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eleven

Butterflies made of light fluttered all around us, bigger than before, illuminating the forest. They were like tiny suns leading our way, and for a while, my ears were filled with the sound of our footsteps against the forest floor. No animals in sight. No bird chirps or owl hoots. No snakes, either, as far as I could see. Just us.

“What really happened to your nephew—what was his name again?” I wasn’t very good with names, and I’d also been in a state of shock while we spoke in the kitchen, so if he mentioned it, I didn’t remember.

“Prince Lyall,” the uncle said. “And I told you what happened—he fell ill.”

His voice hadn’t changed. The look in his eyes hadn’t changed. That gave me a bit of comfort.

“But how? Are you…do you have like viruses and bacteria? And are you immortal? ” Because he’d just called us mortals, and the word still rang in my ears. Not to mention he really didn’t look to have aged a day since I last saw him.

“Of course,” he said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to live forever. “And, no, there are no pathogens that can harm us. What we have is magic. Poisons. Spells. Curses. Those are our sicknesses.”

Shivers washed down my back. “So, which one was it that got Lyall?”

“ Prince Lyall,” he corrected. “And we don’t know what. Could have been anything, really.”

“But he’s a prince, as you so kindly remind me. Shouldn’t he have like people who work for him who test things and know poisons and such?” All I knew was what I read in books and what I’d seen in movies, so I wasn’t an expert on fae by any means. Real fae.

“He does. But magic is a very tricky and very sneaky thing. When in the hands of a skilled creator, it can be as unseen as air,” the man said.

“Right.” I looked up at the butterflies floating ahead of us. “What’s it like there, in…the Seelie Court, right?”

“Yes, the Seelie Court of Verenthia, our realm,” he explained. “It’s a vast continent that hangs on the stars Emer and Reme.”

I raised a brow. “That’s the same name backward.”

“Precisely. It is the same star backward, too.”

My brain paused. “What does that mean?”

“It means it’s the same star from the past and the future. Between those timelines Verenthia was born and has thrived for many millennia.”

I blinked at him. “That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.” Realms hanging on stars, but not “stars,” plural, just one star from the past and future?

The man laughed a little. It was a pleasant laugh—warm and inviting.

Maybe he isn’t so bad once you get to know him , I thought.

“I’ll tell you what, mortal—if you ever come to understand magic, this, too, will make perfect sense to you.”

I flinched. “Nilah. My name is Nilah.”

“Pardon me, Nilah. It’s become a habit,” he said with a deep nod.

“So, you come here often?” I wondered.

“Not so much. The royal families of our Courts hold expeditions once every ten years to keep… updated with the latest advancements in science and technology. I’ll admit that part of your world fascinates me. The way you are able to survive and live without magic but use your minds to create objects instead is quite something.” He shook his head to himself. “When you met Prince Lyall, we were on our last expedition—his first.”

“That was thirteen years ago,” I said.

“Yes, well—time moves differently here than it does between Emer and Reme.”

That gave me comfort, too. Maybe I’d be gone less than eight days here on Earth.

“You never told me how you found me,” I asked, and my legs were starting to get tired—we’d walked for quite a bit. Possibly an hour, if my sense of time could be trusted.

They didn’t seem bothered in the least, though. A look back at the guards dressed in green and silver, and they had no expression on their faces and no trace of discomfort of any kind anywhere on them.

“Our seer tracked you through the Prince’s blood,” the man said. “That’s how we saw you.”

“Saw me ? Like, you saw my face?”

“Yes.” He looked at me. “We saw your face with perfect clarity.”

Again, there was something about the way he said that. The way he sometimes spoke.

“Sorry—what’s your name again?”

“Helid Sunstinne—but again, you may call me Sire.”

“Helid’s fine,” I said, and I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because I’d practically spent my entire life being on self-defense mode that I took any small remark or request as a direct attack against me? It came naturally to want to bite back. That part I never did control, and I never wanted to. People might have made me a victim my whole life, but I had yet to accept it and behave like one. So long as I could fight back, I would. In whichever way I could.

Which had admittedly gotten me into a world of trouble—but I digress.

“You are…not quite like the humans we’ve met before,” Helid told me.

“You’ve met humans before?”

“Of course. Heads of your cities and states. People who know of our existence. I have personally been in several meetings since my sister became the Seelie Queen.”

“Holy shit,” I whispered. “So, people actually know you exist.”

“Of course, they do.” Then, “You curse a lot. It’s not common to do so in front of the royal family.”

I looked at him. “Well, I’m mortal, so the rules don’t apply to me.” Did they ?

“You are very different from what we expected, indeed,” he ended up saying in a whisper.

“Who’s we ?” I wondered. “And how much longer until we get to the passage you spoke about?”

“The queen and I,” he said. “The Aetherway is close enough. Just a little more.”

“Okay, okay,” I muttered, throwing another look back just to make sure that those men were still there. They were. “What about the king? Who’s the king of the Seelie Court?”

“King Trogen died a long time ago,” Helid said. “The queen rules alone, and when the prince awakens, he will take his position as king now that he’s of age.”

“How old is he, anyway?” A king. And actual fae king.

Slowly I reached for my forearm and pinched myself. Hard.

It hurt like hell, but I didn’t wake up.

“The prince is twenty-one summers old.” Assuming summers were years, the prince was only three years older than me.

“So why hasn’t he become king yet?” I wondered.

“Because he wasn’t of age when he fell sick,” Helid said, and something came over his eyes. They darkened all of a sudden.

