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Kieran woke up with his legs wrapped around someone’s waist. He thought it was a waist, it was hard to tell. He was mostly thankful it was there, he was dangerously close to falling off the bed otherwise.
He was in a bed, and that was another strange thing. He had slept on moss and leaves for years. He pulled himself further away from the edge of the mattress until he was pressed against the anonymous waist owner, who possessed long hair, a curving figure, was not Mark, and seemed to be waking up as well.
Cristina Rosales sat up, allowing Kieran to free his legs and go to light a lamp. He knew where everything was, his bedroom had not changed since he had been taken by the Hunt.
Same cold stone floors, same oil lamp, same big four poster bed, his simpler babyhood crib of dandelion down and feathers still shoved against the far wall as if Kieran might suddenly need it again.
It was a sparse bedroom, made for a younger prince with few people to petition for him, but the canopy was hung with cloth of silver and intricate children’s toys sat on high shelves on the far side of the room, all gifts from his father. The Unseelie King was good at gifts, when the mood struck him.
The bed was made of river driftwood, the mattress stuffed with the feathers of herons, a cruel jab at his mother. Traditionally the fey had mixed feelings on textile work, but there were heavy blankets made of stolen scraps of silk and bits of wool that sheep left behind on brambles and branches, spun and woven by clever hands in the Unseelie court.
Those same blankets lay on the floor, kicked off the bed at some point in the night. Cristina was sitting up and running her eyes, on the other side of her Mark was stirring as well.
The memories of the night before had never truly left Kieran, but he had been making an effort not to give them time to air themselves. In the face of Mark and Cristina they unfurled, like… sadistically blooming flowers of regret.
Demons above and below, he had a hangover.
Kieran had been waiting for Mark and Cristina in their room.
The Unseelie King would not be accused of poor hospitality. He had a place for any come to beg for his assistance, even Shadowhunters looking for information about necromancy and prophecies.
He also liked seeing just how far hospitality could be stretched.
“Do not sit.” Kieran ordered, grabbing both of them by the hand and pulling them back toward the just closed door. “Come with me.”
Mark pulled away, shocked and confused. “Kieran? What are you doing here?”
“Saving your life.” Kieran said, voice tight. “Yours as well.” he informed Cristina.
Cristina had not pulled her hand from his, though she did look leery of him. “From what, exactly?”
“Kieran” Mark said, nothing but his name. He was utterly discombobulated, and that weakened the resolve Kieran had shored up before coming to them. How did you look in the face someone you never expected to see again, especially when your parting had been so disharmonious?
Kieran swallowed, tried to focus.
Strangely it was Cristina, the Shadowhunter girl, who helped him. She squeezed his hand and said in a calm voice, “Please, if you have something you must tell us, say it.”
He wet his lips, and regretted it when he saw Mark look away. Clear, concise, princely, he thought as he spoke. “There are forces amidst the Unseelie who look unkindly upon Shadowhunters. I fear if you stay here you will not live through the night.”
“But the king said-” Cristina began and Kieran cut her off just as quickly.
“That he would bring you to no harm, directly or indirectly, and protect from all harm he knows of? He’s usually very careful not to be aware of plots around court that don’t directly impact him. And he likes to see how people can handle themselves.”
“And you would help us?” Mark asked. The fact that he even needed to ask hurt more than he could say.
“You know why I always will.” Kieran told him, careful not to let his voice falter. “But you cannot tarry, we don’t have much time before someone comes up with a cunning way to kill you, or at least puts a watcher on the door.”
Mark shouldered his bag. “What is your plan?”
“They cannot harm you if they cannot find you.” Kieran said. “And I know these halls far better than they. Make it through the night then be as visible as possible tomorrow. As long as father is watching they cannot harm you. Make whatever bargain you must for whatever you need, then go home.”
Kieran was still holding her hand, Cristina’s. He let go of it irritably, then folded his hands behind his back for the sake of safety. Mark was the one who mattered, the one who had reasons to distrust him.
Mark still wouldn’t look at him. Instead he exchanged a few taciturn nods with his Shadowhunter princess, and then made for the door.
“Let’s go.”
They ran through abandoned passageways where spiders the size of fists built intricate webs and dust dimmed the silvery glow of the moss on the walls. Kieran had chosen safer corridors, he didn’t want them getting scared or eaten. The Unseelie rarely gathered to full strength, and so there were many places long abandoned. Besides, he doubted anyone had touched his room since he had been thrown to the Wild Hunt.
