‘Pearl,’ Finn whispers, ‘what are we going to do?’

It’s late. Beyond late. It’s pitch-black outside, but it’ll be getting light soon.

The wind has died down, and everything is still. Here, lying in bed with him, face to face, his hand warm in mine, it feels like the only two people in the world are him and me.

But Tam’s down the hall in Matty’s room, and Cardy’s on the couch, and Phil is curled up beside Holly’s comatose body in Finn’s parents’ bed, and there are more people in the world than Finn and me, and so much we have to care about, so much we have to think about, so much we have to do.

I lean over and brush his lips with mine. ‘We’ll work it out,’ I whisper back. ‘Everything. I promise.’

‘How did you do that?’ Tam demands, when Finn takes that first gasping breath. ‘How?’

‘Finn!’ I say. ‘Finn, talk to me. Are you all right?’

Tam grabs my shoulder and pulls me roughly around. ‘Misrule is over. How did you do that?’

‘Tam,’ Finn rasps, ‘let her go.’

Slowly, Tam obeys.

‘I don’t even know where to begin to work any of this out,’ Finn says.

‘Lucky you have me, then,’ I reply.

His eyes are warm, liquid. ‘I know how lucky I am, Linford.’

‘No more trying to protect me,’ I say. ‘It’s you and me, Finn. We’re so much stronger as a unit than when we’re apart. We’re in this together. All the way.’

‘Pearl,’ Matilda says to me, ‘what have you done?’

‘What have I done?’ I exclaim. ‘What have you done? How are you here? How are you alive?’

‘I am not easy to kill,’ Matilda replies.

‘That’s not an explanation!’

‘Helena,’ she says. ‘She made a deal with the Unseelie for my release. She made a bargain – she would not tell me what, no matter how I pressed her.’

‘I was right!’ I say. ‘She was working with the Unseelie!’

‘She knew that you needed my protection,’ Matilda says. ‘She knew that, although she could not help you, I could. That I would.’

She was working with the Unseelie … but not to kill Matilda. To help her. To help her fake her own death, so she could help me.

‘But I’m too late,’ she spits at me. ‘She died for nothing, because you’re one of Them now.’

‘What?’

She turns her back on me. ‘You have my assistance, whenever you need it, Rider,’ she says to Hunter. ‘You also, fetch.’

‘Thank you,’ Tam says. ‘I am in your debt.’

‘No, you’re not,’ Matilda says. ‘Their rules are not my rules. There are other ways to do things. I told you this when you came bursting into the Rider’s hospital room to heal him. Their power will twist you inside out until there’s nothing left of you. The only way is to cut it off. To say no. To cut them off.’

‘I am in your debt,’ Tam says. ‘You did not thwart me from healing the Rider. You did not prevent me from coming here. You came here yourself to help bring down the prince, and for all of this, I am in your debt. I will not forget what I owe you.’

‘Kid –’

‘But most of all, I owe you for trying to help Pearl,’ Tam says. ‘For trying to save her, even if you did not succeed.’

He falls to his knees in front of me and kisses my hand.

‘My queen,’ he says.

Finn’s thumb is stroking lightly over the back of my hand. I focus on it, trying to force the uneasy memory of Tam’s lips on the same skin away.

‘How are you feeling?’ I ask.

‘Not a hundred per cent,’ he replies. ‘But I’ll live.’

‘I can’t kill him,’ Hunter says, after Matilda has stalked away into the night.

‘What do you mean, you can’t kill him?’ I say sharply. ‘You’re a Rider. Sort of. Killing fairies is what you do. And you just stabbed him in the heart with a massive knife!’

‘There’s a reason there were six Riders,’ he says. ‘It takes a lot to kill one of Them.’

‘But I saw him kill Kel. He ripped his heart out with his bare hands.’

‘Kel’s not Gentry,’ Finn says.

‘Wasn’t, I mean.’

‘What the hell is Gentry?’

‘It’s – it’s a class system, I guess,’ Finn says. ‘There’s your regular fairies, and then there’s … the special ones. The elite. The Gentry.’

‘And they’re impossible to kill.’

‘Basically, yes. Why do you think he bothered with this whole lock-the-doors thing and didn’t just rip my heart out?’

‘If we don’t kill him, he’s going to hurt a lot of people,’ I say to Hunter. ‘Starting with my twin sister. Which I assume you care about. I saw that tattoo of my mum’s name.’