Like he was afraid.

That made me keep my mouth shut for a little while. We just walked in silence, and I had to keep my eyes ahead because any time I focused on trees or branches, my brain tried to make me believe that they were snakes, slithering fast, coming to bite me again. I couldn’t afford to be afraid of snakes right now on top of everything, so I just didn’t look.

The night was warm enough that my shirt stuck to my back. I shouldn’t have taken my leather jacket at all, I thought, but it was still chilly when I was standing in one place—and who knew what it would be like in another realm?

“Mr. Dune told me that your mother died, too, a long time ago,” Helid suddenly said, and it was like he slapped me across the face.

“Yes.”

“And the girl with the blue hair—is she your friend?

“Yes. Why?”

“Only curious. Are you betrothed? Maybe being pursued by someone?”

I’d read enough books to know exactly what he meant. “Boyfriend. You can just ask if I have a boyfriend.”

“Do you?”

“No.” I’d only ever had one, and I was pretty sure our situation had been more of a friends-with-benefits type. His name was Caleb and he lived with his grandmother—Mrs. Alfie three streets down from mine—for three years before he moved back with his dad somewhere in California. I’d lost my virginity to him when I was sixteen and we’d used each other for sex for the better part of a year before he left. It wasn’t dates and flowers and sweet texts. It was more, free tonight ? to which we replied with a yes or no, and we knew to meet in his grandmother’s summerhouse behind her house after ten p.m., which was when she slept.

It had worked. I’d never wanted a boyfriend, just someone I could explore with, someone to fill me with physical pleasure for a while. And, of course, Caleb hadn’t been interested in dating the town’s cuckoo, so it had never even been a conversation to begin with.

When he left, I’d been a bit relieved.

And I’ll admit, while deciding to move away from this town these past few months, I was actually looking forward to meeting someone I could have sex with, someone who didn’t know me, someone who had no idea I was a cuckoo to someone else. I’d even gotten all hot and excited at the idea, but now…

“What you did back there,” I found myself saying as we went. “Showing people the butterflies. Thank you.”

Because now that I had calmed down halfway, I was realizing what it meant. I was realizing that those people had actually seen this man with their own eyes, and they’d seen the butterflies made of light. They’d seen magic, exactly like I told them.

Now, they would all finally admit that I hadn’t lied, and God, my life would be so different. Fi’s life would be so different, and Dad’s too.

Everything had changed back home in the time it took me to have a hush-hush conversation with Betty hidden behind a tree.

“You’re very welcome. I’d have done more if you hadn’t asked me to stop,” Helid said. “Your sister told me about the struggles you’ve had in the town. It was only fair.”

Fair . That was a word I never really believed in.

“I appreciate it,” I told Helid anyway because maybe Fi wouldn’t be bullied at school anymore. Maybe she’d even make a friend now. Maybe she’d make a few friends by the time I came back.

And Dad could actually find a job as an engineer, and he wouldn’t have to get into fist fights with anyone ever again.

“I am happy to help.”

The weight I’d carried on my shoulders for so, so long now suddenly lightened a bit—and it had taken so little! My whole life of trying to convince people, and it had taken so little from this man to change everything.

I looked at Helid’s profile, his pointy ears and his sharp nose. He was indeed beautiful, and his hands no longer glowed like the butterflies that guided our way. It made me curious.

“How does it work exactly? Your magic. How do you make those look so real?”

“That’s simply an illusion,” Helid said. “A bend of light and manipulation of the senses—that’s all it is.” And again, he waved a hand and more butterflies sprouted out of his fingers, but not just that. Small birds made out of lights, and fireflies bigger than real ones spread about the trees and the branches, chasing one another while I watched, completely stunned in place.

Real. All of that looked so damn real.

“But how? Where does it come from? How does it work?”

“Magical energy is something every creature in the realm is born with because we are born from Verenthia, and Verenthia itself is magic. We give and take—sometimes simultaneously—from nature, and nature gives and takes from us. It’s just like these trees give you oxygen to breathe, and in return use the dioxide carbon you give with every breath. It’s a cycle,” he explained. And that I actually understood.

“Does everyone have the same magic in Verenthia then?”

“Not in the least, no. Each species has their own brand of magic that they use in different ways. Each kind of fae has access to different magic as well.”

“How many kinds of fae are there?”

“Four,” Helid said, and then… “Here it is.”

My legs stopped working instantly and I looked ahead at the darkness, at the trees that seemed to go on endlessly.

“What? What’s here?” Because I couldn’t see shit.

“The Aetherway,” Helid said, offering me a smile—and his hand. “If I may, Nilah Dune, formally invite you to Verenthia on behalf of the Seelie Court.”

Every hair on my body stood at attention.

“Take my hand and walk with me, and the Aetherway will welcome you wholly.”

My hand shook when I put it in his. His skin was warm—the same kind of warm that that boy’s hands had been when he touched me. When he healed me.

His raw energy buzzed in the center of my palm like it was my own. Helid smiled, pulled me forward between two trees, and I couldn’t see anything beyond them at all—until I was just a single foot away.

Until I felt the energy—it wasn’t coming from Helid but from the shimmery veil of light that was between those trees. The warmth was coming from it, pulling and pushing me back at the same time, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. No air went to my lungs and I had no control over my body at all, so when Helid pulled again, harder, I moved forward.

I went straight into the shimmer with my eyes wide open, unable to even scream.