Kieran had far more of a leash than the average member of the Hunt, and sometimes ran errands for Gwyn that took him back to the court. But he always found someplace else to rest the night, and avoided his family. It was better that way. As the halls grew clean and bright and known, and the air began smelling of jasmine and deadly nightshade he found his heart in his throat.
It was away from the center of his father’s domain, a little corner set aside for a nixie bastard, safe enough for a child and simple enough for a younger son. It looked terribly plain compared to the blood and gold beauty and ominous ancient stone of the court. It looked like home.
No one else was around. Why would they be?
Kieran stopped in front of his door and heard Mark and the girl slow down behind him.
“Is this place safe?” she asked.
Kieran gave her a withering glance. “Would I bring you here if it were not?”
She was polite enough not to answer.
“It’s secure. Few can enter here, and few would look.” Kieran said, laying a hand on the carved wood door where snakes writhed under fern like fronds against a sky of twisting smoke. Once upon a time Kieran had given every snake on the door a name.
There was no knob or lock or handle. It didn’t need them.
Kieran pushed and a hidden seam, zigzagging through scaled coils and roils of air down the middle of the door, split. Both sides swung in with little more than a nudge.
“I do not mean to offend, but that doesn’t look secure.” Cristina Rosales said.
Mark crossed his arms. “It’s magic. It suppose it will only open for certain people?”
Kieran nodded, distant. He was busy trying not to look at the room in front of him. It was easier than he had expected. It looked to domestic and drab too be the place he remembered.
“We should get inside.” Mark continued. “Kieran?”
There was a hand on his shoulder, less than a hand, more a ghosting press of fingertips. He stood back to let them in.
Mark took two steps inside the room, then spun on his heel to look straight at Kieran. He didn’t need to ask, but he did anyway. “This is your room, isn’t it?”
Kieran pressed his lips together. “It was. Tonight, it should serve to keep you alive.”
“Thank you.” Cristina Rosales said. “I don’t know what we’d have done without your help, well, aside from die.”
“Die pretty well sums it up.” Mark agreed. He was still staring wide eyed around him, at the weapons on the walls and the blankets on the bed, the silvery canopy, the cradle pushed into the corner like no one had ever bothered to get rid of it.
There was a smaller side room where a paltry selection of books and scrolls sat in a niche, along with neatly folded clothes of fine make. A dry basin that had once been a fountain, a disk of mercury frozen by magic for a mirror. An oil lamp brought to them by some wandering child or lost soul a hundred years ago and kept as a conversation piece had burned out on the table and Kieran lit it again with a breath. It needed no fuel to run, just magic, but it was forever flickering out.
“Please,” he said around a cold lump in his throat. “Be at ease.”
Both Shadowhunters obediently put their packs down and…. hovered. Kieran stood next to the table, feeling for one of the first times in his life like his limbs wouldn’t quite go where he wanted them to.
“Why don’t we all sit down.” Cristina suggested.
The screeching sound of chairs being scraped across the floor didn’t help Kieran’s nerves. There were only two so Mark ended up leaning against the table, and he stubbornly refused to let Kieran scede his seat to him.
He needed to leave. Get back to Gwyn, walk away with Mark and his princess safe and sound.
Except, that they couldn’t leave the room without him. The Unseelie King was ever cautious with his children’s welfare, at least when it came to things that crawled in the night. He’d need to stay until they could be sent on their way, back to court and safety.
That was the last straw. Kieran leapt nimbly up onto his chair and started searching the shelves set into the stone of the wall. Amid statues of fine china creatures with too many limbs and toy swords of silver he found a large bottle, still half full, in the very back.
Bubbly uneven glass covered in darkly painted twining leaves, it was almost hard to see the thick golden liquid inside. Kieran put it on the table then folded himself back into his chair.
Mark and Cristina waited. Kieran let his chin rest on the table top and examined the bottle, occasionally turning it so he could see it from every angle. After a time he took a swig and grimaced.
“I hope that isn’t poison.” Cristina said in the tone of someone who had dealt with a lot of impulsiveness in her time but still happy to see it. “We’ve only just met.”
Mark pried the bottle out of Kieran’s fingers and inspected it. “What is this?” he asked. “I’ve never seen it before, and I have seen many things.”
