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Keenan tried not to glance at the cage above the Dark King. “The other one?”
“The queen . . . no matter.” Niall waved his hand dismissively. “I assume you’re here about my pet.”
“Your . . . pet?”
The Dark King pointed at the cage. “He’s a troublesome thing, but you can’t have him. He owes me, and I’m not going to dismiss his debt.”
“I see. Who’s in the cage?” Keenan couldn’t see inside it. This was the Dark Court, and neither prisoners nor cages were unheard of within their court.
Niall scowled. “I didn’t expect it, but some animals are unpredictable.”
“Who’s in the cage, Niall?” Keenan repeated.
“Seth.”
“You know you can’t keep him there. I don’t like him, but”—Keenan shrugged—“I do not rule my court alone. My queen will not accept this.”
For several moments, Niall remained near motionless. If not for the regular inhalation and exhalation of his disgusting cigarette smoke, he would have seemed immobile. Then, Niall nodded. “I have a proposition. I’d thought to make it to her since I didn’t figure you’d come here.”
“Oh.”
“My pet sees things. Did you know that?” Niall stood abruptly and walked over to a lever on the floor. The broken glass that clung to the dried blood on his feet was pushed farther into his skin with each step, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Your feet—”
“Did you know?” Niall roared.
“I did,” Keenan admitted.
“So he’s betrayed me there as well.” Niall’s expression grew dark, and he stayed silent for a moment.
“What has he told you?” Niall shoved the lever, and the cage plummeted to the floor. Once it slammed to the ground, he stepped up to it and stood with his hands gripping the bars of Seth’s cage.
“Nothing about your court,” Keenan said.
Niall glanced over his shoulder at Keenan and asked, “You’d keep him as your court pet now, wouldn’t you? You’d
look the other way far easier now that he is an asset.
You’d let him bed your queen in exchange for the power he’d offer you.”
“She makes her own choices as to her bedmates.”
“Aaaah, your naïveté has always been amusing,” the Dark King said.
Keenan exchanged a furtive glance with Seth, who now had a band of shadows covering his mouth, keeping him silent.
Niall turned his back to Keenan and walked toward his throne. “Tell your queen that she may still visit him. I’m afraid he can’t speak to anyone but me, but I will let them enjoy each other in private . . . for a cost.”
“Which is?”
“Your faeries will do as I request in a scuffle I expect to come sooner rather than later. I will have Bananach stopped.” Niall looked at Seth, who was gesturing at them both now. “What’s that you say? You think it’s a brilliant plan? Sacrifice their faeries to do my work?”
Seth shook his head. His fingers were flashing wildly as if to convey words. Niall sighed, and black ribbons wrapped around Seth’s wrists.
“You care for him,” Keenan said. “He has been your friend. You struck me for him, offered your court’s protection. He is yours to protect.”
“Sometimes such emotion is a weakness.” Nia
