Irial was silent.

“Now that Ani has come to your court, she is unsafe. Bananach has taken an interest in her too,” Devlin added.

“And why does the High Queen’s Bloody Hands involve himself in the safety of a Hound?” Irial swirled his drink. “It’s a conundrum. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Does it really matter?” Devlin asked.

“Perhaps. I suspect it matters to Bananach—and to Sorcha. It would matter to me if those I trusted were keeping such secrets. Do you suggest that it wouldn’t matter to them? To your queen especially?”

Irial wasn’t saying anything that Devlin didn’t already know. All faeries knew the importance of fealty. Once sworn to a king or queen, obedience was to be absolute. Devlin was acting in direct opposition to his queen’s orders—not only had he let Ani live, but he was working now to keep her alive instead of protecting Seth. Few faeries were likely to think that he would disobey his queen—except, of course, his queen herself.

Hasn’t she always known the day would come?

Time passed without words or sounds. It was akin to being in the High Court, silence and contemplation.

Finally, Irial said, “If Ani goes with you by choice, I will dissuade Gabriel and Niall from pursuing you. If she refuses, we will protect her here. It’s her choice though. Your vow on it.”

Devlin stood. “You have my vow that the choice is hers.”

Irial frowned up at him. “Be careful with her.”

“She’ll be safer than if she were in your court.” Devlin turned to leave.

“Devlin?”

Devlin paused with one hand on the door.

“Be careful with her as well. Ani’s not like any other faery.” Irial’s look was pitying.

“I am the High Queen’s Bloodied Hands.” Devlin straightened his shoulders and dropped enough of the control he’d held over his emotions to let the dark faery know that pity wasn’t necessary. “In all of eternity, no faery born has overcome me in anything.”

“Aaah. Pride goeth before the fall, my friend”—Irial stood and clasped Devlin’s hand—“but you’ve already fallen, haven’t you?”

And to that, Devlin had no answer.

It was finally dark in Faerie, so Rae took advantage of the opportunity to leave the cave for a while. The world around her looked less full than usual, but Rae had long since grown used to the changing landscape of Faerie. The High Queen’s moods determined reality, and some days the queen decided to create a new vista.

Rae drifted over a stream that had been a river previously. On either side, willows clung to the banks in clusters like groups of people in conversation. Thin branches swayed in a light breeze. Reclining on the soil with her bare feet dangling over the edge of the bank was a beautiful faery, one Rae hadn’t met in dreams or in Devlin’s body before. The faery slept on the mud-slick ground, a pile of moss under her cheek as if the earth had formed a pillow just for her. Bits of mud, twigs, and reeds were caught in a fiery mass of hair. Unlike the majority of the High Court faeries, this one looked like she belonged elsewhere, as if she had stepped from some Pre-Raphaelite painting of sensual women.

Rae entered the faery’s dream.

“I don’t know you,” the faery said. In her dream, she was sitting on the bank of a much larger river. Lilacs bloomed at the edge of a lush garden that stretched into the distance.

Rae drew a deep breath. In dreams, her senses were as if real. The perfume of flowers lay heavy on her tongue, so thick that she was near to choking on it.

“Where do you come from?” the faery prompted.

“Perhaps you saw me in the streets, and you’re remembering me.” Rae was used to the High Court faeries resisting her presence in their minds. It wasn’t logical to dream of strangers, so they often needed gentle guidance to accept that she was imagined.

“No.” The faery shook her head. Her hair was unbound, tumbling down her back and trailing behind her onto a flower-dotted ground. There were no twigs or mud entangled in the curls here.

The faery turned away from Rae, staring into the water as if it were a giant mirror. Faces drifted under the surface like Ophelia drowned and tragic. Has she lost someone? Death was so much larger to faeries. When one had the promise of eternity, centuries seemed a blink. Rae had seen the reality of such loss when Devlin considered what he did for his queen. Her orders were blood on Devlin’s hands.

“What do you dream of?” Rae whispered.

The faery didn’t look away from the water. Silver veins like roots crept from the faery’s skin and sank into the earth, anchoring her to the soil. Rae was transfixed by the sight: faeries weren’t ever this unusual in their self- imaginings. They saw themselves much as they appeared in their waking world; their essential representation echoed reality. They were of the High Court, logical in this as in all things.

“My son is gone from me.” The faery looked back at Rae. “He’s gone, and I can’t see him.”

Rae’s heart ached for her. Faeries had so few children that the loss of one must hurt even more than the loss of most faeries. Rae sat beside her, carefully not brushing the roots that extended from the faery’s hands, arms, and feet. “I’m sorry.”

“I miss him.” Six tears slid down the faery’s cheeks. They fell to the soil and rested on the ground like drops of mercury.

Rae gathered them into her hands and carried them to the edge of the river. With her words, she reshaped the water, stretching it and widening it until it became an ocean.

“Seven tears into the sea,” she told the faery.

Then she returned to the faery’s side and knelt. With one hand outstretched, Rae added, “Seven tears for a wish.”

She caught a seventh tear as it fell.

The faery was silent as Rae flung it into the water.

“What do you wish for? As long as you’re sleeping, you can have it.” Rae stayed kneeling beside her. “Tell me what you wish for.”

The faery woman stared at Rae. Her voice was as a slight breeze, but she said the words, made her wish. “I want to see my son, my Seth.”

Behind them the sea vanished, and in its place a mirror appeared. The glass was framed by vines hardened and blackened like they’d been darkened in fire. In the mirror, Rae could see a faery unlike any others she’d glimpsed and very unlike the austere appearance of most High Court faeries. Seth had silver jewelry decorating his eyebrows; a silver ring pierced his lower lip; and a long silver bar with arrow- like tips pierced the top curve of one ear. Blue-black hair framed a face that wasn’t faery-pretty, but mortal-hungry. Seth didn’t look anything like the son of the vibrant faery.

Is he why she sees herself with silvered anchors?

Seth was fighting with a group of faeries with moving ink on their forearms. If they’d been mortals, Rae would guess that they were the sort of people one should cross streets to avoid. In the mirror, Seth wrapped his arms around a muscular female faery and propelled the two of them through a window. Broken glass hit the cement floor inside of a bleak- looking room.

Where are they? Did she see her son die? Is that what this is?

Rae winced in sympathy at the thought that the faery had witnessed her son’s death.

The faery didn’t look away from the mirror at all. She raised one hand as if she’d touch the images. “My beautiful boy.”

Seth was laughing at the scowl on the muscular female faery’s face. “Got you,” he said.

“Not bad, pup.” The cruel-looking faery in the image plucked glass from a long gash in her shoulder. “Not bad at all.”

Another faery tossed a water bottle at Seth. Only the inked arm was in the frame, but even without seeing the face, Rae knew that this was another fighter. His voice carried like a rumble of thunder: “Go another round with Chela?”