Playing mortal used to be easier, but knowing this was Niall’s family made his plans fall apart. The girl, Moira, was the granddaughter of a gancanagh, of his gancanagh, and that made everything seem wrong.
She wasn’t mortal.
She wasn’t a stranger.
Irial knew better than to speak to the girl’s mother. That one, Elena, looked at the fey with the clarity of one with the Sight and anger to go with it. She shimmered in that way that the Sighted always did for him, as if they weren’t wholly present. A part of him wondered if the Sighted had fey ancestry—but he noticed these two because of the curse or because they were of his court in some way.
“You’re staring,” she said, pulling Irial’s mind to the moment. The girl was braced against a wrought iron fence, and if he had been most faeries, it would intimidate him. The Dark King was immune to the pain of iron.
“You know what I am,” Irial said, not even trying to play at being mortal.
“Maybe.” Moira tilted her chin defiantly.
“Good.” Irial leaned against the iron fence and shook out a cigarette. “Smoke?”
She hesitated, but it didn’t last. The girl had Dark Court blood, Niall’s blood, gancanagh blood. She leaned toward the forbidden. And with a smirk that made him try to remember another face, Moira said, “Light?”
Irial flinched a little and handed her a lighter. She sounded like she was flirting, and Irial . . . couldn’t. Although the Dark King was supposed to embrace taboos, the mere thought of debauching this girl appalled him. Moira was likely Niall’s grandchild. That was the only explanation he had that would explain his reactions, and it made Irial slide to the side, putting more distance between them.
“Are you why they all watch me?” she asked after lighting her cigarette and pocketing his lighter.
“Any in particular?”
“Icy ones,” she whispered. “And the one who glows brighter. Like you but”—she shrugged—“warm?”
Irial nodded. “There was a curse once, a foolish man cursed a girl, and her daughters and her daughters’ daughters.”
Moira waited. She shrugged again, paused to fling her thick dark hair over her shoulder, and said, “So?”
“So I want to protect you. I need to keep you safe,” Irial said, wondering why the need to do so was so urgent. “They must not see you. One, in particular . . .”
“Him.”
The Dark King nodded. “When you’re ready, I’ll help you run.”
“I can’t leave my mother.” Moira folded her arms over her chest. “You don’t under—”
“I’ll protect her. My court,” he swore. “No one will hurt your mother.”
Moira Foy stared at him, as if trying to figure something out. “Do you know why? Why the Dark Court—”
“You know who I am.” Irial smiled at the girl. By all rights he ought to react much differently to a mortal Seeing and learning of the fey, but she wasn’t just a mortal, was she? Moira Foy and her mother Elena had Dark Court fey blood along with mortal blood. Elena, the girl’s mother, felt older than she looked. Irial was certain that one was more fey than mortal. He wasn’t sure about the girl beside him. If Keenan saw her, she’d become fey as part of the curse.
“She can’t know,” Moira whispered. “That you’re watching her.”
Irial nodded. This one was clever for her age. Niall’s blood. He pushed off the fence. He wasn’t about to linger and draw eyes to her too soon.
“Once he sees you it’s too late,” Irial warned.
Moira said nothing as she turned and walked away. She certainly had the spirit to lead the Summer Court. Irial tried to see a trace of Niall in her walk or her hair or something. He couldn’t find it, but with everything he’d learned from Sorcha and his only reactions, the girl had to be Dark Court. These were the descendants of someone he valued enough to seek a curse.
That detail concerned him. The only love he actually felt was romantic love for Niall and brotherly love for Gabriel. And Gabriel’s children were not secret to him. That left Niall, but Irial saw none of his traits in the girl.
Watch these two for ever after, Irial thought-ordered his court. They are of ours. He let them see Moira and her arrogance despite fear and he let them see of his memory of her mother, Elena, staring at him not in fear but that same arrogance he saw in many of his court. She was a force.
Irial was still watching the street near Moira’s house when Beira approached him. She stared at him in a way that reminded him of long-gone days where they were friends of sorts. When she was in love with Summer, when the three regents flitted from court with comfort. Friends. In maudlin moments, he missed that version of the Winter Queen as much as he missed the late Summer King.
“There was a time we all laughed,” he said to her. “Do you ever laugh that way?”
“I was weak.” Beira shrugged it off. “And I suffer still for it.”
Irial kept silent. He despised her statements that were openings to either argue or lie. Irial couldn’t say that Beira’s suffering was a choice, and he couldn’t lie to say she was right. Trust Her Icy Temper to have found a way to make the geas on honesty a way to torture him.
“Do you recognize her?” Beira asked, and Irial didn’t need the Dark Court ability to taste emotion. Her curiosity was writ large in her voice and posture.
“Some mortal that wanted a cigarette,” he said, not technically lying.
“That’s all?” Beira prompted. “Any urge to seduce the girl?”
He shivered involuntarily.
The Winter Queen leaned close and whispered, “Or protect her?”
“From what?” Irial scoffed.
Laughter shouldn’t ever make him shudder like hers did. Her sharp-edged laugh thing filled him with horror. Did she somehow know that Moira was the missing mortal? Had she always known?
Beira pressed her red-painted lips against his cheek, leaving her make-up kiss over a frost-burned mark. Painting her blue lips didn’t change how dangerously cold she was. “That child is a halfling, Irial. We both know it.”
Irial stared at her. Whatever he’d forgotten, she knew in part.
“Perhaps. Those are Sorcha’s interest not mine.” The Dark King could misdirect well, but he saw no need to try to do so when the truth was undeniable. “Talking to a halfling is not the same as protecting them.”
“Despite her parentage?” Beira asked, somehow sounding both disbelieving and amused simultaneously. “Isn’t that why you watch her? Knowing about the father?”
“I owe you a gift, Winter Queen, if you do not harass these halflings.” Irial met and held her gaze. “My word that the debt I owe is equal to the worth of these halflings.”
The weight of his vow was violent. The value of these halflings was immense, even if Irial didn’t have logical reason to think so. The Dark King’s shadows, the abyss guardian, slithered all over him as if they recalled. He wanted to know the thing he’d forgotten, but Sorcha’s words that death would come with his knowledge held him back.
“Vow accepted,” Beira murmured. “My court will not tell the High Queen about these halflings. Nor will we take their eyes.”
“Or tell the Summer King?” he prompted.
“I thought I already killed him,” Beira said cheerily. When he stared at her, Beira added, “Fine. I won’t tell my child either.”
“You underestimate the kingling,” Irial warned her. All curses end, and if there was any chance of peace between them, Beira needed to start treating Keenan as an adult.
Beira scoffed. The Winter Queen didn’t take any critical word lightly. She also apparently didn’t know Moira and Elena’s greatest secret, but he still needed assurances that Beira wouldn’t draw his gaze their way. Keenan had already been drawn to the city where his intended queen lived.
The curse is weakening.
If Moira stayed, the curse would be broken. Irial knew it, and as much as he was ready for balance, that wasn’t best for the Dark Court. They fed on the darker emotions of the fey, and as such they were almost as powerful as Winter currently.
And it’d not be best for the girl.
Irial walked back to the girl’s house, waiting for her to gaze down at him. When she did, he tapped his wrist and whispered, “Time to go.”