xix.

IT TOOK A moment for Hollis's eyes to adjust to the lack of light in the room. The place was only lit by the glowing vines that were going up and down the walls here and there. The room must have been a dining room once. There was a stage at one end, round tables flanked by chairs taking up the space in front of it. Some of the tables were broken. Some of the chairs were covered in mold.

She was sitting on the stage in one of the moldy chairs. She was wearing a mortal skin, something dead. The body glowed from within, illuminating its bones, its teeth. Her eyes were glowing green. The body had long, long hair. This was floating out around her head like a cloud. The body was naked. The stitches where it had been opened up and stitched back together were black against its pale sternum, traveling down between the body's flaccid breasts.

She made the body smile. "Hollis."

He sank to the ground, kneeling, forehead to the floor. "My Queen."

She let out a little laugh. "You may approach us." Her voice sounded mangled, coming out of the body's mouth. Its tongue was likely thick and swollen and pumped full of embalming fluid.

He got to his feet. He approached.

She looked him over. "Hollis, Hollis, Hollis."

"My Queen," he said again.

"It's been a very long time." Now, there was something throaty in her voice, something satisfied, something leading.

"Well, you told me that you never wanted to see me again," he said.

She giggled. "Bold to bring that up." Her voice lowered, a whispering caress. "You were always bold."

He wanted to look away from her. She was horrible to behold. The Unseelie Queen. He couldn't look away, however. She was mesmerizing. Furthermore, she'd be quite offended if he did. He was here to ask a favor, as much as that galled him.

"You can't come back," she said, giving him a little shrug. She sounded regretful. "I would, really I would, but you have to understand that if I go around changing my mind for one exile, especially if he was a particular favorite of mine, then others will ask, and it will look bad. You and I both know why I did what I did. You and I both know you deserved it."

Deserved it. Yes, perhaps. "That's not why I'm here."

"Oh?" She was surprised. Curious. Eager. She lifted the hands of the body and made the fingers touch. She pressed the tented fingers to her lips and eyed him. "Fascinating. Don't tell me yet. There's so little suspense in my life, you know. I'd like to preserve this while I can."

He inclined his head. "As you wish, My Queen."

She let out a high, wild giggle, stretching out the long, pale, dead hands she was animating, reaching for the ceiling. "I hear you've been naughty, making a little pocket into Faerie."

"Oh, and here I was thinking you wouldn't notice."

"I didn't mind," she said, smiling. "It didn't disturb anyone. What was it for? Another mortal?"

"Well, I live in the mortal realm, My Queen, so—"

"Don't be cheeky." She sniffed. "I could throw you out. You know that."

"Then you'd never know why I'm here."

"Oh, but think of it! Neverending suspense, no answer ever ." She shivered. "Delicious."

"Perhaps," he said. "I think it would rankle eventually."

"You just want to ask for your favor," she said. "You don't even miss me, do you? If you did, you would have tried harder to find me."

"Jealous, My Queen?" He tilted back his skull.

"Always so bold, Hollis Mac," she said with a sigh. "If you ask me to restore a sick mortal again, so help me—"

"No," he said. "Nothing like that." It had been so long ago. He'd had some mortal plaything, but then they all did, they always did. The Queen had many. She'd keep them in her Court, sometimes forgetting about them for decades, and then remembering they were there and being horrified at how far they'd aged. Of course, the mortals, in the thrall of the Faerie Queen, were always willing to give anything they could to her. She was, well, she was her .

His mortal, she had a sister. The sister had some sickness. Back then, the mortals couldn't do much of anything against anything. They could be felled by trifling colds if the circumstances were right.

He couldn't bear it, the way his mortal was frightened over her sister, and he knew it was within the capacity of the queen to help. That it was nothing to the queen. She and he had been… never equals, because she had no equal, but friends.

Not lovers, because they didn't do that with each other—that was something they did with mortals.

But, well, it wasn't unlike being lovers, in some ways.

She restored the mortal to health.

And then her son, one of her many, many sons, because she'd had so many once they figured out that sort of thing, once the mortals came into it, once… Sons and daughters aplenty, and they just multiplied over the generations, but she loved them all.

Anyway, the son had been curious about the mortal his mother had healed. So, he'd gone to investigate, and fallen in love with the healed sister, and taken her off to Faerie, where… well, in the course of whatever he did with her, she died.

And Hollis was so angry.

For his mortal, of course—oddly, he'd long forgotten her name, how was that possible? Did one forget things like that?

