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The stink of metal was stronger now, and my eyes darted to the black iron fixtures on the back door. Would I be able to go inside? As we got closer to the house, my throat closed up when I saw the kitchen through the window. It was dim in there, but it looked the same as it always had. I could almost picture my dad humming to himself as he boiled the kettle to make tea. Mags standing by the stove, stirring something in a pot for dinner.
My vision wavered, grew blurry. I blinked fast to clear it, walking slowly to the back door. I reached for the latch, even though I knew it would probably be locked, but an unseen force pushed my hand back anyway.
“The iron,” Nua said quietly.
I nodded, keeping my head bent and trying not to sniffle. I couldn’t even go inside.
Stepping back, I looked up at my bedroom window. The curtains were still drawn—I hadn’t ever opened them after my parents’ death, wanting to keep myself in a dark cocoon while I slept during the day.
“We can sit out here,” Nua offered, resting a gentle hand on my shoulder. “We can stay here as long as you want, Ash.”
I nodded again, but I was already making my way to the side of the house, to the narrow path that led to the front garden. I hadn’t come with a plan to take anything back, but now that I was here, I needed something of my father’s. Something tangible. Something I could hold and keep. I couldn’t get inside, but maybe… maybe there’d be some post left on the front step. A letter with his name on. Anything.
The front garden was just as overgrown as the back. A single car drove past on the narrow country road, the driver not even glancing at us. Not seeing us. Its fumes made me wrinkle my nose, made me want to cough, so much stronger and sharper than they had ever been when I was mortal.
There was a police notice taped to the front door, yellow and faded, but I couldn’t bring myself to read it. Weeds had sprouted in the tiny cracks in the pathway leading to the door, and thick, thorny stems were strangling all the lavender and rose bushes that Mags had so lovingly tended to out here.
When I looked in the living room window, everything seemed faded and dusty, but I took it all in with fervent desperation. The overflowing bookcase. The sagging sofa with the blanket Mags had always thrown over her lap still draped over the arm.
On the coffee table was the embroidery she had been working on—fat pumpkins delicately stitched in orange and brown and white, surrounded by the faint outline of autumn leaves that would never be finished. Beside it was the book my dad must have been reading before they went away up north. One of the hard-boiled detective novels he loved so much, split open on the table to mark his place. Mags had always scolded him for doing that, saying it ruined the spines.
A sob hitched in my throat as I pressed a hand to the dirty glass. It was all right there, so close, and I couldn’t get to any of it. All the things they’d touched and owned. Little pieces of themselves left behind to rot in an empty house. Forgotten.
I just wanted one thing. Now that I was here, I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave without something. Stepping back and wiping my dirty palm on my cloak, I walked shakily back to the front door and crouched down by the wrinkled pile of post that looked like it had been soaked by the rain several times.
“Are you alright, Ash?” Nua asked softly. I nodded hurriedly, keeping my head bent and swiping under my nose as I sniffed.
“Ye—” The word got stuck in my throat, so instead I sifted through the pile, utter despair filling me when I realised it was all just junk mail. Leaflets for window cleaning services, the village newsletter, little business cards left by estate agents asking if we wanted to sell our home because the market had never been better.
My shaking fingers clenched too tight around the papers, the grief mingling with impotent fury. I just wanted one thing. Just one. Something with my father’s name on, something that acknowledged he’d existed.
My breath caught when I noticed a white envelope under the overgrown rose bush. Snatching it up, I started to stand before freezing when I realised it was just more junk, only For the Homeowner written in the little window. A choked sound left my throat as I flung it back down.
“Are you sure I can’t get inside?” I croaked to Nua, who was standing in silence, just watching. “I just want… I want something of his.”
“I’m so sorry, Ash.” His voice was thick. “You can’t. Even without the iron, we can’t enter someone’s home without invitation.”
“But it was my home,” I choked out. “It was mine, my dad’s—”
“But it isn’t anymore,” he said softly, walking forward to meet me. I flinched when he squeezed my arm. “I’m sorry.”
My mouth trembled as a hot tear spilled down my cheek. “I wish…”
I couldn’t finish the thought, because I didn’t really know what I’d wish for if I had the chance to change anything. I wished my parents were still alive, of course, but then I would have never met Lonan. Or Nua and Gillie.
I wished I didn’t have to live with the confusing pain that came with my memories from unseelie. The grief. The loneliness. The pure joy when everything began with Lonan, the fragile hope that maybe things would be okay, only to have it all ripped away from me in the Carlin’s throne room.
The months of living with no memory of him whatsoever, only to have it all rush back in an instant and scramble the reality I’d come to accept.
I wished I hadn’t killed that broon in the seelie palace. I wished I hadn’t had to kill all those guards—I wished I hadn’t found a sickening sense of satisfaction in it. I wished I hadn’t had to kill anyone at all.
I’d done things that had changed the fundamental core of me, and I didn’t really know who I was anymore. I didn’t feel like the old me. I didn’t feel like a new version of me either. I certainly didn’t feel like a king, but I knew I had to be one, so I couldn’t let anyone see it.
Sometimes, I wondered if the old Ash had completely died the day I shed my mortal skin—died and not come back. Maybe I was someone else now, or maybe I was just a vessel for whatever power now lived in me, the power that had wormed its way down my throat once the Brid’s body was no longer a viable host. I wished I knew the answer.
I wished for a lot of things, but wishing didn’t solve problems. Wishing didn’t keep people safe. Wishing didn’t change anything.
When a low sob escaped me, Nua let out a trembling breath and his hand fell from my arm. “I’m so sorry, Ash.”