“You have not seen a lot of things.” Kieran informed him. “Though in your defense, this is normally cut with water before it’s served.” He could still feel it on his tongue, syrupy and strangely bitter. The fey as a rule disliked bitterness, they prefered the sweet and sour and the itching iron filled mouthfeel of blood. But there was an exception to every rule and what better place for an exception than at the bottom of a bottle?
“How much water?” Mark asked in a tone of genuine curiosity. “Enough to fill an acorn or enough to fill a pool?”
Kieran tipped his head back to look at the ceiling. “Such as I have seen, a pool may be closer to the mark, Mark. Now, kindly give it back.”
Mark did and Kieran took another sip, half to quell existing thoughts and half because their fingers had brushed as the liquor was surrendered. He wanted to rage and yell and cry, but suspected that would just make Mark hate him more. So he would settle for not being sober for this ordeal.
The next sip was even less appealing and Kieran nearly choked on it.
“Are you okay?” Cristina asked with something like pity in her eyes, and Kieran hated her, but did not voice his hate. It was uncouth for a prince to seem petty.
“I was weaned on honey and my father’s blood.” he said instead, loftily.
“I thought that you said you had a human wet nurse?” Mark said, skepticism writ over his face.
“I did.” Kieran agreed. “But after she left I ailed.”
He had been a nixie child away from water, a motherless infant. He had been a fragile babe, and his father had helped in him in the only way he knew. A drop of blood, a dash of honey to get a baby to swallow it. Blood for blood, tit for tat.
It had worked. His life had always been the greatest kindness his father had given him. Admittedly there weren’t a lot of impressive runners up.
Mark and Cristina weren’t staring but it felt like they were. The Shadowhunters appalled at fey barbarity, once again, like the Nephilim didn’t have just as many skeletons in their closets.
“Would you like to drink?” Kieran asked.
“I’ll pass. We brought food.” Cristina rummaged under the table for their bags, and pulled out plastic bottles that smelled of chemicals and a dash of stale water. They had bread and dried fruit carefully wrapped up and sealed. Survival food, trail food. It was a safety measure, and a smart one. Eating anything in a faery court was about as sensible as swallowing a knife, but if a long stay was needed, bringing your own food and making sure it stayed uncontaminated was the best path. “Would you like some?”
“No!” Kieran said, a little louder than he intended. The food, though probably at least palatable to mortals, looked half rotten to his eyes. The taint of chemicals lingered on it and the rustling of the plastic bags unsettled him. “I will abstain. There is drink enough for a night.”
“Kieran,” Mark said, almost sounding nervous. “You should not drink that whole bottle. Have a sandwich.” He held out bread, layered with leaves and something yellow and strange, like curdled milk but not quite.
“My tutor used to down this, and my sister sometimes, when she came to visit me and try to forget her worries.” Kieran reassured him. The thought of Fedelm made his stomach heavy, or mayhaps it was the drink that did it. “It made her more confident, she has always doubted herself too much. She was doomed as a child, cursed that she would always be wise but her wisdom would also lead to her ruin when she needed it most dearly. She would come her, sit and watch me play and try to forget.”
There was pity in Mark’s eyes, but not Cristina’s. Kieran was not sure which he preferred but Mark’s eyes were prettier so he focused on those. Cristina’s voice cut through the haze of gold and ocean green.
“My cousin, Jaime, he drinks too. I have never understood why, to be braver, maybe. To feel like if he’s out of control at least he has something to blame it on. But that does not mean you should poison yourself.”
Her hands were folded neatly in her lap her head bowed. Her hair glimmered like star silk. Kieran took another chug from the bottle out of pure spite, only to find it wrenched from his hands.
“I want some.” Mark told him, which was clearly just a ruse to keep it away from Kieran, but Kieran had offered it so there wasn’t much he could do. Mark took a careful sip and spluttered, much to Kieran’s joy.
This was the moment everyone else in the hunt would have started making fun of Mark for his refined Seelie blood, as it was, Kieran had to content himself with a smirk.
“If you cannot drink it, you must give it back.” he said.
Mark stubbornly raised it to his lips again and let a tiny bit pass through them. Coughing started up immediately, and he reached for the water. He had always liked the sweet over the bitter.
Hospitality fulfilled, Kieran moved to take his alcohol back. Mark was too busy pulling faces to properly defend it.
Cristina made a sound in the back of her throat. “Honestly. Hand it over. I would like to try some.” It had the cadence of a battle cry. Kieran ceded the liquor and waited for this challenger to fail as well.
