"Hold on." Seth pulled Aislinn back inside to talk for a moment, closing the door on Donia.

As she waited outside for their inevitable agreement, she gave the Summer Girls her coldest smile, hoping it was enough, hating the game she had to play.

I gave my vow.

From behind the rowan-man, Cerise hissed at her.

"Why?" one of the youngest Summer Girls—Tracey— asked, coming far closer to Donia than the others usually did. "He still cares for you. How can you do this to him?" Tracey looked genuinely confused, a familiar frown on her face.

With her reed-thin body and soft voice, Tracey was one of the ones Donia had tried hardest to convince not to risk the cold. She was too fragile, too easily confused, too gentle to be either Winter Girl or Summer Queen.

"I made a vow." Donia'd tried to explain it often enough, but Tracey's view was black and white. If Keenan was good, Donia must be bad. Simple logic.

"It hurts Keenan." Tracey shook her head, as if she could make the troubles go away by saying no.

"It hurts me, too."

The other girls pulled Tracey back to them, trying to distract her before she began weeping. She never should've been chosen. Donia still felt guilty for it; she suspected Keenan did too. The Summer Girls were like plants needing the nutrients of the sun to thrive: they couldn't be away from the Summer King for long, or they'd fade. Tracey, however, never seemed to thrive, even though she stayed with Keenan year-round.

The door opened again. Seth stepped outside; Aislinn followed close behind him.

"We'll come." Aislinn's voice was stronger, but she still looked far from well. There were dark hollows under her eyes, and her face was almost as pale as Donia's. "Can you tell them they can't follow us?"

"No. They are his, not mine."

"So they'll hear everything?" Aislinn looked like she needed someone to help her make decisions, not like her usual self at all.

What didn't Keenan tell me?

"They can't come into my home. We'll go there," Donia offered before she could think it through. Then, before she had to hear the comments that followed the gasp of surprise, she walked away, leaving Aislinn and Seth rushing to catch up with her.

More strangers in my home. She sighed, hoping it wouldn't soon become Aislinn's home, hoping that Keenan was right. Let Aislinn be the one.

At the edge of the yard where they came upon the natural barrier that protects a fey domicile from mortal intrusion, Seth's eyes widened, but Aislinn didn't flinch. Perhaps she'd always been immune; perhaps it was only her Sight that made her oblivious to it. Donia didn't ask. Instead she whispered the words to ease Seth's aversion and led them—still silent—into her home.

"Are we the only ones here?" Seth looked around the room, although his mortal eyes would see nothing if the three of them weren't alone. He still held Aislinn's hand and made no move to let go anytime soon.

"We are." Aislinn's gaze lingered on the simple natural wood furnishings in the small room, the massive fireplace that took up most of one wall, and the gray stones that finished out that wall. "It's just us."

Donia leaned against the stones, enjoying their warmth. "Not quite what you pictured?"

Aislinn leaned on Seth; they both looked thoroughly exhausted. She crooked her mouth in a half-smile. "I don't think I pictured anything. I didn't know why you were talking to me, still don't. I just know it's got something to do with him."

"It has everything to do with him. Beyond here, to those who wait out there" — Donia motioned to the door—"what he wants is the most important thing. Nothing else matters to them. You, me, we are nothing in their worlds other than what we can be to him."

Leaning her head against Seth's arm, Aislinn asked, "So what about in here?"

Seth wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to the sofa, murmuring, "Sit down. You don't need to stand to talk to her."

Donia came closer then, standing across from them, gazing at Aislinn. "In here, what matters is what I want. And I want to help you."

Trying to contain her emotions, Donia paced through the room; she paused periodically, but she made no move to continue the conversation. How do I say what needs saying? They were weary, and she couldn't blame them for it.

"Donia?" Aislinn curled into Seth's arms, half asleep and lethargic. She was vulnerable from whatever Keenan had done.

Donia ignored her. Turning instead to the shelf that held the mortal- and faery-authored books that the Winter Girls had collected over the past nine centuries, she ran her fingers over some of her favorites—Kirk and Lang's The Secret Commonwealth, the complete collection of Tradition of the Highest Courts, Keightley's The Fairy Mythology, and Sorcha's On Being: Faery Morality and Mortality. She slid her fingers past these, past an old copy of The Mabinogion, past a collection of journals the other girls had kept, past the tattered book holding letters Keenan had sent them over the centuries—always in that elegant script of his, even if the language wasn't always the same. There she stopped.

Her hand lingered on a well-worn book with a torn green cover. In it, handwritten in the strangely beautiful words of an almost lost language, were two recipes known to give the Sight to a mortal.

It was forbidden to allow those recipes to be read by a mortal. If any of the courts learned that she'd done so, Beira's threat would be a minor worry. Many fey had grown fond of being a hidden people; they'd be loath to lose that should mortals begin to see them again.

"Are you okay?" Seth didn't come toward her, staying protectively at Aislinn's side, but his voice held worry.

For me, a stranger.

He was worthy of protection. She knew fey history well enough, having spent long hours poring over these books. Once the courts might have given him a gift for what he did, defending the one who would be queen. "I am. I am surprisingly fine."

She pulled the book out. After sitting down across from them, she rested the book in her lap and gingerly flipped the pages. Several slid loose of the binding, coming free in her hands. She spoke barely above a whisper but she said it, "Write this down."

"What?" Aislinn blinked and straightened up, pulling away from the circle of Seth's arms.

"It's a crime with the most serious of punishments if they learn I've given you this. Keenan may look the other way if no one else knows, but I want him" — she inclined her head ever so slightly at Seth—"to stand a fair chance in what will follow. To leave him defenseless and blind…it would be wrong."

"Thank—"

She cut him off, "No. Those are mortal words, made empty by casual use. If you are to walk among our kind, remember that: they are an insult of sorts. If one does you a good turn, an act of friendship, remember it. Do not lessen it with that shallow phrase."

She told him then, gave him the words that would let him make the salve to see.

He raised an eyebrow as he wrote it down, but he did not ask questions until she'd closed the book and returned it to its place on the shelf. Then he asked only, "Why?"

"I've been her." Donia looked away, staring at the spines of the worn books on her shelves, feeling shaky as the weight of what she'd just done settled on her. Would even Keenan forgive her? She wasn't sure, but—like him—she believed Aislinn truly was the Summer Queen. Why else would Beira be so adamant that she stay away from the staff?

Donia pulled her gaze from the shelves and looked at Aislinn as she said the rest: "I was a mortal. I had no idea what he was; none of us ever do. You're the first one to see him, see any of them for what they are. What I am now."

"You were mortal?" Aislinn repeated shakily.