9

A thick breath traps in my throat.

My heart lunges up into my head, my stomach drops—and I hate it all so much.

It is more than falling, more than plummeting through space and time, than stretching and twisting in this pocket of abyss.

It is a false eternity of nothingness.

And it leaves as fast as it came.

My boots smack down on packed soil.

A grunt is shoved out of me from the impact and a flurry of dead leaves lift up around my ankles.

Without a glance around, I swat a fallen strand of hair from my face and jump out of the way—just in time, too.

The thud of boots comes behind me before I can even right myself, and I know that another has landed where I stood a mere second ago.

I look over my shoulder.

Ridge pushes up from a lethal crouch. He steps aside, but his attention isn’t on Eamon who comes through after him. Instead, he has his hand folded in front of him and he eyes his new human-like nails with much the same interest as Aleana did before we left Hemlock.

My interest drifts from Eamon, from Ridge, and turns down to the moss beneath my boots. I cock my head at the sheer richness of the green, a species of moss I’m certain has been borrowed from the fae lands, too thick, too green, too fragranced.

A huff comes from over my shoulder.

I look over at Aleana, standing beneath the leaves of an ordinary oak tree, tucked in the shade.

I forgot that, if only for a moment. The moonlight, how the dokkalves avoid it, like Daxeel does in leaning against the trunk of the same tree, hidden from the whitish gleam of the night skies above.

“Call me gullible, but I thought the human towns were—” Dare lifts his hand above his head and flattens it. “—taller.” Perched on a mossy boulder, he hikes his knee and studies the lush, cosy gardens with a pursed mouth.

If unimpressed had a face…

Aleana nods. “If I wanted to stand around in a garden, I would have stayed at home,” she huffs and picks at the glitter of her skirt.

I move for her.

And the moment a muscle moves in my body, ocean eyes hook onto me.

I feel the lure of them, but I fight it enough to snub Daxeel.

“It’s the Midhouse,” Eamon says and steps off the moss for the flattened stones littered all over the garden; a disjointed path that leads to the rear porch of the narrow townhouse beyond the oak tree.

The urge to ask ‘ what’s a Midhouse ’ tickles my tongue.

I bite it down, because a part of me, as stubborn as it is, doesn’t want to let the others know that I’m not entirely versed in this part of the human realm.

Ridge voices my thoughts, “And that is…?”

Eamon arches a brow at his lover, but a small smile plays on his lips. He takes the stone path to the sage-dusted porch. “Midhouses are… a few things.” He pauses to grin something guilty and knowing over his shoulder. “They are sanctuaries and healer homes and trade markets between the realms. This city has three of them.”

Dare pushes from the boulder. Before he joins us, he frowns at a damp patch on the leg of his breeches from the moss, then swats at it, once, twice. “Brothels?” he murmurs under his breath.

Daxeel hides a smirk.

Aleana rolls her eyes.

But I’m stuck on what Eamon said about this place.

All the times I’ve gone with Eamon into the human lands, not once did we pass through a Midhouse. So, as Eamon pushes through the old glass door at the back of the house, the awe of it slackens my face with a touch of wonder.

The moment I step over the threshold, into the warmth of a carpeted, old hallway, the bustle of it thrives up all around me.

And I know I am standing at the seam between realms.

Two younglings, smeared in brown that smells of chocolate, cut in front of me. I near step on them, but all they notice is the gentle thuds of the bouncy red ball they chase past me, then down a corridor.

I make to move for Eamon’s back, to keep close in the burst of chaos, but I don’t manage more than a step before a litalf cuts around me.

I stumble back, right into Daxeel’s chest.

The stranger mutters “ move it .”

It lures a slight growl from Daxeel. He watches the litalf male scuttle down a dark, narrow corridor, then disappear through a door.

Eamon leans back to snatch my arm and calls to the group, “Stick close!”

He yanks me into step behind him.

Aleana is pushed into place behind me just as a stack of wobbly parcels spears down the hall, wobbling on their own—or so I thought, until the familiar metal clang of snapping brownie teeth gnashes near my boots.

I look down at the creature who balances all seven parchment-wrapped parcels on his head and carries them through the back door into the gardens.

Aleana hisses a curse.

My gaze swerves to her not a moment before she starts to hit at her hair. A band of pixies fall out, some steal a strand of hair, yank it right out of Aleana’s head, then fly off in a flurry.

Cursing, Aleana swats at the pests until a half-dozen of them fall onto her shoulders. The stragglers take flight—with more of her hair.

Aleana snarls after them. “Pests.”

“If Samick were here, he would’ve eaten them,” I say and push from the wall.

That earns a scoff from her.

Behind us, Daxeel draws closer; a shadow that sticks close to Aleana and me down the rest of the hallway.

Dare follows, but his attention is so far from protecting us from more almost-attacks. Instead, he’s snatched a purple apple from a potted plant, and bites into it. I hear the crunch.

The other wall gives way to an ascending staircase, old and wooden and creaky. The runner rug is flattened from too much traffic over many decades, I imagine. Craning my neck to see beyond the dusty banister, I catch a glimpse of a human whose waist is cinched with a bodice—a bodice that has the hand of a dokkalf female caressing it.

My brows hike at the blatant kiss the fae and human share, out in the open. A dokkalf in Dorcha could never.

That’s when it clicks in my mind, like fingers snapping.

It’s just another Midlands. Some folk can be freer here than in their own lands.

Ahead, Eamon ducks, and not a second after, a stack of envelopes comes zipping overhead. They graze the crown of my hair.

Aleana shoves by me, her boots tripping over themselves as she evades the whipping vines that lash out at her from the cracks of the floorboards.

I flatten my hand on her shoulder blade and manoeuvre her to walk in front of me.

That fast exposes me to Daxeel.

He is close now that the soft wool of his sweater brushes against the light material of my dress.

I feel his warmth on my back like a soothing caress.

The unpredictable nature of those stranger fae around us is what keeps him this close to me—and I doubt he’ll leave my side this whole trip.

Eamon calls over his shoulder at us, “They built it from redstone, so it doesn’t burn if this city catches flame again.”

Stone doesn’t burn —it’s a half-truth.

Really, flames from the fae realm can eat through just about anything that isn’t redstone or ateralum.

So I guess the real saying should be black metal doesn’t burn, and neither does redstone, but pray for everything else .

Not as catchy.

