If Bryce had been antsy on the ride down to Turner, he was ten times worse on the way back—leaning forward over the steering wheel as if he could push the car up the highway with his will alone. Gareth wished Bryce’s electric car made more noise because, with only the sound of the wind and the wheels on the pavement to fill the car, their lack of conversation was pathetically obvious.

Gareth was split on his opinion of the trip. On the one hand, it had been a total waste of time—the gate in back of the Enchanted Forest had been just as nonfunctional as the one in Forest Park. On the other hand—it’s not my fault. His use of bardic powers to shut the gate hadn’t been the reason for the failure.

But now his worry for his brothers took center stage. In the way of younger brothers, he’d always viewed Alun, the eldest, as virtually omnipotent. When Alun had lost his lover, Owain, in that dreadful massacre two hundred years ago, Gareth had taken it as a betrayal: Alun wasn’t all-powerful after all. He’d succumbed to the temptation of a cross-species relationship, then hadn’t been strong enough to protect his partner. He and Gareth had been estranged for years because of that, and might have remained so to this day if not for David’s intervention.

And Mal . . . Mal had always presented a good-time face, trying to jolly Gareth along, dragging him to his favorite Outer World amusements. At the time, he’d resented being forced to emerge from the dark room of his grief. But it had worked eventually. If it weren’t for Mal, he’d never have met Josh in New Orleans in the Thirties. Wouldn’t have met Spence in Liverpool in ’63. Wouldn’t have found Hamish and Tiff at Woodstock.

He owed Mal for his friends, for his band, for his life in the Outer World. And he owed Alun more, because Gareth had been a total prick to him at a time Alun had most needed comfort and support.

Had he been this much of a selfish arsehole back when he and Niall first met? If so, no wonder Niall hadn’t looked back. Maybe Eamon’s glamourie had nothing to do with it.

“Bryce?”

“Hmmm?”

“I’m sorry.”

Bryce shot a startled glance at him before returning his attention to the road. “Don’t worry. I don’t blame you for the gate anymore.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean I’m sorry for being a total douchebag to you and Mal. Neither of you deserved that.”

“No shit.” But despite the tart rejoinder, a smile quirked Bryce’s mouth. Then he sighed. “I appreciate the thought, but it’s irrelevant now. This whole thing—” He waved one long-fingered hand. “I mean, I’d feel a hell of a lot better if it was your fault.”

Gareth straightened in his seat. “You just said— I can’t affect anything not within reach of my voice.”

“I know. But you can see my point, can’t you? If this isn’t a localized problem with a localized cause—you—then it’s systemic.”

“Systemic?”

“All gates everywhere. The whole Faerie ecosystem. This spell is monumental. The druid council has always felt that a spell of that magnitude couldn’t be adequately controlled and managed from inside the biosphere it was trying to manipulate. When the elder gods created Faerie, they were outside it.”

“So you think . . .” Gareth swallowed, a pit opening in his belly.

“I think the whole thing is spinning out of control. Eamon and the Queen, the druid council, they all emphasized the importance of balance—between Seelie and Unseelie, high fae and lesser fae, Faerie and the Outer World. But balance is precarious. If something has thrown the spell off-kilter, if one of their calculations was incorrect, if one of the components of the spell was missing—”

“You mean me, I suppose.”

“I don’t know!” he shouted, pounding the steering wheel. “That’s the problem. But if Faerie implodes, it’ll throw the Outer World off too. We may not be looking at only the destruction of Faerie, the death of everyone inside—we might be looking at the destruction of everything.”

Gareth stared at Bryce, appalled. “It can’t be— I mean, simply removing one person from the sphere . . .”

Bryce shot a sidelong glance at him. “Not one. Two.”

“You mean you think Niall—”

“What I think is that making decisions based on incomplete information is a recipe for disaster. Someone’s hiding the truth. The question is: who’s hiding it, and from whom?”

They pulled into Bryce’s driveway, and he punched the button to open the garage door.

“So what can we do about it? If there’s no way to get in, how do we find out what’s happening inside?”

Bryce turned off the car but didn’t make a move to open the door. “I don’t know. The arch druids are getting together a sort of super circle—seven times seven—to see if they can scry what’s happening. But they’re hampered because druids are usually barred from Faerie.”

“But you got in.”

“Only because I had the cooperation of a royal. If you can’t get in now, it’s not likely I’d be able to get any closer to Faerie than Reykjavik. Come on. Maybe David’s heard something by now.” Bryce’s voice held a note of desperate hope. “Maybe they’re back and we’ve worried for nothing.”

But you don’t believe that, do you?

Bryce led the way out of the garage and across a narrow grass verge to the house next door.