The son, too, the one he killed, the revenge he took for his mortal—he'd forgotten the son's name, too.

The Queen had not been inclined to forgive him. All of her children were precious, all the hundreds that existed, and no matter that this one would have likely had a mortal lifespan and died soon, anyway, she had been furious and final in her punishment.

And now, she was giggling with him again.

Well, it had been a long time, hadn't it?

"Do you remember his name?" he said.

"Whose name?" said the queen.

Maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to remind her of that—remind her he'd killed one of her offspring. "Never mind," he said. "I'm afraid there is something perverse within me sometimes. I don't know where that comes from."

She laughed again. "Perhaps I could guess what favor you wish of me? I'll guess and you tell me if I get it right?"

"That's what you want?"

"Yes," she said. "You'll play, won't you?" She rubbed her hands together, green, glowing eyes flashing. "You won't deny me my fun."

"Guess away, My Queen."

"Does it involve a mortal?"

"I thought we already established this."

"That's a yes."

"Yes, My Queen."

"You want to bring her to Faerie."

"I don't. Anyway, you just said I can't come back, so it would have been foolish for me to stay if that was my request."

"Oh, you might have thought to convince me. You can be convincing, Hollis Mac."

"I don't want to come back to Faerie at all."

"So, why were you making pockets, then?"

"Do you want me to answer that question, or are you going to go back to guessing?"

She glowered at him. "I should throw you out for that."

He bowed his head. "Apologies."

"Oh, you're not even sorry," she muttered. She sighed heavily. "Fine. Fine. I give up. Just tell me."

"You didn't really guess much at all, My Queen."

"Do you think pointing that out is wise?"

"I don't wish to bring her to Faerie, but I wish…" He shifted on his feet. "To be mortal."

She let out a gasp, a horrified gasp.

He cringed. All right, well, he'd tried, and if that was her response, he couldn't say he was entirely surprised. He'd had to try, though.

"Why?" she said.

"Because otherwise, nothing's ever going to matter," he said. "Because that's what love is, wanting to give things up for the other person. Because I've lived a long time and yet, I've never been alive. Because… I don't know. I just do."

"She put you up to it, your mortal."

"She doesn't know. I didn't want to get her hopes up for no reason. I assume it's not easy."

"Well, I can't do it."

"Certainly, you can. You don't wish to."

"No, I can't. Not me, personally. There's a way, I suppose."

"What way?"

"I can't believe you wouldn't remember this. It involves your hunt, and a mortal girl, and a lot of shapeshifting."

"Tam Lin," he muttered. "But that won't work. The mortal girl, she had to be in a very particular position. And I happen to be incapable—"

"Oh, are you?" The queen picked at the stitches on her chest, letting out a beam of green light. "Can't you possess a body as easy as the rest of us?"

He blinked. "Would that work?"

"Well, couldn't be a dead body, clearly. Not a female one, either. You'd need working plumbing."

"Right." He toyed with one of his antlers. "And then, if I did that, all of that, and then she was… and I got her to… what sort of mortal would I be at the end of it?"

"Well, I really have no idea," she said. "That magic, it's old, old magic. It doesn't come from me. I certainly don't control it. I imagine you'd just grow skin. Maybe fur. Are you the bones of a thing with fur?"

"I'm not the bones of anything alive," he muttered. "I don't think." He lifted a hand and looked at his skeletal hands, imagining them covered in skin.

"Well, try it, and we'll see what happens." She shrugged. "I'm a bit curious, actually. But I'll be sad to lose you."

"I'm already gone," he said. "You haven't seen me in—"

"Well, it will be so final, Hollis," she said. "You're just giving up on me."

"I'm not giving up. I have nothing to give up on. It's not as if I'm trying to do anything or get anywhere or…"

"Right," she said, sounding sour. "So glad I could help."

"You know, you really haven't done anything, have you?"

"I gave you an idea," she said. "You could express some gratitude."

"Yes, thank you, My Queen."

"His name, Hollis, was Ande." Her green eyes bored into him.

He looked away, ashamed. "I'm… my apologies, My Queen."

She sighed, shoulders slumping. "He would have been dead in another thirty years anyway. What did it matter? I can't see why you couldn't have waited for him to die on his own. And I remember feeling angry with you, but I don't anymore. If I could, Hollis, if I could, I'd let you back. I would. I miss you. I like you."

"I don't want to come back," he said.

"You know, I believe you," she said with a sigh. "I believe you really don't want that."