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She’s dead, I had to remind myself as I clutched his hand tighter. She can’t get to him anymore. She can’t hurt him anymore.
“I’m sorry I asked,” Idony said quietly. Sloga sighed and patted her knee.
“I went and retrieved their bodies from outside the Midsith and buried them by their sidhe.” He looked at Lonan. “I will take you to them one day.”
Lonan nodded tightly, giving him a weak smile. “Thank you.”
“Now.” Sloga exhaled, straightening his back as he reached for his satchel. “On to happier things. I’ve brought more sketches to show you, Lonan.”
Lonan squeezed my hand as he went to get up. “I want you to see.”
The mood grew less sombre as Sloga shared his sketches of Faulis, who looked like an older, slightly wilder version of Lonan. It was like I was seeing a glimpse of him in the future, and my chest ached as Lonan’s face lit up with each new drawing he saw.
Sloga shared stories about him, from when he was younger and happy and carefree. Before the Carlin got her talons in him. He told us about the time Faulis had returned home with a crate of expensive wine that he’d stolen off the back of a cart heading for seelie land, and when he’d ventured into the mortal world and scared an entire village by prowling down the road as an enormous black dog in the middle of the night.
“Wait, wait, wait.” I laughed, setting down my plate. Lunch had been delivered to the room, and we’d all migrated onto the floor with Sloga to eat together. “I’ve heard about that.”
Sloga cocked his head. “How? It was decades ago.”
“I’m serious! He’s a legend around where I grew up. The Black Shuck.”
“A legend?” Idony rolled her eyes, but a fond smile played on her mouth. “He would love that.”
“He would.” Sloga chuckled. “Another time he went to the mortal world, he came back with someone’s linens. He said they looked soft and they were hanging outside to dry, so he stole them out of the garden.”
“So he was a thief,” Lonan said with a smile.
“A good-natured thief,” Sloga agreed.
“Oh, aren’t we all?” Idony raised a hand, almost sloshing wine out of her glass. “Every fae is a thief if they get the chance. It’s in our nature. The old ones used to steal babies, didn’t they? And then there’s food. Wine. Trinkets.” She took a sip of her drink, raising her brows at me over the rim of her glass. “Princes.”
I flushed as Lonan chuckled, bumping his shoulder with mine. “Ash didn’t steal me. I assure you, I went very willingly.”
“Some things are just begging to be stolen.” Idony patted Sloga’s knee. “Tell them about the incident with the kelpie. When Faulis came home soaking wet.”
I glanced over at Lonan, leaning into his side. He was picking at his lunch, eyes riveted on Sloga as he listened to stories about his father. His cheeks were faintly flushed with happiness, eyes clear and unguarded for once, like he was no longer shielding a piece of himself from everyone.
This was how he was always supposed to look. And I was going to make sure I saw that expression on his face every single day, for the rest of our lives.
Chapter Forty-Five
Ash
I stayed on unseelie for just under a week.
When Lonan was busy with kingly stuff, I spent time with Sloga. He told me about the long-ago time when the fae world was more open to the mortal one, when the Folk would venture out often, sometimes even choosing to live among mortals for many years. When some of them would use their knowledge and powers to help mortals with remedies and potions, while others would steal babies from cots and leave changelings in their place.
I’d asked him how common half mortals were. He’d told me that there used to be a fair amount, many years ago when more of the Folk lived among mortals and some fell in love with them, starting families. But most remained mortal for their entire lives.
“What causes a latent fae to shed their mortal skin is different for each individual,” he told me solemnly. “For some, it could be as simple as a kiss from one of the Folk. For others, perhaps those with a strong sense of self or a stubborn streak like you,” he added with a tiny smile, “it can take something bigger. Something as terrible and traumatic as untimely death.”
He told me that when the mortal world started growing more polluted and crowded, the Folk had closed many of the doorways that let people cross over. They hid away, closing themselves off, until they stopped being a fact of life to mortals and became nothing more than stories and superstitions.
I eagerly shared everything he told me with Lonan. In some ways, learning it all made me feel closer to the part of myself I’d lost. I was full fae now in the literal sense, but I never wanted to forget my mortal life. My childhood, my parents. My history may not have been important to the Folk, who saw me as their king or the strange half mortal who had lived among them for a while, but it was important to me.
When Lonan wasn’t busy, he showed me every inch of the unseelie palace. Many of the rooms were sparsely decorated and little-used. The Carlin had spent the majority of her time in her private quarters, and we realised why when we explored them.
One of her rooms was a deathcraft chamber, filled with gruesome objects and artefacts. Skulls. Body parts suspended in liquid in jars. Bones tied together and hanging from the ceiling by lengths of twine. Dried organs laid out beside a huge stone pestle and mortar with something dark and rusty ground to dust inside. Ancient books on the art of deathcraft were stacked haphazardly on shelves, the margins of the pages filled with her scribblings. Dark, black-red candles had melted over every surface, their texture odd and flaky like they weren’t made entirely from wax. The room had smelled wrong. Metallic and sour. Like death.