My interest is fast snared when Dare shoulders into me to snag an ivory rose from a vase.

He brings it to his nose. The inhale of its fragrance fills his chest.

Roses are intoxicating to litalves—not to the dark fae. So I watch, a bit of wonder on my slack face, as he breathes in a second high from the rose before he tosses it aside, and it’s discarded on the floorboards of this Midhouse.

A stark contrast between his natures, the littering from the dark, the high from the light—and he lives somewhere between the two.

Dare intrigues me that way, how he seems to be so utterly dokkalf, but with little glimmers of light that strike as a reminder of his breed. Everything about him is so convincingly dark fae that I do forget sometimes he’s like Eamon, one of both.

Daxeel’s grip steals my wrist.

Before I can throw him a frown, I am yanked into the solid muscle of his chest—and right where I walked, a second ago, a sudden small fire ignites.

Rogue fireflies.

The stress of it has my teeth bared as I rush to keep up with Eamon through this seemingly never-ending corridor.

I don’t love it here.

The buzz doesn’t excite me, but instead suffocates me. It’s too chaotic, too jarring—it is scattered and I loathe it all.

So I’m fast to follow Eamon through the front door and suck in a hit of fresh air that’s not polluted by a crowd of fae and creatures and flying envelopes.

“Wait out here.” Eamon gestures ahead to the wooden fence that separates the townhouse from the street. “I’ll get us some human money.”

Before he can disappear back inside, I say, “I can glamour. I just need some leaves or parchment—”

“Some places are run by our kind,” he tells me with a wink, as though it’ll soften the blow that my skills aren’t as useful as I thought. “They will know a glamour when they see it.”

My mouth pushes out with a pout.

He pushes back inside the Midhouse, Ridge at his heels.

I watch after them a moment, then slide my gaze to Daxeel.

Across the stone courtyard, he leans against the edge of the open gate, ankles crossed, hands deep in his pockets. His gaze cuts between me and Aleana, his instincts torn on who to hover closest to.

Dare, on the other hand, has forgotten us.

He has wandered out beyond the Midhouse border to the black, gravelled road. He pauses to look down at a grate across the way, then inspects a green bi-see-kal like it’s the most fascinating invention he’s ever seen and he just has to know how to destroy it.

I notice no kars in sight, but this road is narrow, and there are black posts dotted all around it, so I doubt any kars could squeeze through.

Aleana folds her arms over her chest and deflates against the fence. Boredom has set into her already, in the dead gaze she slides around the ordinary street, rowed with townhouses and a mere road.

I nudge her with my arm. “It’s better than this.”

She turns her tired eyes on me.

The disappointment she wears doesn’t sag her, but it tenses her, tightens her mouth and scrunches her brow. “It’s just some homes. Kithe is prettier.”

“I promise there is more. So much more,” I say with a smile. “You will glide. You will float.”

Aleana’s expression softens, but the rigid tension in her bones doesn’t relax. Still, she slides a step closer to me, until her arm is pressed up against mine—and so I know she hangs onto my words. Because this isn’t just any promise I am making. This is fulfilling a deathbed wish.

I lean into her, our temples rested together. I add in a whisper, “You will be light as a feather.”

I deliver on my promise.

It takes twenty minutes of walking—from the Midhouse, down some ordinary, narrow streets without proper roads where kars can drive through—before we reach the town I remember.

Just once, I visited with Eamon. Smaller towns are the ones I prefer. This one feels like a beast to be battled, a monster in a ballad that must be overcome. Tall enough to graze the murky clouds, metal like Knife’s mouth.

This one is called Lun-dun.

And I sort of hate it. But I’m sort of intrigued by it, too.

Our walk slows to a wander as we reach the wider, busier roads, the ones packed with kars that crawl, the ones with the humans dressed in peculiar black clothes with firm shouldered jackets and who talk into fones or tap them with a touch of urgent aggression. They bump into one another, shoulders smacking off shoulders, muttered apologies, shouted curses—but no one bumps into any of us.

The humans don’t need to even lift their gazes from their captivating fones for their instincts to avoid us.

I always thought it a funny thing, how we lure them in but repel them at the same time. A poison they ache to taste, all the while knowing that it will ruin them.

No one tastes our poison this night.

And we make it to the place of ice before Aleana’s mood can further sour.

The ice-floors I’ve seen before weren’t like this one. The ones I saw, the ones I indulged in a handful of times, were outside. No walls to encompass the flat ice, and they came only in the season of winter. But this one is within the enclosure of a building larger than the High Court. Duller, but larger.

And it’s enough to brighten the life back into Aleana.

Maybe it’s the grand size of the flattened, smooth ice, or that Eamon brings us boots with metal razors wedged into the soles, or that there are bright lights of red and blue and yellow swerving all over, or even that some ghastly thumping music screeches from all angles—whatever it is exactly, a grin is pinned to her face from the moment she wobbles onto the ice.

I keep my balance on those metal razors just fine. It’s not that I’ve done this so many times before and therefore I have skill from practice. It’s fae nature, a natural talent I’m born with—as is Aleana.

So when she reaches out her trembling hands for mine, as though if I don’t hold onto her, she’ll crack hard onto the icy ground, I smile something small at the faith she doesn’t have in herself but should.

Even poorly, she will glide better than any human who has ever skated on ice.

Still, I take her hands in mine.

The strength in her slender fingers is something of a surprise, because she’s crushing my fucking bones as I push myself back—and as I start to float, she’s pulled with me…

And she glides.

Her lashes flutter over crystalline eyes.

Her grip is still tight on my hands, but her shoulders loosen the tension she’s carried with her since we arrived in the human realm.

And I do the work.

I manoeuvre us, push and kick us around the ice. All Aleana has to do is hold onto me. She only has to float.

Eamon and Ridge fast grow bored of our pace.

In just some minutes, they start to circle us, drifting further and further away, until we’re outright abandoned and they take off to the reaches of the ice-floor.

Dare and Daxeel watch from the barrier down the way.

And for a long while, Aleana and I drift around in silence.

My voice is soft as I ask, “Is there anything else you want to do at least once?”

A whisper of shame, the same that floods her face pink, “Yes.”

I pause as we glide past a human couple.

Once we’re out of their earshot, but not spared from their curious glances, I turn back to Aleana.

“And? What is it?”

There’s no hesitation in her before she answers, “Bedding.”

