Darkest Mercy

She shook her head. “Send Tavish to me.”

Quinn tried to wipe the rain from his face surreptitiously. “For?”

The Summer Queen paused midway through turning away from Quinn and glanced back at him. “Excuse me?”

“Is there a message?” Quinn’s expression was the carefully bland one that she’d quickly learned to identify as a mask.

“The message, Quinn, is that his queen—your queen— has summoned him.” She smiled, not kindly but with a cruelty that she’d had to learn when Keenan left her to rule the Summer Court on her own. With a deceptively soft voice, she asked, “Is there a reason you want to know what I say to another faery? A reason you question your queen?”

Quinn lowered his gaze to the muddy floor. “I hadn’t intended to insult you.”

For a breath, she considered pointing out that she noticed that he had avoided the question she’d asked. Misdirection, omission, and opinion were the faery standbys to work around the “no lying” limitation. Quinn, and a number of other faeries, seemed to think that her relatively recent mortality and her age made her easier to mislead. And sometimes it has meant that. Not always, though. She kept her own expression as mask-bland as his.

“Fetch Tavish. Find some answers on where in the hell Seth and Keenan are. I’m tired of excuses . . . and I want instruction on how to enter Faerie,” she said.

Then, before her mask of confidence slipped, she turned away.

Chapter 5

“My staying here in Faerie is not an option,” Seth repeated to his queen. “You know that as well as I do.”

Sorcha turned her back to him, as if the movement would hide the silver tears that trailed down her cheeks, and walked away.

“Mother.” He followed her into the garden that had replaced the wall of his room as she had approached it. “You needed me, and I came.”

She nodded, but didn’t face him. Tiny insects that were neither dragonflies nor butterflies darted toward her, fluttered briefly, and zipped away. The metallic glint of their wings made the air around her appear to glitter.

“I’m not going to respond well to being caged. You knew that when you chose to be my mother.” He put a hand on her shoulder, and she turned toward him.

“I can’t see you, and their world is . . . treacherous.” She pursed her lips in a pout that made her seem childlike.

“If I were the sort to abandon those I love, I wouldn’t have come home to you,” Seth pointed out. For all of her centuries of living, parenthood was new to Sorcha. Emotion was unfamiliar to her. There was bound to be a bit of adjustment.

Her adjustment just about ended the world. He put his arm around her and led her to a stone bench. If she were angry. . . The thought of a furious almost-omnipotent queen made his skin grow cold. Devlin had done the right thing in closing the gate to the mortal world, trapping Sorcha here in Faerie.

Sorcha clutched his arm so tightly that he had to hide a wince of pain. “What if she kills you?”

“I don’t think Bananach will.” Seth pulled her to him, and she let her head rest on his shoulder.

“I can’t go after her.” Sorcha, the very embodiment of reason, sounded petulant. “I tried the gate.”

“I’m sure you did.” He bit back a smile, but she still lifted her head and looked at him.

“You sound amused, Seth.”

“You’ve been all-powerful since you first existed, and now there are restrictions . . . and emotions . . . and”—he squeezed her briefly—“you wanted to change, but it’s not as easy as you expected.”

“True . . . but . . .” She frowned. “How is that humorous?”

He kissed her cheek. “Your worry and your desire to be near those you love are very human. For someone who isn’t my birth mother, you have traits I share. I return to the mortal world to be with those I love.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder again. “I would rather you stay here in Faerie, where I can keep you safe.”

“But you understand why I’m not going to?” he prompted.

For several moments, she didn’t answer. She stayed next to him, and together they were silent. Then she straightened and turned to face him. “I don’t like it.”

“But you understand?” He took both of her hands in his so that she couldn’t walk away. “Mother?”

She sighed. “If you get killed, I will be vexed.”

“And if I kill your sister?”

“I would be pleased.” Sorcha’s voice became softer.

“Was that your plan when you made me a faery?”

Sorcha didn’t flinch from his gaze. “I needed you to be bound to my court even more than you were bound to the others. By giving you a part of me, I knew I would be no longer balanced by Bananach. I believe now—as I did then—that you are the key to her death.” She looked away. “I thought you might die as a result, but not that your death would matter to me.”

“We cannot see our own futures,” he reminded her.

“I saw yours until you became mine. You would have died. If I hadn’t remade you, you would be dead now. My sister would have tortured you, and your Ash would have led her court to a battle they could not win.” Sorcha frowned. “I would not object to the Summer Queen’s death, but I did not want War to have what she sought. If I gave you this”— Sorcha motioned around Faerie—“you would be mine to use as I required.”

Seth felt the flash of unease he’d felt when he first met Sorcha, remembered how alien she was to him, but he also remembered that mere days ago she had come near to destroying Faerie because she missed him. He smiled at his mother and assured her, “I don’t blame you. You gave me what I sought—even if it was for your own selfish reasons.”

“And for your selfish reasons, Seth.” The High Queen almost laughed then. “You are impertinent, but I am glad that you are mine.”

Seth felt his tension vanish. His queen, his mother, was serene again, and she’d admitted that which she hadn’t wanted to tell him, that which he’d known already: she’d intended to use and then discard him.

“Devlin’s decision to close the gate to you was wise,” he said.

Sorcha leveled an unreadable gaze on him, but she said nothing.

“I saw that,” Seth said. “Not with future sight, but with logic, and I can guarantee that if I don’t survive, he will be here for you. You may not call him your son”—he held up a hand as she opened her mouth to object—“but he is. He loves you, and he will be here if you need him. Faerie is in good hands.”

“You are impertinent,” she repeated, but her tone was undeniably affectionate.

“I love you too.” He kissed her cheek.

“Far Dorcha walks in Huntsdale. He is, like all death-fey, able to bring about the end of life for any faery. Unlike most death-fey, he is the only being allowed to do so without consent or order.” The High Queen paused. “When War strikes, he will be there, as will his sister, Ankou. You must not let them touch you.”

“I will do what I must do. It’s why you made me, Mother. Bananach won’t stop,” Seth reminded her. “Those within Faerie will be safe. You are safe. Sealing the gate has done that . . . and I will go to Huntsdale and do what you sought: I will try to kill her. I’ve been training with the Hounds for this reason. They will want her death now. Niall will. It’s what we all want.”

Sorcha turned away to watch the garden as it shifted around them, and Seth felt as much as saw the moods she was trying to keep in order. She was balanced now, but she was still unused to having emotions.

After several moments, she turned her attention back to him. “I do not like when the consequences of a choice are not what I wish them to be. I want you to . . . I want you to not go, but since you are going, I require a promise that you will not get injured as Irial did. He could have avoided it. If you can avoid injury, you will do so.”

Wisely, Seth decided not to answer. Instead, he asked, “Did you know he would do that?”