Hunter has the good grace to look guilty.

‘We can kill him, but we need more time,’ he says. ‘And more importantly, more knives. It takes six iron knives to kill one of the Gentry: one for each hand, one for each foot, one for the throat, and one for the heart.’

I exhale slowly. ‘Okay, so we need to either round up the other five Riders that Finn and I sent off to find their hearts. Who could be anywhere. Or get Matilda to make us some new knives, which doesn’t seem especially likely now that she hates me and everything I stand for.’

‘Wait,’ Finn says. ‘I don’t know how I feel about this.’

‘What?’ I exclaim.

‘I know what he’s done,’ he says. ‘But … he’s my brother.’

‘Finn –’

‘Throw him on the roses,’ Tam says. ‘Let him suffer as he has made others suffer.’

He’s still kneeling at my feet.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asks me.

‘I should be tired,’ I say. ‘I should be passed out right now. Snoring right in your ear. But my mind won’t shut up.’

‘Can I ask you a question?’ I say to Mr Hunter.

‘Yes, I will stay here to guard the prince tonight,’ he says. ‘Go and have your reunion with your –’ he makes a dismissive gesture towards Finn and Tam.

‘Not that – although thank you, I appreciate it,’ I say. ‘It’s about my mother.’

He closes his eyes and inhales and exhales through his nose. It’s an expression I know well: the one he’d always use in my music lessons when he was really gearing up to shout at me.

But I don’t scare so easily any more. ‘You loved her.’

‘That’s not a question.’

‘No, it’s not. It’s a fact. You don’t get someone’s name tattooed across your chest if you – what did you tell me? If you just saw them sing once?’

He opens his eyes. ‘Yes, I loved her.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to make you spill any gruesome details about your emotions,’ I say. ‘I know you have a heart. I’ve held it in my hands. But you can keep your feelings to yourself. My questions are more … technical.’

‘You said you had a question. One.’

‘I lied.’

‘Fine.’

‘Did you know about my twin sister?’

‘Your mother was very certain that she was having twins,’ he says. ‘But if I ever knew that she did, the fairies took that memory from me like they did from everyone else.’

‘Did my mother know about fairies?’

‘She believed in them,’ he says. ‘But whether she knew them personally – I don’t know.’

‘You’re not my real father, are you?’

He makes a noise deep in the back of his throat. ‘No.’

‘Did you know him?’

‘No.’

‘Do you –’ I take a deep breath and lower my voice so Finn and Tam can’t hear, ‘– do you think my father could have been a fairy?’

He just looks at me.

‘I know it sounds insane, but … I’ve been thinking about it.’ The words spill out of me in a waterfall. ‘Finn tried to command me to do something, and I refused. He’s been walking into my dreams, but lately, I’ve been walking into his. And just now – Misrule was over, but I healed him. So – as someone that knew my mother well enough to love her – do you think my father could have been a fairy?’

‘No.’

‘No? Why?’

‘You said you only had one question, but you had three,’ he says. ‘You lied.’

‘I keep worrying that this is a dream,’ Finn says, leaning his forehead against mine. ‘That I’m still lying on that bed of roses. That I’m still struggling to find any place in my mind – any place at all – that’s still safe, and that this’ll get torn away from me too.’

‘I’m here,’ I say. ‘I’m real. We’re together. I love you. And I’m not going anywhere.’

She’s waiting for me at the door when we get back to Finn’s place.

‘Phil!’ I say desperately, and throw myself at her.

I hug her tighter than I have ever hugged anyone in my whole life. ‘How are you feeling? Are you okay?’

‘Don’t worry about me,’ she says. ‘Thank God you’re alive. I was so worried.’

‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘And Finn, and Tam, and even Hunter – and Matilda’s alive! She’s furious with me, but she’s alive, and –’

‘That’s a story you’re going to have to tell me properly later, but what about the prince?’

‘He’s not dead. But he’s having a good long snooze on a bed of poison roses with an iron knife in his heart, and we’re all okay.’

It takes me a while to realise she’s crying. ‘I love you, Pearl,’ she sobs. ‘I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you.’

‘I love you too,’ I say. ‘And I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Hi Phil,’ Finn says, coming up behind me.

‘Hi – Finn?’ she says, pulling back.