My eyebrows lift. “You… You haven’t…?”

She shakes her head. “I’m surrounded.”

The pinkish hue on her cheeks turns to scarlet blotches smearing the ashen pallor of her skin.

“Between Daxeel and his friends, and mother,” she sighs the words and rolls back her eyes, “I haven’t had the opportunity to be alone… with a male.”

Before I can answer, Eamon and Ridge spear by us.

Aleana’s hair lifts in the breeze they hit us with.

I fight the urge to throw a scowl after them, since they skate much too fast. Too fast for Aleana, who rattles with a fright; too fast for the stray humans who watch them with a hint of wonder in their frowns and narrowed gazes.

I shake my head in muted annoyance, then turn back to Aleana. Her hair settles back into place along her shoulders; neatly cropped.

“If you could be alone,” I start, careful, since the last time I asked after her desires, we had a slight spat, “who would you be alone with?”

She glowers at a nearby human adolescent who slips against the barrier. “Rune.”

My brow hikes.

It’s no surprise that she would choose Rune. The surprise is in the truth of it, that she tells me this with little more than a red face, but no hesitation.

I wonder if it’s that we’re closer now than we were back at the Gloaming—or that she’s nearing her end, so has no patience for secrets anymore.

“But,” she enunciates, and her grin is more of a bared-teeth look, “Daxeel would never allow me to be second to a dead evate—and neither would Rune. I think that’s all the more reason for it to be him. He puts me above his own desires, he wants to protect my heart more than he wants to take from me.”

Maybe I should be more grateful for this moment with her, that she shares these secrets with me now.

I’m not.

Last time I entered the topic of Rune with her, it didn’t end so well for me. And our reconciliation didn’t come with false apologies or embraces of shame. We just went on as though it never happened.

So I’m not overly enthused about her confiding in me now. I walk dangerous lines with Daxeel. Aleana snapping at me, annoyed with me, could damage my progress.

Time is too short for me to play with my relationship any more than I already have. There are less than three weeks until the second passage, and then Daxeel will be gone for the duration of it. About a week spent battling on the Mountain of Slumber. That week will not be useful to me in fighting for a future with him. So really, I have just more than two weeks with Daxeel. Then the Sacrament ends—and father steals me back to Licht, either throws me into a cruel marriage, or sends me off to the Grott as punishment for all my wrongs committed here in the Midlands.

Some short weeks left to save my future.

I don’t want to risk any of those precious minutes on Aleana getting cross with me. The reluctance keeps my tone careful as I say, “Seems everyone is so busy considering what they think is best for you, rather than listening to what you actually want.” I know the feeling. “Maybe—” I glance down the ice-floor at Daxeel. He watches us closely, but from this distance, I doubt he can hear us. Still, I keep my voice low, just in case. “—you could write a letter. If you have not enough courage to face the one you want, write a letter to him. Daxeel doesn’t have to know everything.”

“Maybe,” she echoes in a whisper, and so I know she hides her words from her watchful brother as I do, “if he agrees, someone could keep Daxeel distracted for that time.”

Distract Daxeel while his best friend beds his sister.

Yes, I get myself into all sorts of bother.

Hardly matters that it comes from a good place, does it? Not when the result is helping another betrayal against the love of my life.

My enthusiasm shows in the heavy sigh I release.

I drop my head in what feels so much like defeat.

But Aleana doesn’t notice anything other than Eamon who skids around us at a leaning angle, taunting us.

Ridge has taken to leaning against the barrier where Daxeel has his forearms braced on the ledge.

It takes me a few moments to find Dare, and if I thought he was predictable, I was wrong.

He doesn’t flirt with anyone or eye-bed any nearby females. He stands in front of a floor-to-ceiling portrait of sorts, an image of something I’ve enjoyed before, but only once: A dark wafer cone swirled with chocolate beneath a beige-toned ice-cream.

He's enamoured by it, this picture of ice-cream.

A snort jerks me before I turn back to Aleana.

Her smile follows Eamon as he keeps his wide circles around us, around and around, but her lashes are heavier now, her grip on my hands looser.

“How do you feel?” I ask.

Her voice is silk, “Like I’m gliding.”

And so, for a long while, we keep gliding.

The time comes when Eamon waves us down from the other side of the ice-floor.

Daxeel’s gaze isn’t focused only on me as I support the bulk of Aleana’s weight and skate over to them. He watches us both, silent, face unreadable.

Then he moves for Aleana and helps her to the bench.

Eamon and Ridge are already back in their boots by the time I’m tugging my skates off.

Dare gestures to the massive portrait that’s glossed on the wall, and there is nothing playful in his tone as he says, “I want that.”

And there it is.

Another sliver of litalf in his otherwise dark nature.

What dokkalf sees an image of ice-cream and decides he must find one to taste for himself?

None.

It’s so decidedly litalf of him, not unlike the curious gleam in his glamoured-hazel eyes as he throws the portrait a final glance before we leave the hall of ice floor.

Ridge stirs a spoonful of chocolate chips into his mint ice-cream. “Where are the others?”

Though it was a long walk here, about an hour, I decide that Eamon found this place too easily. He knew exactly where this ice-cream shop was.

I’m suspecting too much of him now, like he’s done too much in this realm without me, activities and explorations beyond the duties of his career.

Eamon stretches his arms above his head. He stifles a yawn. “What others?”

I throw a glance around the crammed, white shop. No other humans in here, but the server in her red striped dress.

Ridge gestures his white spoon at Dare beside me at the glass counter, then at Daxeel who took the seat beside his sister. “You know, the others—the ones you’re often with.”

Aleana hums a sound of understanding. “Rune and Samick.”

“Samick would never come here,” Daxeel says, his tone cutting. “Rune wouldn’t risk it.”

It’s obvious what he means.

Rune wouldn’t risk the hit to his reputation. Especially not since he’s after a leadership role in General Caspan’s unit, particularly Bracken’s role of second-in-command. Running around the human realm for a spot of entertainment would not reflect well on him, no matter the reasons.

The server girl sighs something small, but undeniably impatient.

My head snaps to the side. The glare in my eyes washes out her face and she takes an instinctual step back.

Her impatience can make its way up her ass. It’s not like there are any patrons in this shop but us, so she can wait for Dare and I to order, as long as we take.

