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LIAM

T he office was quiet, but I could hear kids wandering in the halls.

Likely, they were headed to the atrium to meet up with their friends.

Spring break was almost over, and those students who did have families were coming back after a week off.

Others were returning from their college vacations to somewhere warm.

Me? I was drumming the end of my pen on the hardwood surface of my desk.

He was late. That part wasn't surprising. Torian Hunt was always late. What bothered me was that he'd promised he'd come. For a fae, that was a binding commitment, but it was five past the hour, and he was not sitting across from me.

I began to improvise my tune, using my hand to add a little bass to the thrumming of my pen. I would not leave this chair until the hour was up. Oh, and if Torian thought being late would shorten his time with me, he was very wrong.

Seventeen minutes after the hour - according to the clock on my wall - the Summer Prince sauntered his ass into my office and tossed himself into the wooden chair across from me. The boy lifted an ebony brow, his spring-green eyes piercing, but I was far from intimidated.

"So, you promised me an hour," I told him.

"No," he corrected. "Liam, I promised you I'd show up for a session."

And I let my smile show. "A session lasts an hour, Torian, which means you therefore promised me an hour."

He grumbled in the back of his throat as he glanced away, but I caught how the corner of his lip curled higher.

Yes, he was impressed. As a human, I shouldn't be this good at twisting my words, but two decades of living with the fae made a man learn fast. Thankfully, they really were a kind people.

Hard, intense, and with so much potential to be cruel, but it seemed they leaned to kindness when they could.

When they knew how.

"So," I said, tilting my chair back and kicking my feet onto my desk. "I've talked to everyone else. The girls were more than willing to come. Oddly, it was you and Keir who were hard to get down here. Want to tell me why?" And I gestured, giving him approval to match my pose.

His eyes narrowed, aware of what I was doing. "You know she accepted the position, right?"

"Aspen?" I asked. "Yes, she's officially the Queen of Winter now."

"You know what they'll do to her?"

I scoffed. "If they know, sure. But what do you really think the chances are of anyone finding out she accepted the crown already?"

"But what if they do?" he asked, belligerence coating his tone. Yet it was the honest fear in his eyes that made me understand the real problem. "What if," he demanded, "someone says the wrong thing?"

"Rain?" I offered.

The glare that earned me was the coldest I'd ever seen. "She'd rather die."

"But she's merely human," I reminded him.

"She's not."

"So what is she?"

Finally, the boy leaned back. No, he didn't kick his feet up, but he did spread his arms to rest on either side of the chair. It wasn't much, but he was relaxing, and for Torian, that wasn't easy.

"She's caradil ," he said flatly. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, "And the Morrigan."

"Yours?" I asked, just to see how he'd respond.

"Ours," he corrected. "And no, I don't mean mine and Aspen's. I mean the fae's. Wildlings, faelings, noble and not." For a moment, his eyes lost focus. "He had her by the neck, you know. The Huntsman was strangling her, and Rain still wouldn't quit."

"She also didn't flinch from Hawke's wings," I pointed out.

"She doesn't flinch from anything!" he snapped. "I pushed her away as hard as I could, and she refused to run. Instead, your daughter stood her ground. Then she pulled my sister in." He paused to glance up, almost as if he realized how much he'd just said.

"This is all confidential," I assured him.

"I will only share what you allow me to.

This talk? It's so you can get it out. So you can speak to someone who will not judge you.

I think you're in a difficult enough position as it is.

Worrying about someone else's opinions?" I shrugged.

"Which is one of the few times being human helps me.

" Because humans had no place in the fae courts.

"Good point," he relented. But then he sighed. "Liam, I don't know how to keep her safe." He meant his sister; that much was clear.

"That's Rain's job," I reminded him.

But Torian shook his head. "It's not. Rain's job is to be fair - and she is.

" He laughed once. "If you'd seen her snap at people for calling me a monster - or Aspen a half-breed?

" And a smile flickered across his lips.

"She stood for Hawke without even knowing it.

To her, there's no line. Not between wildling and sidhe, nor between seasons. "

"Because all she knows is that here, she finally belongs somewhere. Here, she has a home." I paused for a moment to let that sink in. "So do you, Torian."

"I don't."

"You do," I insisted. "You have your family, your friends, your court, and it sounds like there might even be a romance starting."