‘Yes, it’s me,’ he says. ‘Tam’s behind me. Quite a few steps behind me. I said, “Come on”, and now I think he’s hanging back just to spite me.’

She wipes her tears away with her sleeve. ‘Sorry we broke into your house,’ she says. ‘We didn’t know where else to go.’

‘No problem – obviously, no problem. Is Holly inside? Pearl told me what happened to her.’

Phil nods. ‘Cardy’s with her,’ she says, but Finn’s already disappeared into the house.

We wait for Tam to catch up before we follow him inside. When we find him, he’s kneeling over her, hands on her belly.

‘Come on, Hol,’ he says. ‘Come back.’

She doesn’t stir.

‘Do you think you’ll be able to heal Holly?’ I ask Finn.

He sighs and shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. It’s not like it is normally. Normally you can sort of – feel the person there. Find their hand, reach out and take it, you know?’

‘Like a thread,’ I say. ‘A golden thread.’

‘Exactly. But it’s not there. She’s not there. I can’t find anything to hold onto.’

‘Phil and Cardy and I all fought out of that illusion,’ I say. ‘Holly’s tough as nails. She’ll find her way out of it on her own.’

‘I hope so.’

He kisses my knuckles. ‘You said you and Tam brought Phil back from basically the dead when you both healed her at once, right? Maybe if you and I work together, we can help her.’

I don’t tell him that there wasn’t anything ‘basically’ about it.

‘Wait,’ I gasp. ‘Wait, wait, wait.’

‘What is it?’ Finn says. ‘Did I hurt you?’

He’s got me pinned against his bedroom door, pressed so tightly against it with his body that I barely need my legs around his waist to hold me up.

‘I need you to tell me something,’ I say.

‘Anything.’

‘Am I your pet?’

He pulls back, enough so that I have to clutch at his shoulders so I don’t fall. ‘How can you ask me that?’

‘Finn, I have to ask you that,’ I say. ‘I got your powers on Misrule. How can I not ask you that?’

‘You didn’t lose them when Misrule ended, though.’

I close my eyes. ‘You can’t say it, can you? You can’t say it, because if you told me I was your pet, it would be a lie.’

‘Linford, look at me.’

‘Is that an order?’

‘No! Just – look at me? Please?’

I do.

‘Pearl Linford,’ he says, looking me in the eyes, ‘you’re not my pet.’

I can’t describe the feeling that washes over me.

All I know is that I go limp, and he has to press me harder against the door to hold me up.

‘I don’t know what you are now,’ he says. ‘I don’t know how you kept those powers, or how you said no to me when I tried to make you go on without me, or how you walked into my dream. You’re something, Pearl. Something else. But you’re not my pet, and you never have been. You’ve never been my servant, or any of that messed-up power hierarchy thing. You’ve only ever been my girlfriend.’

Tears prick hot against the back of my eyes.

‘Except during that time when you were refusing to date me,’ he says. ‘Then you were just my … Pearl … friend.’

‘I hate you,’ I say.

He smiles against my lips. ‘I love you.’

‘Linford,’ he says, ‘I need to tell you something.’

‘Okay.’

He closes his eyes and exhales. ‘I need to go back.’

‘Well, yeah,’ I say. ‘We need to get Oyster and Rhymer and Rosemary out. Like, immediately. Tomorrow, we rest and recover; the next day, we’re getting them out.’

‘No, I mean … for good.’

‘What?!’

‘I have …’ he exhales again. ‘I don’t want to sound like Tam here, but I have a duty. To the Seelie. Their prince is gone, and he might be a traitor, and – and they need a leader, and like it or not, that’s me.’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘Yes, it is,’ he insists. ‘I can – I can change things, Linford. I can make it so no more kids get stolen. I can make it so all the human servants can go home, not just Oyster and Rhymer and Rosemary. I can make things better.’

‘Finn –’

‘I have to do this,’ he says. ‘You and I – we’ll work it out. You can visit. And maybe Tam and I can sort of … share my life. Sometimes I’ll be me, and sometimes he’ll be me, and he can have the life he deserves, and you and I can keep dating, and –’

‘Finn, you’re not listening to me.’

He subsides.

‘You’re not the new leader of the Seelie.’

‘Linford, there’s no one else.’

‘You’re not doing it. Not on your own. No way. I won’t let you.’

I lean over and kiss him.

‘We’re going to do it together.’