Dare couldn’t care less about the server girl. If he noticed her huffy sigh, and I’m sure he did, he doesn’t reward it with any response at all.

Dare tilts his head to the side as he eyes up the flavours on the other side of the glass. His fist tightens around a stack of human money parchment.

My gaze sweeps over the one titled ‘ caramel ’.

I tap my finger on the glass and order that one.

Dare orders the ‘ rocky road ’.

The server keeps her blank stare on us as she starts to pile ice-cream onto the wafer cones. Not once does she feel a moment safe enough to look away from us, despite our glamours.

I’m sure it’s got more to do with Dare than myself.

Her slight blush is for his obvious handsomeness, but the glint of fear in her gaze is for the threat that lurks a beneath his skin, like the slinking muscles of a tiger just strolling through the woods. Not on the prowl, but always what it is.

Her instincts warn her about me. But they scream for him.

And he’s only half-dokkalf.

She might just wet herself if Daxeel comes up to order anything.

Her gaze darts between us as she moves for the coin box.

I almost smile at her sharp nature.

It might serve her well one day, her wariness. Of course, I doubt she even suspects what we are. She only knows that we aren’t like her. Something off about us. But the realms have been separated for so long now, and we are little more than creatures in old stories lost to time.

Most of those stories were about my kind. The litalves.

Our kind interacted with them most.

To the humans, we are light fae, we are all fae, or we are angels. The ones of gods and even the fallen ones. But the dokkalves are demons, vampires, reapers and devils. Light or dark, no matter which side, we are forever embedded in the mortals’ immortal stories.

Maybe that’s why the girl is torn between the blush that burns her cheeks and the tremble of her hand as she taps some buttons on the money box. Her desire for Dare reddens her face, but her fear has her gaze cutting away every other second, and her voice trembling as she manages, “Nine pounds.”

Dare doesn’t count out the notes as he slaps two brown ones down on the glass. Neither does he share her pandering desire found in the tentative smile she aims at him as she hands over the cones.

I know Dare well enough that I doubt he’ll ever look at the shop girl with a hint of that lust she craves from him.

She’s too narrow in her shape, too stick-like, and since I met him in the Fae Eclipse, he’s only ever chased females with more generous shapes.

As Dare passes me my ice-cream cone, I notice the inky sketch that was on his palm some phases ago is gone, washed away.

“Decided against the sun?” I clamp my mouth around cold of the ice-cream. My face wrinkles against the instant bite of cold. “I thought you would get it tattooed.”

“I will.” He turns his back on the glass casing. He lifts his free hand and presses it flat against the spot between his pecs. “Right here.”

I study his profile for a moment, the low set of his long lashes—how it casts shadows over his sharp cheekbones. A distant sadness in him.

“You’ll find her,” I say. “You wouldn’t feel her if you weren’t going to find her soon.”

He just glances at me for a heartbeat, then returns to his pink, chunky ice-cream. Like I hadn’t spoken at all, he stares at the table the others are gathered around, but I suspect his mind is elsewhere.

Aleana pushes her paper cup aside. “I don’t like it.”

Her ice-cream isn’t frozen anymore, just a murky liquid with some sweets trickled all over it, and the colours are bleeding.

She wipes are her lips with a napkin as she lifts her gaze over Ridge’s shoulder at me. “Do you have any honeywine?”

I look down at my body, the small black dress and plain black boots. Where would I have honeywine stashed away?

Eamon reaches into his pocket. “I’ll call Bee and get us a table at a bar.”

Daxeel’s jaw clenches, tight. Shadows cut into his cheeks, his dimples deep enough that I think his teeth should shatter in his mouth.

“Bee is a friend in this land,” Eamon adds at Aleana’s questioning look.

Her frown doesn’t lessen as he tugs out a black fone from his pocket.

I step closer.

Just a step, but enough to betray myself. I didn’t know he had one of those fones.

And with this trip, it’s starting to feel like there are so many parts of Eamon I don’t know.

He hits some buttons on the fone then lifts it to his ear.

On the chair beside him, Ridge inches his curious frown closer and studies the back of it as though reading invisible inscriptions, learning all its secrets.

I’m fleetingly reminded of Dare on the street outside of the Midhouse studying the bi-see-kal.

Daxeel’s hard look is lethal enough to completely silence both me and Aleana. Seems about ready to snatch us back to the Midlands and throw us in the dungeons.

I don’t risk so much as a bite of my ice-cream. Not that I liked it anyway, this flavoured winter.

Aleana has taken to staring at a framed portrait of colour on the wall as though it’s the most interesting thing she’s ever seen.

Neither of us move an inch.

Faintly, a trilling sound comes from the fone. So quiet that I’m certain the server who cleans under the shelves across the small shop can’t hear. But then the trilling stops—and there’s a voice to replace it.

I blink, surprise slackening my face.

The echoes of a female’s voice are distant, but undeniably coming from that thing in Eamon’s hand. He speaks when the other voice pauses, and I’m not so focused on what he’s saying, rather that he seems to be communicating with Bee through a black metal slab.

I have seen it before, in the humans on the street, humans I pass by in my visits to this land. Yet, I’m as stricken as though it’s the first time, because I never truly understood the purpose of that thing, what it really does beyond hooking the attention of its human.

I’m not alone in my intrigue.

Aleana can’t contain her curiosity anymore. She leans over the table, staring at the fone with the same wonder I wear.

Only Dare and Daxeel seem unfazed by one of their own expertly using this strange invention. I guess it’s that they simply don’t care.

Dare just wipes napkins at his hands and mouth.

Daxeel turns in his chair to lean against the wall, a better angle to slide his fierce gaze between me and his sister.

“I’ll go to a bar,” Dare decides and draws in Daxeel’s attention. They share a silent look, words unspoken in a heavy moment before he adds, “While we can.”

That decides it.

Daxeel’s jaw tightens even more, and he looks about ready to swipe out for a throat, any throat, the closest throat to his reach. But a heartbeat passes before he loosens his tense agitation with a curt breath. His grip on the back of Aleana’s chair firms.

I devour my ice-cream.

It’s not my absolute favourite treat in the human lands, since it’s so cold, but I scarf it down all the same.

Though I find I like it better now that it’s runny and warmer, a sweet, sugary soup of sorts.

Dare is the only other to finish the treat. The rest are left abandoned as we leave the shop behind.

Eamon leads us through the growing crowds that gather on the streets of Lun-dun.