Gareth forced himself not to run. He’d finally gotten Niall back—who could blame him for wanting to stay close? Especially now that Niall remembered enough about their relationship to be ready to resume it.

Gareth hit the door before Bryce, his need to see Niall again outweighing manners—it’s not his house anyway; it’s Alun and David’s. When he burst into the living room, David was perched on the edge of an armchair. Niall was sitting on the end of the sofa, head bowed, elbows on his knees. The tension in the air was so great that Gareth felt as if he were striding through treacle.

When Niall didn’t look up—Why won’t he look at me?—Gareth’s anxiety spiked. “What’s wrong? What’s happened? Did you hear— Is it Alun? Mal?”

“No, no.” David surged out of the chair with a quick glance at Niall. He bit his lip. Goddess, David was total shite at hiding his feelings. Something was definitely wrong. “That is, we don’t know for sure. Did you find a gate?”

Bryce trod heavily into the room and parked himself next to the fireplace. “No. It was the same as the one in the park.”

Niall dropped his head into his hands, fingers threaded through his hair. The sleeve of his borrowed henley rode up over his wrist.

The skin was smooth and unmarred.

“Niall! Goddess bless, you’re healed.” Gareth rushed to the sofa and dropped down next to him. He drew a tentative finger over the spot that only an hour or two ago was livid with healing tissue and scars. Niall twitched, but didn’t pull away. Gareth glanced at Bryce, shamefaced. “I’m sorry I didn’t give you enough credit. Thank you.”

Bryce frowned, squinting at Niall from behind his glasses, his head tilted to one side. “I don’t think it was my doing. There’s something—”

Niall leaped up from the sofa and strode across the room. He wasn’t holding his shoulders with the same tension as he had earlier, as if the touch of his clothing had been torture against his healing back. He turned to face them, but his expression was closed down.

“Yes. I’m healed. But that doesn’t matter.” He stared intently at Bryce. “What do you think it means, the inability to access any of the portals?”

Bryce blinked at the change in Niall’s demeanor. “I . . . don’t know exactly. That’s what we’re trying to figure out. But in the absence of any other information, we’re just stabbing in the dark. Even if the Circle manages to scry into Faerie tonight, they don’t have any sort of focus.”

“Focus?”

Bryce ran his fingers through his hair, setting it sticking out in all directions. Such an unlikely match for Mal, who’s always so aware of how he looks to others. “Think of it like trying to spot a specific bee in a clover field while looking through a long, narrow tube . . . when you’re not even sure where the field is.”

Niall nodded as if that made perfect sense. “If you had something . . . some component of the Convergence spell, would that help?”

“Help? Are you kidding? That would mean everything. But we can’t even get into Faerie. How the hell can we get anything related to the spell?”

“Well, as to that . . .” Niall reached into his pocket and withdrew a small velvet bag. “I believe this is what you’re looking for.”

Bryce took the bag, his eyebrows bunched over the top of his glasses. “What is it?”

“He called it a binding stone. It was supposed to be presented at some point in the ceremony. I’m not even sure what point. He— He was supposed to signal me when it was time.”

“‘He,’ huh?” Bryce opened the bag and upended it. The instant the contents dropped into his palm, his eyes widened. “This is an adder stone. A Gloine nan Druidh.” The stone was dead black and perfectly round. “It’s been coated with something. Pitch? Something else too, but that begs the question: what the hell is one of these doing in Faerie?”

“Not one,” Niall said. “Two. The Queen has the mate to it. I expect the coating was to shield it until it was time for it to be used.”

Bryce’s eyes narrowed. “If the Queen has the mate, it would make sense for Eamon to have this one. So why doesn’t he? Is this what cause the spell to mutate?” He lunged for Niall, and Gareth stepped in front of him.

“Stand down, Bryce. He’s been through enough.”

“Out of the way, Gareth. I’m not going to hurt him.” The fire in Bryce’s normally mild brown eyes belied that. “But I need to know. If he stole it, if that’s why he ran, he could have put Mal and Alun in danger.” He clenched his fist around the stone and glared at Niall over Gareth’s shoulder. “Are you taking vengeance on Eamon for kidnapping you? For torturing you?”

“Eamon didn’t torture me. He saved me.”

Gareth turned at the stunned outrage in Niall’s voice. He put his hands on Niall’s shoulders and gave him a tiny shake. “You may not remember it, Niall, but he’s the one who took you. I saw him, that last night in Corwen.”

Niall blinked, the anger on his face fading, replaced by . . . shame? Regret? Sorrow? It was hard to know. “You saw me go off with Eamon?”