She sniffed it carefully and took a mouthful. Her nose wrinkled up and her throat worked for a minute as she convinced herself to actually swallow it, but she did manage. “It burns!” she choked after minute.
“Is that a Shadowhunter surrender? If so, I would like it returned. We still have hours I would like to dull my senses during.”
Cristina crossed her arms so the bottle was cradled close to her (surprisingly lovely) chest. “No, I’m drinking more. Just give me a minute to recover.” Mark passed her the water, and Kieran found his throat dry as well.
It seemed Mark still knew him well enough for some things. The canteen was pressed into Kieran’s hands as soon as Cristina was done with it and Kieran took a few measured sips, just enough to wet his throat but not enough to poison him with human concoctions.
“You are most kind.” he muttered.
“You did save our lives.” Mark told him, just as softly. His slight American accent, always adorable, was more pronounced. “One does not need to be kind to repay that debt.”
Debt and repayment. It was the language of his childhood, being spoken in a room to familiar for comfort. He could imagine his brothers, the kinder ones who shielded him. Cold eyes, strong arms, whispers of, “You may repay me when you are older, little nixie.” Like kindness to a child was something out of the ordinary.
Kieran understood it the rhetoric behind it-only a debtless man was truly independent, and by laying out the limits early on they had made him stronger- but his heart did not.
“It grows on you.” Cristina said. Kieran looked at her in inquiry. “The taste. It is not so vile now.” Her half tipsy smile suited her, even if Kieran still wanted the bottle back.
Mark looked at Kieran and his face melted into sadness, then rehardened with resolve. “I would like to try again.” he said, and Kieran wasn’t sure if it was still a ploy to keep it away from him or a genuine interest in the joys of drink.
Probably, the former. He had the same too tired look in his eyes as Fedelm at her worst, with a little bit of mania that reminded Kieran of another one of his brothers, who tended to deal with adversity by laughing in the face of it. (A laugh that was not comforting in the slightest. Kieran had often wished he could just suffer in silence like the rest of them.)
He waited in sullen silence until Mark had managed to take a few gulps, an endeavor that took much longer than it should have and left his shirt front soaked. Kieran took back the bottle, while Cristina passed Mark a wedge of bread, like a taciturn game of Pass the Coals Around, only with slightly less burn damage.
“This must be the dullest event ever held in my father’s halls.” Kieran told them, struck by a sudden spirit of talkativeness. “And we speak of a place where beheadings are not uncommon.”
“You speak as if we have not seen heads roll in ours days.” Cristina said absently. “You forget, we Shadowhunters can match you for blood. We have all seen executions.” There was a bite in her voice, but it was not directed at Kieran.
“I don’t know about executions.” Mark said through a mouthful of bread. “That is a bit too formal for what I remember.”
“You remember wild law, that holds in Gwyn’s lands and on revel nights.” Kieran told him. “I speak of the law of the courts. That is another matter entirely.”
Interest sparked in Cristina’s dark eyes.
“What is it like, can I ask?” she said, voice soft as thistledown.
“You can ask, but I may not answer.” Kieran said automatically, because even alcohol could not dull a faerie’s eye for linguistics. “Watch your words more closely while you are here, Shadowhunter. You invite trouble.”
“Sorry.” she said, but there was still an air of eager curiosity about her.
“To answer your question,” Kieran frowned at his hands, wrapping around the no longer cool glass, “It is the court. It is beautiful and terrible. There is more knowledge and magic than any man could know, but all of it comes at a price. The first price is that where there is power there is unrest. Hunger eats away at the Unseelie, burrows holes through us until we cannot help but strive for what we cannot have.”
His brothers had strived, and sought, and died. Faeries were ageless but not immortal, and Kieran had seen hundreds from every level of the court waste an eternity in the pursuit of power or ken. The Seelie felt deeply, emotion beating on them like waves on the beach. The Unseelie wanted deeply, and that was their undoing as much as the highness of manners and fragility of hearts was that of their Seelie kin. It was something Kieran had learned in his cradle, that someday he would reach too far and topple as well.
As a child, that had never been the case. Kieran had been a fragile infant who grew into a toddler mostly glad to be alive. He had kept his head down, tried his hardest not to overstep his bounds, and enjoyed what his status did give him. Power plays had never held much appeal, his mother’s Seelie influence at work, and his relative meekness had earned him his father’s favor. That had been all he had wanted, the dark engulfing love of the King and an occasional token of affection from one or two of his less monstrous siblings.