The throngs of humans thicken the longer that we walk, so I know we’re prowling closer to the centre of this town.

Ridge keeps to his side, even once we reach the iron-arch entrance of a gardens after the better part of an hour. He keeps Eamon all to himself. Under the rush of moonlight, they walk the circle of a water fountain, their voices carrying as little more than low murmurs.

Aleana shadows Dare to the stone podium etched with inscriptions. He leans his shoulder on the statue that protrudes from an engraved podium and reads the inscriptions with a muted touch of interest.

And I stand on the edge of the shade cast over the path. Arms wrapped around myself, I soothe the pebbles of my flesh; a prickle that comes with the late night cold.

Daxeel advances on me like a shadow.

The familiar scent of almonds and fresh earth tickles my nose before the warmth of his chest draws near my spine.

A soft quiet sweeps us like a breeze. His relaxed breath rustles the hair at my ear; then the gentle graze of his fingertips over my arm. He brushes the fallen strap of my dress up along my pebbled skin, then gently tucks it into place.

My lashes flutter.

“Are you cold?” The natural gravel of his voice is subdued into something of a whisper, a murmur.

It warms the shell of my ear.

He has no coat to offer me, and his sweater—I’m sure—is not layered with another. If I take it from him, he will bear his naked chest to the humans. And in this moment, with his chest pressed gently to my spine, and the way he curves over me, his mouth hot on the bow of my ear, I don’t doubt he would give me the sweater off his back.

Before I can answer, before I can melt into him and feel the lie of his embrace, the dishonesties in his kiss, the betrayal in his tender touch, a female voice calls from the street—

“That ass in those jeans!”

My gaze cuts down the path, beyond the fountain, to the arched iron entrance of the gardens, and not a moment after, a two-part whistle hikes the air.

The sound draws in all gazes from the fae prowling the path.

Dare looks over the crown of Aleana’s head to the human who struts through the entrance. His lashes flutter before his jaw tightens.

The human locks her gaze onto Eamon. Her crooked grin is cocky like her lazy stride; a muted air of confidence, of an ease she has for herself.

Eamon draws away from the fountain.

The grin that sweeps his face is a brilliant one—and it twists my insides with an ugly feeling I know too well. The jealousy surges through me with enough force to curl my lips into a silent snarl.

I aim it at the woman advancing on us.

Then she moves into the soft glow of the light brushing the path—

And I recognize her.

This isn’t the first time I’ve met Bee. But since time works differently between the worlds and she’s in the faster human lands, it takes me a moment to understand the differences I see in her.

Sometimes, I wonder if it is the simple fact that there is more time stretched out into a single phase in the fae realm, or that the days and nights are shorter in the human lands. When there is little to do, time seems to stretch on for eternity—and sometimes, when I stare down the notched arrow into centuries of life, it frightens me so much that… I might like to fall.

And I decide that an almost-forever is a scary truth to Bee, too. She’s chosen the human lands, to age and grow old and die.

I can see the process of time all over her.

Two years has passed to me since I last saw her.

But that is eight years to her.

Guess she is around twenty-nine years old now, and in that time, she’s rid herself of those blonde highlights through her mousy hair that’s now chopped to the length of her collarbone. She’s gained some fine lines around her eyes, too. Not terrible, not ugly or old, and I still think her pretty—but she didn’t have those faint wrinkles last time I saw her.

She didn’t have that shape either.

Bee was human in her body back then, but now she’s womanly.

If I ever wondered the difference, it’s shown to me as she strides up the path, her full figure swaying with each step: Wide hips silhouetted by dusty pink trousers, and the shape of her full breasts contoured in the strappy white top moulding to her like a second skin.

No brassiere, I notice as she strolls closer.

Dare notices, too.

That much is obvious in the blatant stare he has directed at the approaching human, the gaze that burns into the peak of her nipples against flimsy white material.

He hasn’t moved an inch since she called out from the street. His gaze drops to trace the curves of her wide hips. He’s unmoving from the statue he leans his shoulder on, and I’m half-certain he can’t move, like he’s been stunned, petrified forever.

Eamon passes the now-statuesque Dare, and he spreads his arms wide for the human woman.

Before Bee can get too close, close enough for Eamon to pull her into a hug, Aleana breaks out of her silence—she staggers forward a step and a vicious snarl crawls through her.

Bee falters.

She arches a brow and slowly turns to aim her quizzical look right at Aleana. A small smile plays on her pink-painted lips as she raises her hands, as though in surrender.

Her tone is teasing, “Look like a human, not a human. I come in peace.”

Eamon laughs something of a dismissal and closes the distance between them in two long strides. He throws his arm around Bee’s slight shoulders, then pulls her into his embrace.

Aleana silences her snarl, but her eyes stay narrowed. “If you’re not a human—”

Dare finishes in a broken growl, “What are you?”

I throw him a bewildered look. Not because of his question, but for the lust that burns in his eyes, lust strong enough that flickers of gold dance over the hazel hues, a desire that threatens to break through the glamour.

Eamon draws back from the embrace. “She’s kinta.” The warning look he throws around the watchful fae, the look he lingers over me and Aleana, isn’t one to ignore. “And a friend of mine.”

Dare blinks his surprise away in two rapid gestures.

Slowly, he unfolds his arms from his chest and pushes from the statue. “Kinta.”

There is no judgement in the way he speaks the word, not like the way Ridge runs his gaze over Bee. Dare says it as though just remembering them, that kintas exist, and he’d forgotten all about them until this very moment.

“Great.” Bee claps her hands together. “Now that we’ve gotten that out the way,” she pauses to twirl her finger in a bossy lets-go gesture, “should we get a move on?”

“Where?” I ask and she looks at me for the first time since she called out to Eamon. “Hello,” I add, maybe a tad ashamed. “You look well.”

Her smile breaks out into a grin, then she winks her greeting at me. “It’s Tuesday, so that leaves two clubs. I figured since you’re all fae, you’d like Ceol best.”

Stepping back, she hails us to follow her lead, then starts down the path.

Eamon falls into step at her side.

We peel away from our spots and follow.

Daxeel shadows me, his hand lingering near the small of my back, but never quite touching.

I ache for the pressure of his touch, the strength of his hand on my body, but the ache in my chest grows cold at the thought, because even that little indulgence would betray everything I’m trying to do.