Gareth nodded. “Yes. Even if you don’t remember everything, I do. And I know you wouldn’t have left me voluntarily.”

Niall’s gaze locked with his. “I wouldn’t have. Believe that. No matter what, you have to believe that.”

Hope burbled in Gareth’s chest. “You remember more? You remember that night?”

Niall closed his hands around Gareth’s wrists gently. His mouth quirked up in an almost smile, a ghost of his former cheeky grin. “I remember, Gareth. I remember everything.”

The dawning joy in Gareth’s eyes nearly stole Niall’s resolve. This is the last moment when he’ll still love me. But he fought the urge to stretch out the moment. Taking a breath, he dropped his human mask and bared his true nature.

Bryce gasped and David murmured in distress, but Niall’s gaze never left Gareth’s as confusion replaced joy.

“No.” Gareth shook his head, his hands raising as if to ward off a blow. “You— It can’t be. You’re—” Hurt followed by revulsion chased across Gareth’s face as he backed away until he bumped into Bryce’s shoulder. “You’re fae. You’re Unseelie. You’re one of them.” He turned away, face to the wall, shoulders shaking.

Niall’s chest felt as if it were packed with ice. He wanted desperately to soothe, to comfort, but he’d lost that privilege. He might never be mine to comfort again.

David edged away and tugged on Bryce’s sleeve. “Um . . . Bryce? Can you show me that thing about the . . . the thing?”

Bryce was goggling at Niall, his gaze tracing a path in the air. He’s got druid sight. He can see my aura now. “What?” He shook his head as if he were coming out of a trance and glanced at Gareth’s back. “Oh. Right. The thing. Sure.” He let David tug him out of the house, although he kept glancing over his shoulder at Niall the whole way.

Niall waited until the door closed behind them. “Not much for subtlety, your brothers-in-law, are they?” When Gareth didn’t respond, Niall inched toward him, craving the touch of his hand. A glance. Even the shrug of a shoulder. Something. But when he tried to place his hand on Gareth’s back, Gareth jerked out of reach.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Gareth. I’m sorry. Sorrier than you can ever imagine that I—”

He whirled, his curls writhing around his head as if the ethera were dancing there. “You’re sorry? You think I can’t imagine regret? Remorse? Disgust? Do you know what I’ve done in your name to my family, my Queen, my realm? All because of my poor kidnapped lover, the human victim? Do you know what I’ve done to myself, thinking I brought it on you by my attention? I know all about those things, and more. And it was all because of a lie.”

“It wasn’t all a lie. I loved you. I love you still—”

“Stop. Was this the plot all along? Just one more attempt to destroy me? First my dog, then my horse, then my groom? Then what? My virginity? My— my heart?”

Niall grimaced, tempted to fob off the question, but the time for lies was past. “In a way, but not how you think.”

Gareth snorted, eyes flashing. “How I think? You have no idea how I think. I’m not sure I do either, because everything I’ve done in the past two hundred years, every action, every thought—Goddess, every song—has been colored by what happened to you. The memory of my perfect lover. My grief at his death—yes, I thought you’d died, either in Faerie or somewhere lost in the Outer World in some time not of your choosing, a random place and time that I had no hope of finding. A fork in the stream and we meet. An eddy, a stone, and we part. What a cosmic fucking joke.”

“Gareth, if you’d let me explain—”

“You didn’t have amnesia, did you?”

“Well. No. But I’d heard you talking to Alun, how you felt about the Unseelie. I didn’t want to risk . . . to risk . . .” This. I didn’t want to risk this. “I thought if I could just have a little more time to recover, I’d be ready to face you again. To explain—”

“Do you know . . .” Gareth advanced on him, teeth bared, “I was ready to forswear my heritage. Have Bryce sever my connection to the One Tree. Make me mortal. Because I couldn’t stand to live without you forever in a kingdom half ruled by the man who’d stolen you from me, who’d brutalized you, who’d . . . who’d k-k-killed you.”

Niall reached for him, this wild and vicious stranger who’d possessed his gentle lover. “Please, love, if you’d only let me—”

Gareth backed away. “They were right about you. They were right all along.”

“Who was?”

“The Voices. The criminal dead.” His lips twisted in a sneer. “My fucking legacy.”

“You don’t understand. If you’d let me—”

“No more.” Gareth shook his head. “I can’t— It’s too much. I can’t talk to you, I can’t see you, not with two hundred years of deceit to unwind.” He gripped his hair with both hands. “Goddess, I’ve got a concert tonight. I—” He whirled and bolted for the door.

“Gareth! Wait, please.”

Gareth didn’t stop, and the slam of the door behind him rattled the pictures on the wall.