“No,” said Saga, turning back around. Her heart ached at the sight of the other woman, and she sighed. “Yes.Maybe.” Her face scrunched in frustration. “I don’t know.” Goddess, how she hated how much she said those words. “But what I really don’t know is if I can trust you.”
“Yes,” Avery answered, but Saga merely folded her arms. “Would it help if I told you why I did it?”
It would. It would explain why Leigh and Reza weren’t concerned. It would be nice to know she didn’t have to be concerned. “You said it was self-defense.”
“He was slaughtering people, Saga—children.” The word hung in the air like an echo. “Like the old stories they’d tell you to keep you in your bed at night, or away from strangers. They were all warnings about the Erlking. That was his legacy. A shadow made whole, the embodiment of winter, creeping through the dark spaces to lure and trap them; toconsumethem.”
Saga’s throat felt tight.
“The truth is, what I did had very little to do with defendingmyself. He’d gone mad. He closed the doors to Faerie, cutting us off from the magic, and killed anyone on the council who attempted to stand up to him. It put both our worlds at risk. It had to be done.” When Saga still wouldn’t face her, Avery growled to expel her frustration. “Do you really think the council would have set me free—and early at that—if they thought I was an actual threat? Would your aunt and uncle agree to house me?”
No. She didn’t. She trusted Leigh with her life and knew Reza would never put anyone knowingly in danger, least of all family. But it was still murder, wasn’t it? It was taking a life. At last she turned around. “If he was such a terror, why didn’t anyone help you?”
Avery hesitated. “Some did help—in secret. I never could have managed it on my own, but it was important to the council that the rest of the world believed I did.”
“Why?”
“It is far easier to settle one lone act of treason than a coup andrevolution. There was no upheaval of government, no one to question loyalties to the Aos Sí and courts of Faerie. They just had to punishme.” Avery attempted to shrug off her feelings about this, but Saga could see how much it had festered under her skin. “I was already on the outskirts of society due to my human mother; it was easy for them to create a controllable narrative.”
“What about motive?” Saga realized as she spoke that while her questions remained defensive, they were now in defense of Avery. “How did they explain that away? Just some lone-wolf bullshit because you’re only half-fey?”
Avery’s eyes averted. “They did not have to stretch the narrative too much for a motive.”
Saga folded her arms. “You often butt heads with royalty?” Even in asking it, she knew she wouldn’t be terribly surprised by the answer.
“The Erlking was my father.”
She was wrong. “Come again?”
“In the loosest sense of the word,” Avery explained. “He had an affair with my mother. Brief, but consensual as far as I know. The Erlking was not known for his gentility or compassion, so any questions you might have about that would only add to mine. My mother died before I could ask her. They could not have been more opposite creatures.”
Saga was reminded of the curious case of her own parents. While the stakes had been infinitely higher for Avery, she couldn’t help but feel closer to her knowing this small piece of information. “So you killed your father to save the world?”
There was another moment of hesitation. There was something Avery wasn’t telling her, or something she didn’t have the words to tell her easily. “A sidhe is particularly difficult to destroypermanently.Bodies crumble, but the spirit rebuilds a vessel. That the Erlking hasnotyet risen again is actually…surprising.” Avery nervously licked her lower lip. “Blood spilled by a relation is a blow that has a chance ofsticking—similar to using your blood to seal a spell. The blood of your bloodline, and all that.” Avery tooka deep breath and dared to meet Saga’s eyes once more. “So you see, it had to be me to deliver that blow. There was no one else. Well, there wasGideon, but he’d sooner dance a jig in cross-gartered leggings than do anything that could be remotely perceived as treason.”
Saga blinked and Avery looked self-conscious.
“I know this is a lot to take in.” The taller woman rubbed the back of her neck. She smiled weakly, but it faded the instant it was not returned. “Please say something.”
“They were going to keep you in prison for five hundred years for that?” Saga’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Would you have even survived five hundred years?”
“Fey have always had ways of making sure you live out your full sentence, one way or another.” Avery paused, seeming to debate with herself before continuing. “For my particular punishment, I was suspended in time through an imprisonment of sleep without rest and endless nightmares until awoken.”
“By true love’s kiss?”
Avery glared. “Very funny.”
It wasn’t that it didn’t sound horrific, or that she wanted to make light of what Avery had been through but Saga had learned from a young age that humor was her greatest ally. She was even smiling a little. “Was there a dragon and a tower too, or would that be only available if you made parole?”
“Saga,” Avery warned.
“You need me right now.” They both knew it, and there was part of Saga that utterly thrilled in that fact. She pointed her finger toward Avery’s sternum. “I’d let me have this if I were you.” Blackmail. For a joke.
The corner of Avery’s mouth twitched in amusement. “So you’ll help?”
“You’ll be with me the whole time?”
“Yes.” There was no hesitation in Avery’s voice now.