The silence I keep between us, the distance in how I regard him, it’s what draws him in closer to me, desperate for the approval of his evate.

That desperation has him glued to me, shadowing my movements, all the way to the street beyond the arch.

Bee stops at the edge of the road, then raises her hand in the air. Her lower lip sucks inwards before she issues a grating whistle.

It earns a curt hiss from Aleana.

She folds her arms and leans into Dare, who doesn’t take his fierce, steady stare off Bee.

At the sound of the whistle, a black kar across the road rumbles to life. The noise is as deafening and chugging as a beast growling before a brutal attack. It curves around the road ahead.

“You can pay the taxi driver in glamoured notes.” Bee turns to face us, but I suspect Dare isn’t listening, since he’s taken a step to the side to study her better.

His gaze lingers over her pear-sharped backside.

“But at Ceol,” she goes on, “you have to pay your bill in gold or true pounds. No glamoured currency there.”

The black kar stops in front of us.

Eamon pats the pocket of his dark blue trousers. “I have pounds.”

With a nod, Bee yanks the kar door open and gestures for us to get in.

So we do.

One by one, we clamber and climb into the kar.

Dare is last, right behind Bee, and I suspect he stayed behind her in the street to keep staring at her backside.

I almost roll my eyes at him.

That poor shop girl just needed wider hips.

The kar starts down the road. The vibrations jolt me on the seat like I’m stuck in some rogue carriage from Cheapside.

Bee uses the time to dish out more rules. “No fights, no killing, no tormenting the humans who will be there. It’s a free space, all species—”

Aleana cuts her off, “The humans know?”

Bee shakes her head. A mousy thread of hair falls into her almost sickly pale face, like she hasn’t basked in the sun for many months. “The humans at Ceol don’t know about the fae. But the owners are litalves—so please, for my sake, behave. My ass is on the line if you fuck up.”

Sitting opposite her, Dare doesn’t hide how obvious is unfaltering stare is… His golden stare.

It reminds me to touch up the glamours in the kar before we arrive at the bar.

Daxeel doesn’t need a touch up, but once I hesitate on reaching for him sitting across from me, he finally gets what he wants. My gaze.

I look at him.

The power of his ocean stare is a punch to the gut. So much force behind his hunger for me, I forget all about Dare and the kinta, about everyone else in this kar, and only we exist.

For a long while, our gazes are locked; our breaths sync, steady and gentle; and he melts into me as deeply as I to him.

A warm sensation trickles through my insides. It soothes the ache in my chest, and I don’t know if it’s my emotion or his. All the same, I soak in it, swim in the dangerous blues of his eyes and hear only my own heartbeats for the rest of the ride.

Everything else fades away.

I love you.

I want to breathe those words that spiral through me. But I bite my tongue and drop my gaze.

I look down at the loose black threads of his sweater, the whispers of bronzed skin behind the material. The urge to reach out and brush my fingertips over the smooth, tight flesh of his chest—

The kar jolts to a stop.

It’s sudden enough that I slip off my seat—and Daxeel moves for me.

His hands steal my waist.

My breath hitches at the touch.

Then I pull back, out of his grip, as the grating sound of the door opening floods the cabin.

I scramble out after the others.

Daxeel doesn’t let me get away. Not that easily.

He is fast out the kar behind me.

Stealing my wrist in his, he keeps me close as Bee leads us to a set of parted doors. A rope blocks our path, but she flashes a smile at the bulky male guarding the door.

One look at him, and I am certain he is a glamoured litalf; it’s in the way his orange hair keeps a blood-red hue and the blues of his eyes flicker lilac every other second.

He spares a smile on Bee before he unhooks the rope.

A ripple of annoyance spreads through a long row of humans that reaches down the side of the blue-faced building. I spare them a mere glance, hearing the cursed words murmured under breaths, the sighs of exasperation, then follow the others inside.

Through the doors, a sudden muted sensation presses against my ears like the weight of bathwater when I submerge myself too long.

A female—a dokkalf, by the sharp points of all her teeth—sits behind a desk with a money box and a row of coats and bags behind her. The impish grin she offers us is less of a welcome and more of a threat.

Bee pays her no mind, just passes her by, headed for the heavy, crystallised door on the other side of the foyer.

Dare uncorks a small phial before handing it to Aleana.

I recognize the tonic as she brings it to her lips, then downs it all in one gulp.

The corners of my mouth dig into my cheeks.

So much for quitting the tonics.

Ahead, Bee leans into Eamon, shouting out her words. I hear what sounds like “vee-eye-pee” but in this under-water pressure, it’s hard to make out much sound at all.

She shoves through the weighted door—

And in that instant, we’re sucked into a whole other world.

Never in my life have I seen anything like this.

Not a bar. Bee called it a club .

I always thought a club was just a weapon. Suppose this place is named after one because it assaults every sense with loud, booming music that bludgeons me. As do the lights flashing all sorts of colourful flares at me, and the excitable screams that lift from the raging dancefloor. Raging is what it is, I decide. Folk and human alike, jumping and pushing and throwing up their hands. No technique in the way they move. Some sway with the beat, some are standing but surely asleep, and others just… brutalise the air around them.

It’s a strange sight to behold.

Dare takes to watching them move.

He braces his forearms on the gated barrier that separates the podium from the lower floor, and his gaze sweeps from human to fae, from twirl to air-punch.

I draw away from the barrier.

Aleana has plopped herself onto the plush leather bench arched around a table. Daxeel sits some inches further down, an unreadable look on his face, as though carved from bronzed marble. If his patience is a thread, I suspect it has frayed to the point of snapping any moment now.

I avoid his gaze and slide onto the bench beside Aleana.

“You took tonic,” I say, and my words are almost drowned out by the incessant thumping of that grim music. “If you are too sickly, we can return—”

Aleana waves her hand dismissively. “It is worth it,” she shouts out the words over the assault of the music. “I want this… to live !”

My lips part around silence.

I want to live.

I want you to live, too, Aleana.

But that’s not quite what she meant, and I take no trouble in understanding her. These moments, these adventures, are what to live is—moments she didn’t have in her poorly life before I came along.

That’s why she reaches out her hand for mine and squeezes my fingers gently, a small smile painted onto her pale lips.

Ridge sits on the high-back of the bench, his boots pressed into the leather seat; a better vantage point of the whole club, and so I suspect he’s on the lookout for Eamon.