He scoffed. "There's no romance."

"Could be."

Slowly, this barely-eighteen-year-old boy blinked his eyes up to look at me blandly. "I'm not interested in romance, nor in anyone who's looking to fuck royalty!"

"How about a man who was willing to fuck a wildling?" I countered, lifting my hand to hold off his response. "I promise that's not from Rain. Or Keir."

"Hawke," he guessed, nodding to show he wasn't surprised. "He took the brunt of Keir figuring it out, though. The times he worried about me being a monster and Hawke had to hear all of it - when it's Hawke who's the jevadu?" He shook his head.

"And what did you take the brunt of?" I asked.

Torian's entire body stilled. His gaze jumped over to the wall of shelves, settling on a picture I'd only recently put there.

It was me with my family from Christmas.

Rain was wearing pajamas that matched both me and Bracken.

All of us were smiling in pure joy, knowing we were finally a real family.

"He had her by the throat," Torian said again, softer this time. "He wanted Aspen, but Rain got in the way. She put herself there. He knocked Jack to the ground. Hawke got lost in the fog." And his voice pinched slightly. "I couldn't stop it."

It wasn't much, but I'd been around this boy long enough to know his tells.

That slight climb in pitch? For most people it would look like breaking down completely.

For Torian Hunt, any crack in his perfect composure was too much.

Now I needed to give him a place where he could shatter - safely - and then prove I would put him back together.

"But you trusted them, and that's got to be hard," I admitted. "I would've been frozen, too scared to help at all."

He nodded, pressing his lips together.

"Then trying to compare that fear to the time the Huntsman had Aspen by the hair?" I shook my head. "Nope. Not something I'd want to do. I think I'd curl up in my bed, bawling my eyes out."

He swallowed, his Adam's apple visibly bobbing.

"But you didn't stop, did you?" And I lifted a brow.

He huffed out a breath that was meant to be a laugh. "I know what you're doing, Liam."

"Then talk to me," I told him. "If you talk, I'll end this early.

If you don't, we're staying a full hour.

And if you want more, my entire evening is free.

I don't have to be anywhere else until eight tomorrow morning.

Right now, Highness, I am at your complete disposal - but that means you have to give me something to work with. "

The kid licked his lips, watching me much too carefully.

He'd turned eighteen mere days ago. For a race of people who lived to be nearly a thousand years old, his age made them think he was even younger.

And yet, the way Torian looked at me held more wisdom and weariness than I'd seen in hardened soldiers.

"I made Hawke the Duke of the Elysian Fields," he finally said, the words mumbled.

"I think he's more than earned it."

Torian chuckled once. "But he's a wildling."

"He's still yours, Torian."

"Yeah..." He pulled in a tense breath. "He is. And Wilder's Aspen's. Duke of Avalon, she thinks. Keir swore to Rain. She knighted him."

"Sounds like your court has it all figured out."

"Not my court."

"Isn't it?" I tilted my head, watching his mannerisms carefully. "Because if it's not yours, then who has the knowledge to lead them? Not as a king, but as a friend. As the one who knows? As the one who suffered to make sure they aren't going into this mess blind?"

He began tapping his finger on the arm of the chair.

Not casually, but more like stabbing it down onto the wood.

For much too long, he held his tongue, but I let the silence sit between us.

He wanted me to fill it. I wanted him to talk, and this young man was not the kind who'd break easily. After all, he'd survived the Mad Queen.

Finally, "I'm the spare!" he spat at me.

"The heir now," I corrected. "Aspen's the Queen. Until she names someone else, you're the heir to both thrones."

"But I can't be!"

"Why?"

One single word, and it made his head snap up to look at me with wide, scared eyes. "Liam, I can't."

"I'm human, so explain it to me?"

He grumbled again. "I was bred to control both Summer and Winter. Never before, in all the history of Faerie, has anyone had a claim to both thrones. It will confuse the magic. It will break the seasons. What the Mad Queen is doing is already tearing us apart!"

"Yet the six of you managed to kill not just one hunter, but two."

He grumbled. "And people have noticed."

I nodded, aware of the rumors that had been flowing through the kids who'd stayed here over the spring holiday. According to Ivy, they were coming from the teachers and fae who'd been out there that night. Too many of the details were correct - but not all of them.