Faery Tales & Nightmares

Seth walked up the stairs to the Summer Queen’s loft. Just inside the door, he stopped for a moment, watching her as she laughed with her advisors. Aislinn’s every movement seemed to send little bits of sunlight into the air around her. Looking at her when she was happy made Seth think of photographs of the solar system: she was the sun, and the rest of her court thrived now because she was so vibrant. Looking at her made him want to do anything in his power to make that sunlight turn to him, but he understood the difference between love and enthrallment. Being her subject would’ve destroyed us. Being equals made relationships possible.

Of course, that didn’t mean that he was immune to her. As she laughed at something one of the faeries near her said, the sunlight flared in the room, rippling out with her mood, and Seth drew in a sharp breath.

She turned.

In the space of that one breath, Aislinn was across the room and in his arms. Instead of speaking, she greeted him with a kiss that would’ve injured him if he weren’t fey. Sunlight flared around them, rolled over his skin in a wash of pleasure, and made him grateful that he wasn’t shy in public. Aislinn wasn’t an exhibitionist, but hers was a court based on pleasure. Any sense of restraint she’d once had was discarded.

As was my shirt, he realized as he felt her hands slide over his bare chest.

“Whoa,” Seth whispered as he pulled back.

“Sorry.” She smiled a little sheepishly. “I’m still trying to get used to the full Summer, and it’s spring and —”

He kissed her and then stepped away, keeping one arm around her. “I get it.” He reached down and grabbed his singed and steaming shirt from the floor. The benefits of wearing black T-shirts. He pulled his shirt back on. “Can we talk for a minute?”

Aislinn’s panic made the heat in the room flare uncomfortably. Faeries around her stopped dancing; couples paused in their kissing; and even the rustling of the almost rain forest–thick plants stilled. Her mood made her faeries react; she was their center. It was like that with all regents.

Hurriedly, Seth said, “Everything is fine with us. I just wanted to talk to you without everyone around.”

“Oh,” she breathed. Her smile returned, and at her joy, the activities throughout the loft, and presumably throughout the whole Summer Court, resumed.

The Summer Queen took his hand and led him through the increasingly plant-filled loft and past a stream— when did that appear?—that now trickled down a hallway. It seemed as if the division between the outside and inside had vanished in the past week.

He looked at the stream in wonder and then at her with the same swell of awe. Sometimes, it seemed hard to remember what life before Aislinn had been like. He’d fallen in love with her months before she even realized he had stopped hooking up with girls. Instead of going on to art school, he’d stayed here—and ended up going to Faerie and being remade. They were all choices he was sure were right, and not quite a week ago, exactly how right had become clear.

Now I just need my mortal life in order.

He wasn’t truly a mortal anymore. When he was in Faerie, he became mortal, but in the mortal world he was fey. Since his trip to Faerie, he’d spent less and less time around the mortals in his life. He could slip in and out of a glamour with the same ease as breathing, so his new state hadn’t meant giving up the Crow’s Nest, but on the other hand, he only went to the bar with faeries, so he hadn’t been tasked with trying to have a whole lot of normal conversations, either.

Seeing his parents meant facing things he wasn’t sure he was ready to face.

Just inside Aislinn’s room, Seth stopped and looked up. The bed was gone. In its place was a flowering vine that wrapped around what looked look a vat of flower petals atop a tree. “Ash?”

She bit her lip and blushed.

“I was dreaming, and when I woke”—she shrugged—“it was like this. I can’t quite figure out how to get rid of all of the petals.”

“Where’s your bed? Your mattress?”

“That is my bed. It was wood, and I guess I sort of made it start growing. My mattress”—Aislinn floated upward, seemingly mindless of the fact that she now treated the air the same as most faeries treated the ground—“is right here. It just has petals all over it.” She sent a small breeze toward the bed, and as flower petals rained around him, she patted the mattress. “See?”

“I do.” He smiled. This was the world he lived in, had fought for, and wanted to stay in. There were things he still needed to sort out—chiefly the whole balancing the Dark King and being the faery willing to stand for the rights of any solitary faery thing. Those he would need to figure out, but he’d already been thinking about them. His mortal life, on the other hand, he’d pretty much set aside. He’d like to continue doing that, to ignore the letter that he’d shoved into his pocket, but he couldn’t.

“I need to go away for a few days, Ash. Not”—he held up a hand as she opened her mouth to interrupt—“to see my mother … not Sorcha. My human parents sent a letter. They’re in trouble and need me to come to help.”

Aislinn frowned. “How? Where?”

“I have lat and long coordinates. They’re at a campsite in the mountains … which means I need to get to California, hike out to where they are, and… I don’t know. They said it was urgent that I come, and the letter was written at least two weeks ago. I need to go now.” Seth couldn’t entirely keep the bitterness out of his voice, but he tried.

Unlike Aislinn, he had no real desire to stay a part of the mortal world. The one big exception was his parents. They were flaky sometimes, but they were his. Since they’d left two years ago, they’d kept in touch with sporadic calls and letters, and on one unexpected Tuesday, a visit. They’d called it a “mission” when they left, but whatever church or cult they’d been with had been another passing interest for his mother. Instead of coming back to Huntsdale, they’d followed one random impulse after another, and Seth wasn’t sure if he envied them or admired them.

Aislinn sat on her bed, still frowning. “I can’t go with you. I’m not sure I’m ready to be out in the world without my court yet. I just need a little time to adjust to having all of Summer inside me.”

“I know.” Seth climbed the vine to sit beside her. “I didn’t expect you to.”

“I want to,” she started.

“Ash?” Seth pulled her closer. “You just used sunlight to get up here. You turned your bed into a tree or shrub or whatever this is while you slept.” He threaded his fingers through her hair, and she leaned into him just as the plants throughout the loft leaned toward her as she passed them.

“I could send Tavish or a few of the Summer Girls to protect you.” Her words faded. “I mean, some of them are guards now.”

A soft rain fell in the room as she became nervous. She didn’t bring up his recent conflict with Niall or her fear that the Dark King would decide that he didn’t want to be kind to the faery who now balanced him. Seth had no option but to bring it up.

Seth caught her chin in his hand and made her look at him. “I’ll be fine. Promise.” He paused before admitting, “I’m going to ask Niall to come with me.”

Aislinn scooted backward. “I don’t trust him.”

Seth took advantage of the speed and strength that being fey gave him. He caught her and rolled her under him. “He is my friend. I trust him.”

“You shouldn’t. He’s the Dark King, Seth. He can’t be trusted, especially now that Discord lives in his house with him. If I asked you not to spend so much time w—”

“No. Niall is my friend, my brother, and Irial is … well, not necessarily good, but right now he’s so caught up in making sure Niall is happy, I doubt that he even has time to start trouble.”

“I still don’t like it,” she said petulantly. “At least take some of my guards.”

“No.” Braced on his arms, he looked down at her. “Don’t start trying to leash me, Ash. I love you, but I am not your subject. I’m not a part of the Summer Court.”

“You’re not a part of his court, either. It was different when you trained there. I didn’t like it, but now…” She stared up at him, tiny oceans glimmering in her eyes. “You’re to be his opposition now, the faery that keeps Niall in line, you know. I’m afraid.”

Seth kissed her words away.