Donia nodded.

"What happened?"

"I loved him. I said yes when he asked me to choose to stay with him. He offered me forever, love, midnight dances." She shrugged, unwilling to think too long about dreams she had no right to still have, especially with Aislinn looking back at her. Someday Seth would fade away, but Keenan would not. If Aislinn were the Summer Queen, it was merely a matter of time until she fell in love with Keenan. Once she saw his true nature—the person he could be…

Donia shook her head and added, "There was another girl who tried to talk me out of it, a girl who had believed in him once."

"Why didn't you listen?" Aislinn shivered, moving closer to Seth.

"Why does Seth sit here?"

Aislinn didn't answer, but Seth did. He squeezed Aislinn's hand and said, "Love."

"Choose wisely, Aislinn. For Seth, he can choose to leave you, choose to walk away—"

"I won't," Seth interrupted.

Sparing him a smile, Donia said, "But you could. For us, if we choose Keenan, there's no walking away. If we don't—"

"It's not a problem then. I don't want Keenan." Aislinn lifted her chin, looking defiant despite her trembling hands.

"You will, though," Donia said gently.

Donia remembered the first time she'd seen him as he truly was, in the clearing when she stood waiting to lift the Winter Queen's staff. He was so incredibly perfect that she had to remind herself to breathe. How could any mortal deny him when he could be himself?

"Now that he knows of your Sight, he can be himself in front of you. You'll forget your own name."

"No." Aislinn shook her head. "I've seen him as he is, and I'm still saying no."

"Really?" Donia stared at her, hating that she had to say it, but knowing that Aislinn needed to hear the truth. "Were you saying it last night?"

"That was different," Seth ground out. He stood up and stepped forward.

Donia didn't even move. She blew gently, thinking: ice. A wall of ice formed around Seth, like a glass cage. "All I know is that he believes Aislinn is the one destined to be his. Once he believed I was, and this is the result of his love."

She reached out and touched the ice, shivering as it retracted back into her skin. "That's all I can tell you tonight. Go make your salve. Think about what I said."

When Sunday morning came, Aislinn wasn't surprised to find Grams up and alert. At least she waited until after breakfast to pounce.

Aislinn sat down on the floor beside Grams' feet. She'd sat there so often over the years, letting Grams comb out her hair, listening to stories, simply being near the woman who'd raised and loved her. She didn't want to fight, but she didn't want to live in fear, either.

She kept her voice level as she said, "I'm almost grown, Grams. I don't want to run and hide."

"You don't understand…"

"I do, actually." Aislinn took Grams' hand in hers. "I really, really do. They're awful. I get that, but I can't spend my life hiding from the world because of them."

"Your mother was the same way, foolish, hardheaded."

"She was?" Aislinn paused at that revelation. She'd never had any real answers when she asked about her mother's last years.

"If she hadn't been, she'd still be here. She was foolish. Now she's dead." Grams sounded feeble, more than tired— exhausted, drained. "I can't bear to lose you too."

"I'm not going to die, Grams. She didn't die because of the faeries. She…"

"Shh." Grams looked toward the door.

Aislinn sighed. "They can't hear me in here even if they're right outside."

"You can't know that." Grams straightened her shoulders, no longer looking like the worn-out woman she had become, but like the stern disciplinarian of Aislinn's childhood. "I'm not letting you be foolish."

"I'll be eighteen next year…"

"Fine. Until then, you're still in my house. With my rules."

"Grams, I—"

"No. From now on, it's to and from school. You can take a taxi. You will let me know where you are. You will not walk around town at all hours." Grams' scowl lightened a little, but her determination did not. "Just until they stop following you. Please don't fight me, Aislinn. I can't go through that again."

And there wasn't much else to say after that.

"What about Seth?"

Grams' expression softened. "He means that much to you?"

"He does." Aislinn bit her lip, waiting. "He lives in a train. Steel walls."

Grams looked at Aislinn. Finally she relented and said, "Taxi there and back. Stay inside."

Aislinn hugged her. "I will."

"We'll give it a little longer. They can't reach you in school or in here. They can't reach you in this Seth's train." Grams nodded as she listed the safety measures, restricting but not yet impossible. "If it doesn't work, though, you'll need to stop going out. You understand?"

Although Aislinn felt guilty for not correcting Grams' mistaken beliefs about school and about Seth's, she kept her emotions as securely hidden as she did when the fey were near, saying only, "I do."

The next day, Monday, Aislinn went through school like a sleepwalker. Keenan wasn't there. No faeries walked the halls. She'd seen them outside, on the steps, on the street as the taxi drove by them, but not within the building.

Has he already had what he wanted? Was that all this was?

The way Donia had talked there was far more to it, but Aislinn couldn't focus on anything other than the blank spot in her memories. She wanted to know, needed to know what had happened. It was all she could think about as she went through the motions of classes.

At midday, she gave up and walked out the front door, not caring who saw.

She was still on the steps when she saw him: Keenan stood waiting across the street, watching her. He was smiling, gently, like he was happy to see her.

He'll tell me. I'll ask, and he'll tell what happened. He has to. She was so relieved that she went toward him, dodging cars, almost running.

She didn't even realize he was invisible until he said, "So you truly can see me?"

"I…" She stammered, stumbled over the words she'd been about to say, the questions she needed to have answered.

"Mortals can't see me unless I will it." He acted as calm as if they'd been talking about homework, as if they weren't discussing something that could get her killed.

"You see me, and they" — he pointed to a couple walking their dog down the street—"don't."

"I do," she whispered. "I've always seen faeries."

It was harder to say this time, to tell him. Faeries had terrified her as long as she could remember, but none so much as Keenan. He was the king of the awful things that she'd fled from her whole life.

"Walk with me?" he asked, although they already were.

He faded into what she now thought of as his normal glamour—dulling the shimmer of his copper hair, the rustling sound of wind through trees—and she fell in step with him, silent now, trying to think of how to ask him.

They had just passed the park when she turned to him and blurted, "Did you? Did we? Sex, I mean?"

He lowered his voice, like he were sharing secrets with her. "No. I took you home, saw you to your door. That's all. When the revelry ended, when they all left, and it was just us…

"Your word." She trembled, hoping he wasn't so cruel as to lie. "I need to know. Please."