Now, looking at Mark, Kieran knew what yearning drove the Unseelie to perpetual chaos.
“Doesn’t everyone want that?” Cristina asked, breaking Kieran’s already maudlin train of thought.
He sneered. “Humans are content. Even Shadowhunters are. You have your Laws and pretty words and short mortal lives, and you live like that. Follow your covenant, worship your angel, die young, and never ask too many questions. No, you do not want for anything, as far as I can tell.”
“We want safety, love, reassurance,” Cristina argued, “surety of heart, at the very least. And some humans do want power as well.”
“The difference,” Mark said, a little too bright eyed, “is that the fey want it more. And not always in the same way. There is no safety for an immortal, no long and fulfilling life, no calm death to look forward to.” His every word was crisp and pointed, “You look at things differently, when you think you could live forever. You take every day at a time but also expect an eternity of them. There is no way to describe it.”
Kieran wondered what he had expected in the Hunt. A halfling in Faerie could live a long time indeed. Kieran had never bothered to consider that he and Mark might be separated, every night was a world of it’s own, the future guaranteed.
“That sounds sad.” Cristina said simply, before resting her head on the table. “Or maybe just scary, to not have a death waiting for you. To not have an end date. Finish point? Sorry, English is hard.”
“It sounds much more frightening to know you have a hundred years on your earth, at the most.” Kieran replied. It was such a short time to imagine. He had brothers thousands of years old. Centuries passed quickly, most of the fey considered Kieran a green youth even at nearly twenty, when humans would be men grown. There had always been a certain expectation, that humanity would change, years would pass, and his life would stay the same. The Hunt was even more timeless, the only thing that had changed in millennia were the Hunters themselves.
“It is.” Mark told him, and Kieran’s heart broke as he remembered that was Mark’s fate now too, a Shadowhunter burning and a name carved in stone.
“You have to go and ruin everything.” he snapped at Mark. “Your Blackthorn name and your Blackthorn blood. Without it we could have had forever.”
“Forever would be torture if I lived it bloodless.” Mark replied. “As you would have me live. I would not be stripped of self.”
“I would not see you die for the sake of a drop of angel’s blood.”
Mark glowered, or tried to. He looked as fuzzy as Kieran felt. “And several quarts of human blood as well, you forgot that. At least three.” He glanced to Cristina for confirmation and she shrugged.
“I only know liters.”
Mark frowned. “The point stands, humans do not fare well in this world.”
Kieran gritted his teeth. “Then why are you here again? To help your family, to save the world? You would bear it for them.”
“I would bear it for you if I could, and you weren’t such a fool!” Mark cried, and Kieran reeled back. There were tears in the gold and blue eyes, and Mark’s face was blotchy red.
“Pare!” Cristina shouted, lifting her head from the table. “Stop it, both of you. You are picking at wounds to see the blood. It is stupid. You’re acting stupid. Stop it. Drink some water."
Kieran took the canteen again, with some reluctance. Mark was staring at the table top, and biting his lip.
“I’m sorry.” Kieran said. “What I said was ill reasoned. We have fought before, and come to a conclusion we would have come to again. My wits are addled, and I spoke poorly.”
“We’re both stressed.” Mark admitted. “All three of us are. Maybe no more of that.” he nodded to the bottle still cradled in Kieran’s lap.
“Very well.” Kieran agreed.
“I shouldn’t have tried any in the first place.” Cristina confessed as Kieran slid the bottle under the table. “But I thought it might make things less strange. It feels odd, to be here with the two of you.”
“I think the discomfort is universal.” Mark said. “Sorry, Tina.”
She shrugged again, jerkily. “There is worse company. Not a lot, but I’m sure given time I could think of some people.”
“Diego.” Mark suggested, and Cristina giggled at some joke Kieran had no part of. To his surprise she then explained it.
“My cousin. He is a bit overwhelming.”
“He’s obnoxiously perfect.” Mark grumbled. “You met him Kieran, when you helped us with the warlock. He was the tall one with too much chest.”
“I think I know the sort.” Kieran said. “Far too lovely and clever for the well being of others.”