After Bee led us to this booth, Eamon left with her. And it’s a while before Ridge straightens his spine, alerting to their return.

I push up from the booth.

My gaze sweeps the edge of the dancefloor before it lands on Eamon, carrying two smoky-glass bottles bigger than any honeywine bottle I’ve ever seen.

Behind him, Bee weaves through the throngs of humans at the edge of the dancefloor. Flat on her hand, she holds a tray of tumblers above her head. Not a single glass wobbles as she makes for the short staircase to this upper podium.

Dare turns to lean back against the gated barrier. He turns his chin to graze his shoulder and watches Bee approach.

I think it peculiar that the human males don’t spare a lingering glance on her. Like she’s merely another face, a simple and plain one, just passing them by. It’s almost as though they don’t quite consider her as pretty as she is, but to us—the fae—she is a beauty. Maybe what is fine to the fae is ordinary to the humans.

I see it.

I see it in them, the humans, watch them through the eyes of the dark ones. How they want more and more, kill themselves and their earth to get it. Carriages and horses into kars and bi- see-kals. Bars into clubs. Lanterns into whatever the hell those blinding colourful lights are above, the ones I want to rip out of the ceiling.

But those thoughts wash away the moment Eamon slams the bottles down on the table and uncorks them.

He starts to pour out the clear liquid into tumblers.

Scooted to the edge of the bench, Aleana watches the dancers just as the beat switches up for something more bass-thumped. Slowly, her face scrunches up and she ignores the fresh drink that Eamon pushes to her. “This music is awful.”

Bee just grins, and I wonder if her cheeks hurt from all the forced smiles she’s crafting for us. Part of her job, I think. Not only to get us into the club, secure us a booth on this upper level overlooking the dancefloor, but to keep the drinks coming, smile and laugh and entertain.

I listen to the fresh beat of the new song, the bass strong enough to thunder the floor beneath my boots.

“What is the singer saying?” Ridge shouts his question, face creased against the blast of the music, and he lifts his hand as if to gesture to the song assaulting us. “His nether region is perspiring?”

Eamon fights off a laugh. His face strains and he lifts his glass to his twisted mouth.

Bee barks a laugh. “It’s a popular song. It’s hip-hop.”

Ridge echoes, speaking the words as though they are utterly foreign to him, “Hip. Hop.”

Eamon adds an extra frozen cube of ice to his drink. It splashes some droplets over his hand that he ignores. “If you think these lyrics are crude…” Whatever he says after that, I don’t hear, because his volume drops below the beat, and he joins Ridge up on the back of the booth.

Bee fills the last tumbler and hands it to Dare who comes up to her side. “Fuck Her Gently is a favourite of mine.”

Dare’s eye flash, and the force of it almost breaks the glamour I spindled to dim those golden irises of his.

I doubt anyone else notices that his fingers tighten around the glass he hasn’t yet lifted to his lips.

I’m in two minds about it, about him . I have witnessed his skills of seduction, watched him break hearts like they were nothing more than glass ornaments in his iron grip; I have watched him seduce females above his social standing and in another land entirely, then grin as they wept for him.

Never have I seen him struck silent by a female.

And as I watch him, I’m certain he doesn’t quite know what to do about his obvious crush on Bee. That’s what I sense here, not a target, not ordinary desire— a crush .

Maybe he hasn’t had a kinta before, let alone one who lives in the human realm, so he is learning her as Daxeel learned me all that time ago.

Aleana asks, a blush creeping over her cheekbones, “Are all the songs about body parts and bedding?”

Bee shakes her head, a stray strand of mousy hair falling over her shoulder—and Dare watches the icy-blond tip caress her clavicle as though it’s the map to Mother’s ear.

“You lot would better like rock.” Her crooked smile is wicked and she sweeps it over the males. “It’s dark. Violent .”

Dare moves closer to her, an almost imperceivable step.

The kinta doesn’t notice, but I do.

Aleana’s face is as blank as mine.

I throw the bother from my mind because I frankly don’t care much about the music anymore, not when I spot—just some booths down—a human man smoking something that looks like rolled stalk.

It strikes a hunger through me. “Bee! Is that valerian?” I point my finger to the human down the way. “Can I get some?”

She blinks her long lashes at me in a way that has me deciding on her flirtatious nature. Even with females, she just… flirts. I wonder if it’s a natural thing for her, if she isn’t all that aware of it—or maybe she is, and she’s devious like that.

I find I like the latter.

Now that I think of it, I might sort of like the kinta.

I would like her more if she didn’t steal away my Eamon.

“You can get some from me,” she croons, and yes , I decide, she is a flirt. “Half-piece of gold for one.”

“A half-piece?” My voice hitches into what would be a screech if it weren’t for the squeaky pitch of it. “For a valerian stalk?”

She grins, her human teeth as white and dazzling as freshly polished pearls. “It’s imported.”

Eamon chokes on a laugh.

I throw a scowl at him.

It’s Dare who asks, “Grimroot?”

He’s taken another almost imperceptible step closer to the kinta.

If she notices, she keeps her secrets.

That’s what I see in her eyes as she turns to look through her lashes at him.

Secrets.

“Do you know how hard it is to get anything smuggled into this world from Dorcha? I’ve got a better chance of waking up full fae than getting my hands on grimroot.”

He just looks at her.

I’m certain he didn’t listen to anything she said.

“Valerian is all I have for you.” She gestures around but her gaze lingers over me. “You’re half human. You can try some human stuff but it’s hardcore, so I suggest sticking to the stalk—unless you want to talk to the gods.”

Before I can ask what hardcore means, Eamon shakes his head and a darkness has settled over his face. “It’s as bad as recreational use of the white and black powders.”

The rattle of metal skids across the table.

Daxeel tossed a single gold nugget to Bee. He settles back into the leathered cushion of the bench and spreads his arms out over the backs. He returns to his detached lounging.

Bee slaps her hand down on the gold piece and, with a wink aimed at me, pockets it. “That’s two.”

True to the deal, even if it’s a bad one, she sets two rolled valerian stalks down beside the hefty glass bottle in a metal tin, and I have not the faintest clue where she pulled them from.

Aleana is quick to snatch one up.

Daxeel throws her a dark warning look.

I think of the tower at Comlar, of all the efforts made to keep the smoke of the grimroot away from her.

