this ‘Lita’ character. They seemed to know each other intimately.

Alistair showed up a moment later. “Oh, good. You found them.”

Loftin helped Lita to her feet. “Can you take her to safety?”

“The Autumn fae are not welcome in the Court of Reflections,” Finean replied resolutely. “But if the Leancan will allow it, she can stay in their lair to recover.”

He glanced at Alistair, who nodded once.

“She can stay,” Alistair allowed, but added, “temporarily.”

Tears streaked down Lita’s cheeks as Loftin led her to Finean. Alistair’s eyes were on me, his lips tipped up on one side. Finean promised to be back in a moment, waved his hand over the ground, transforming the surface into a mirror, and they stepped into it and disappeared.

“The Asper,” I exclaimed, holding my arm up. “That’s how he’s watching me. That’s how he knows where I am.”

Alistair surveyed the solid glass laying over the ground and stomped on it. “Oops.”

I stared at the outline of the serpent and asked it to come alive to leave my flesh and become real. My arm itched and it felt like my muscles were writhing beneath my skin, but the snake emerged. Fangs exposed, it slithered toward the Leancan and darted its attention between he and Loftin.

I turned it to ash.

Alistair took a breath.

“Snakes make you nervous?” I jested.

“Only the Asper,” he smarted, his lips upturned in a half-smile.

“He’ll know you helped us,” I warned.

Then his smile widened. “Oh, I know. Our Master thinks it’s time to show Finean his place in this world, and I, for one, will enjoy my front row seat.”

Loftin shifted his weight. “We should go.”

With a nod, we took off running, leaving Alistair behind.

“You are the strongest in Faery, Karis!” he shouted. “Never forget that. Your possibilities are only limited by your imagination.”