The twins, Melaine and Melos, were like that. They were eight years younger than Kieran, with a proper gentry mother and every advantage they could hope for. Kieran liked them despite himself, but he also saw that they had ambition and not enough restraint, coupled with rottingly sweet manners made to charm and faces like the angels in Shadowhunter stories. Their birth had marked the end of Kieran’s years of relative protection as the baby of the family, and the memory of it was still bitter.
“Far too perfect.” Mark sighed. His face was still pink, eyes a little red in the corners, but he smiled at Kieran.
“Thank you again, for everything.”
“I had little other choice.” Kieran said, because it was the truth.
“That does not mean it was not brave.” Cristina told him, and pressed an apple into his hands. “Eat. We’re all punch drunk and overwrought.”
The apple was disgusting, as human food usually was, but Kieran had had worse. He munched on it dutifully as Mark and Cristina ate bread layered with cheese and vegetables. The water was drunk in small sips as needed. It was still quiet, but less tense than the previous silences. This was the companionable stillness of the Hunt, not the stark noiselessness of a crowd holding their breath. It felt comfortable, too comfortable. Cristina was smiling slightly, the soft curve of her mouth somehow holding even as she ate. Mark’s golden curls were falling in his face as he studiously avoided Kieran’s gaze. It was awkward, yes, but also soothing, and damnably easy, accepting their presence.
He could feel his breath falling in time with theirs, the gentle sound of three inhales and then three exhales, so in sync they might have been practicing it.
Kieran stood up, his chair clattering to the floor.
“I’m going to rest.” he said quickly. “Someone should mark the hours, so you do not miss the morning.”
He was halfway to the bed in the middle of the room when he realized where he was again, and took in the dust gathering on the bed spread, the smell of abandonment layered over all that was familiar. Well, there was nothing for it. He grabbed the edge of the makepiece blanket in two hands and flicked it a few times, to knock out the dust, then crawled under it. The bed was too soft, and it set his teeth on edge. He yearned for the Hunt, his blanket next to Mark.
Kieran curled up a little tighter, pulling a fistful of blanket under his chin. Mark and Cristina hadn’t said anything, and he focused on his breathing, the slight alcohol induced nausea, the oncoming headache, anything but his uncontrolled thoughts.
He did not know how long he breathed before a body flopped down next to him. Kieran’s eyes shot open and he saw Mark’s back in front of him. He must have made some noise, because Mark said, hesitantly, “We all need to sleep. Cristina set an alarm.”
“I see.” Kieran said.
There was a soft sigh from above him. “Honestly.” Cristina Rosales said, climbing over Mark to take the middle of the bed. “If you start arguing again, I will smother someone with a pillow.” Her tone was light, but there was worry underneath, and she was looking at Kieran as if worried he might burst into flames.
Kieran moved over a little, to make more room on their side of the bed.
“Thank you.” Mark said. “For everything. I owe you much for your help.”
“This is love, not debt.” Kieran told him, and tried to go to sleep.
Mark and Cristina had slid back on their shoes and gathered their things quickly, while Kieran remade the bed. He wanted the room to forget they had even been there.
“We should go.” Mark said, “It’s been almost eight hours. We should be able to go to court and be safe, right?”
Kieran nodded. “Stay with a crowd, and within my father’s sight. Get what you require, and then get out.”
He doubted it would be that easy, but they would have to deal with it themselves. Kieran had some faith in them, and even more faith in that fact that -his tendency to let little things like murder plots play out aside- his father had it in his best interests to aid Mark and Cristina. They would be fine.
“Right.”
They shouldered their packs. Cristina had been blushing a little, which Kieran didn’t blame her for since they had managed to end up entwined over the course of the night. An unfortunate accident. He was used to having Mark nearby, but now she looked resolute. Every inch the brave adventurer, from her swiftly braided hair to her solid Shadowhunter boots.
The Unseelie Court wasn’t usually kind to brave adventurers.
They would be fine, Kieran reminded himself, and besides, he had to get back to Gwyn.
He pressed a hand on the door and it moved under his fingers, the hidden seam opening to let them back into the rest of Faerie.
Mark kissed Kieran’s cheek, a wordless thanks and another farewell.
They would be fine.
“Let me walk you back to where the court usually gathers.” Kieran said. “The halls under the hill are treacherous.”
Mark blinked- because he and Kieran both knew that Mark knew the way well enough- but he didn’t protest. He and Cristina flanked Kieran and they walked, three abreast.
Underneath the hurt, the confusion, he found it was effortless to keep pace with them.