I lean in closer. “Can you smoke that? Are you well enough?”

She shrugs, an impish smile on her face. “We will find out.”

And we do.

As it turns out, Aleana can handle two or three puffs of valerian before the fatigue of it starts to drape over her like a thick fur coat. By the time her lashes are so low over her eyes that they might as well be shut all the way, and we’ve smoked through the two valerians as a group, some have splintered off.

Eamon and Ridge have found the dancefloor to be their entertainment—and though it’s packed fuller than dehydrated pixies in a cushion, I spot them all too easily.

I make no move to join them, but I watch with blatant interest. My gaze is as homed in on the dancefloor, on swaying hips, on bottoms dropping to the sticky floors, hands above heads, stolen kisses, and bodies merged together as one.

I find the dances of the human lands rather… unrefined.

Yet, it interests me all the same.

Part of me hungers to go down there, but Daxeel’s constant iciness keeps me at the table. I know I will be the one to suffer for this trip, not Aleana.

He will aim his ice-cold wrath at me.

It fast got out of hand. What was meant to be a mere ice-skating excursion turned into a private booth in a loud, glaring club after ice-cream.

That’s why his fierce gaze is lashing at me, like hands that reach from the depths of the oceans to snatch me up, drag me down, and drown me.

So I avoid him as best as I can.

My cheek turned to Daxeel, I watch the humans dance so brazenly that I wonder if—at any moment—a couple with start to bed one another right out in the open.

Then I spot Dare at the edge of the crowd.

With Bee.

They dance, but not like the others. There is a lazy romance in the way they move together, and how they stay tucked away near the wall, like no one else exists but them.

I watch them a while, the way she melts back into him, how his head is dropped low enough that his mouth runs over the shell of her ear; his arm looped around her middle, hand flat on her stomach, thumb brushing over her smooth skin.

Together, they move with the music, they move with the deepest sound of the melody. Others dance and jump and spin and drop—but not them. Bee sways with that one layer of the beat and Dare sways with her .

I think if Daxeel would ever dance with me, he would do it like that. Move with me, not the melody, because in my fantasy world and the way it once was, I am his melody.

In the passing hour, I don’t dance much more than tapping my boot on the floor and drumming my fingers on the table.

Ridge finds his way back to the table. He sits with Aleana, wedged between Daxeel and me. And though the light male plays bottle coin toss with the sickly female, I know he only came to the human lands for Eamon.

Daxeel came to keep an eye on both me and Aleana.

But Dare…?

He’s harder to work out.

Curiosity, maybe? Just for the fun of it?

Either way, Dare sticks to the dancefloor.

Now, as I look over, Eamon dances with Bee, and Dare sits on the edge of a short table, drinking straight from a bottle. He keeps his focused stare on Bee’s back, from the dimples above her waistband to the pear-shape of her backside, and he seems content doing just that. So content that, when a human woman approaches him and runs her fingertips down his arm, he snarls at her with enough of a threat that—even from the other side of the club—I tense in my seat, as though he’s holding a dagger to my throat.

I’ve never seen a human scatter so fast before. But scatter she does.

Some hours, two more valerian stalks, and many bottles into the night, instinct has Daxeel stiffening on the leather cushioned seat of the booth. And it’s not instinct about Aleana who’s been asleep for the better part of an hour now.

His face hardens against the glare of the flashing club lights and his stony gaze runs all over the walls and doorways.

“What is it?” I lean over his sleeping sister so he can better hear me, but he is dark fae, so he probably can hear me just fine over the thumping music.

In answer, his jaw clenches, hard. “Dawn. It’s close.”

I wave down the others.

Ridge scoops Aleana into his arms as Daxeel pays the bill on the table with gold pieces.

Before I can start down the stairs, Daxeel moves for me. His muscles prowl beneath his sweater, his steps as slow and quiet as a beast stalks its prey.

Arm snaking around my waist, his chin turns and he looks down at me. In this dark pocket of the club, my light source is the deep glimmer of his eyes.

I flatten my hand against his chest, as though prepared to push him away. Instead, I follow and take that step closer. I crane my neck to look up at him.

I love you.

Please, love me back.

Daxeel bows his head, bringing his brow to rest on the crown of my head.

My lashes flutter shut.

And for a moment, we stay like this.

In our little pocket of dark shadows.

Then Eamon barks up the stairs, “Sun-up within the hour!”

Daxeel falls his weight back onto one boot; he pulls away from me and his gaze flares, mutinous.

I huff a breath and push by him.

He tails me out of the club.

It’s quieter outside now, and I vaguely wonder how long it’s been since we arrived. The queue of humans lining the faces of the buildings has dispersed, whether some left or they all made it inside, I don’t know.

Just some black kars rumble on the side of the road and a young man is folded over between two of them, heaving up whatever drinks he’s had throughout the night. A sparkling glitter-faced woman pats him on the back, but her attention is on the glowing screen of her fone.

Eamon has his hand fisted around the handle of a kar door. He yanks it aside with an awful groan, then gestures us in. His weary eyes lift to the end of the road, to the horizon, as though sensing the sun creeping closer. It is, but the sky hasn’t touched pink yet, and so we have time to make it back to the Midlands before Daxeel is incinerated.

Ridge hands over Aleana before he ducks into the kar’s cabin. Eamon manoeuvres her inside, out-cold and limp as a dead weed.

I make to follow before Daxeel looks back at Dare, “Are you coming?”

I trace his gaze over my shoulder.

Dare has his arm thrown around Bee’s shoulders. They both watch the flickering glow of the fone in her slender, long fingers.

Their gazes lift at the same precise moment. She wears a small smile; Dare’s mouth twists into a half-grin.

“Oh, we’re going to get food,” she says. Her lashes are low over her green eyes, so muted that they wear greyish hues to them.

“Food?” I frown between them. “There’s plenty of food at Hemlock—”

But then Daxeel throws me a stark look, and I realize it all.

Dare doesn’t need to return to the Midlands before the sun comes up; his half blood keeps him as safe as Eamon in the light.

And I doubt Dare is sticking around for the human world’s cuisine, but rather to taste the kinta.

“Ah.” I nod once, then twinkle my fingers in a wave. “Bye, kinta!”

“Bye, halfling,” she croons after me.

She doesn’t see my smile as I duck into the kar.

Some moments later, Daxeel joins us—then we leave this world for our own, and I’m glad to return.