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Before anyone could reply, one of the thistle-fey came into the wreckage-strewn room unannounced. “My King!” He half pushed, half dragged another faery in front of him. “War has come.”
Before they could reply, the faery that had been shoved into the room said, “The Hunt has begun the battle, Your Majesties.” He looked from Niall to Keenan and back to Niall. “The Huntswoman sent us to each of the three courts. The fight . . . Bananach sits on your throne, has declared herself Dark Queen.”
“She what?” Niall—or perhaps Irial—asked.
Keenan repressed a shiver at the darkness in that voice. He’d seen Niall angry, understood the horrible depths that both kings were capable of separately, and now wondered what it would mean to have both of those tempers in the same body.
“We have our answer.” Niall-Irial stood. The Dark King caught Leslie’s hand, and the terrible darkness vanished. “Will you stay here? If things . . .”
“I’ll be here. Not forever, but for a couple days until everything is sorted out.” The mortal girl embraced the Dark King. “Go kick her ass.”
With something like awe in his expression, the Dark King—whichever of them—looked at Leslie and then kissed her briefly.
He turned to Keenan. “Will you fight? Or now that you have no sunlight . . . are you able?”
Instead of answering, Keenan let winter fill his eyes as he looked at the Dark King. “I am not skilled with this element, but I am not exactly defenseless.”
Irial—because that dry tone was clearly not Niall—said, “Well, wouldn’t Beira be . . . shocked?”
“No.” Keenan shook his head. “She knew all along what I could do. I chose to be Summer, and she knew it every day of my life.”
The Dark King smiled. “Your father would’ve been proud.”
Keenan paused and admitted, “I hope so. . . . Niall?”
“No. . . . That was Irial.” Niall shook his head. “I hear him when he speaks now. I hear him speaking in my head to only me, and I hear him when he speaks to you with . . . through me.”
Keenan stared at Niall. “Can you fight like this?”
“I can. I feel better now than I have since he died.” Niall frowned. “I don’t know if it’s from sleeping or knowing he’s still with me or . . .” Niall’s words faded as he put aside whatever thoughts he was trying to make sense of. He looked at Keenan. “Donia knows about your capacity for Winter?”
“She was the only one alive who did know until now.” Keenan looked around the room. The mortal, the Dark Kings, the messenger, and the thistle-fey all stared back at him, and the former Summer King felt like a carnival curiosity. “Do we have a plan?”
“Weapons,” Niall called. “We fight War. Now.”
Dark Court faeries came trooping into the room as if utterly unconcerned by the king’s declaration that they were going to fight War. One tossed a halberd to—or possibly at—Keenan. They were nothing like the faeries he had been surrounded by his whole life. Several of them paused to smile at the mortal girl; Leslie sat peacefully in their midst as if they weren’t loathsome. None of the thistle-fey touched her, but most every faery that crossed the threshold beamed at the sight of her, and many of the not-painful-to-touch faeries stroked her cheek or arm as they passed her. Through it all, Leslie said nothing.
The messenger looked far less at ease.
The messenger . . .
Keenan passed the halberd off to a thistle-fey and grabbed the messenger. “Go to the water, the river, and tell them that the bestia brings deaths. Tell them that Innis promised to aid me. Go.”
The Dark King hefted a broadsword. “You weren’t merely out sulking after all.”
A group of three faeries came in with arms full of
weapons—many bloodstained—and tossed them onto the floor. Other faeries sifted through the weapons. The flow of armed faeries started toward the street. They were chortling and grinning.
The messenger fled, and Keenan shrugged. “Having allies seemed wise.”
“Are we allies now, kingling??
?
“I’m not a king, but I will fight with the Dark Court and any of those who stand against Bananach, and not”—Keenan stared directly at the Dark King and grabbed several throwing knives from the stack of weapons—“because of a threat by either of you.”
“You are your father’s son,” Irial remarked.
