Old Habits (2 page)

For a moment, Niall debated pressing the matter, but part of being a friend meant trusting that Seth would speak if he needed help. Niall tapped out another cigarette. “You’ll let me know if you need intercession.” He looked at Seth as he packed his cigarette. “I have a few faeries who might find it entertaining to assist you.”

“Yeah, Ash would be thrilled if I send the Dark Court knocking.” Seth quirked a brow again. “You want to pick a fight with the Summer Court, you’ll do it on your own. I’m not planning to give you an excuse.”

Niall lit his cigarette. “Just don’t forget.”

“Not today, okay?”

Admitting defeat, Niall held up his hands.

“So how are you?” Seth prodded carefully. “Are you getting along any better with your . . . predecessor?”

The fact was that Niall did want to talk to Seth about that topic, but he didn’t quite know what to say; not yet, at least. He took a drink. He smoked.

And Seth waited.

“He’s gone missing regularly, and I don’t know what he’s doing.” Niall shook his head. He was more than a millennium old, and he was seeking advice from a mortal child. “Never mind.”

“And you don’t want to ask what he’s doing, but you feel like you should.”

Niall said nothing. He couldn’t deny it, but he didn’t want to admit it either. He might not be ready for Irial to hand all of the court’s backroom bargains, illicit investments, and nefarious dealings over to him, but he felt like he
should
know about them.

“Either let it ride or tell him he needs to report in more. There’s not a whole lot else to say, is there?” Seth gestured at the now open dartboards. “Come on. Distraction time.”

It had been hours that Sorcha sat unmoving as Devlin brought forth the business that required her attention. One of the mortals that lived among them was mourning. It was a messy business.

“Should I send him back to their world or end his breathing?” Devlin asked her.

“He was a good mortal; he should be allowed to live a while longer.” The High Queen moved one of the figures on her game board. “Remind him that if he’s leaving us he can’t be allowed to see us. You will need to gouge his eyes.”

“They do dislike that,” Devlin remarked.

Sorcha tsked. “There are rules. Explain his options; perhaps it will inspire him to learn to temper his emotions so as to stay here.”

Devlin made a note. “He’s been weeping for days, but I’ll explain it.”

“What else?”

“Some of the discarded paintings were left in a warehouse for the mortals to ‘discover.’” Devlin stepped closer and moved a figurine carved in a kneeling position.

She nodded.

“I’ve not heard any more of War’s intentions.” Devlin’s expression didn’t alter, but she saw the tension he was restraining. “The Dark Court seems unaware. The Summer Court remains clueless . . .”

“And Winter?”

“The new Winter Queen is not receiving guests. I was refused entrance.” Devlin paused as if the idea of being refused was perplexing to him. He existed from the beginning of time, so it was somewhere between pleasing and befuddling for him when a faery managed to surprise him. “Her rowan said that I could leave a . . . note.”

“So we wait.” Sorcha nodded. The newer fey were peculiar; their methods seemed crude to her sometimes, but unlike her brother, she was not amused by it. It simply
was.
Emotional reaction to it was unnecessary. She lifted another figurine and dropped it to the marble floor, where it shattered into dust and pebbles. “That play hasn’t worked for centuries, Brother.”

Devlin lifted another piece and replaced it in the same square. “Will you take dinner or will you be in cloister?”

“I’ll be cloistered.”

He bowed and left the hall then, leaving Sorcha alone and free to meditate for the evening. She stood and stretched, and then she too left the stillness of the hall. Even the minutia of business must be handled in the same way it always had been—in austere spaces with reasonable answers.

Only the swish of her skirts disturbed the quiet as Sorcha made her way to the small room where she intended to spend the remainder of the day. It was one of the indoor spaces where she meditated. The gardens were preferable, but tonight she’d opted to forego the openness of such places in favor of the intimacy of a tiny room.

Her slippers made no sound as she entered the empty chamber, nor did she verbalize the moment of discord she felt when she found the room occupied. “I did not summon you.”

Irial stretched on one of the plush chairs she’d had brought in from a local shop. “Relax, love.”

She leveled an unyielding look at the former Dark King. “Faeries of your court aren’t welcome in my presence—”

“It’s not my court. Not now. I’ve walked away.” He stood as he said it, tense as if he had to restrain himself from approaching her. “Do you ever wish you could walk away, Sorch?”

Sorcha cringed at his bastardization of her name, at the familiarity in his tone. “I am the High Court. There is no walking away.”

“Nothing lasts forever. Even you can change.”

“I do not change, Irial.”

“I have.” He was barely a pace away from her then, not touching, but close enough that she felt his breath on her skin. It was all she could do not to shudder. He might not be the Dark King anymore, but he was still the embodiment of temptation.

And well aware of it.

He took the advantage. “Have you missed me? Do you think about the last time we—”

“No,” she interrupted. “I believe I might’ve forgotten.”

“Ah-ah-ah, fey don’t lie, darling.”

She backed away, out of reach. “Leave it alone. The details of the last mistake aren’t even important enough to be clear anymore.”

“I remember. A half moon, autumn, the air was too cold to be so”—he followed, letting his gaze linger on her, as if her heavy skirts weren’t in his way—“exposed, but you were. I’m surprised there wasn’t oak imprinted on your skin.”

“It wasn’t an oak.” She shoved him away. “It was a . . .”

“. . . willow,” he murmured at the same time. He looked satisfied, sated, as he walked away.

“What difference does it make? Even queens make mistakes sometimes.” Even though he wasn’t looking at her, she hid her smile. She had always enjoyed watching him draw her emotions to the surface, enough so that she’d pretended not to know that the Dark Court fed on those emotions. “None of this explains why you are here, Irial.”

He lit another of his cigarettes and stood at the open window, inhaling the noxious stuff. If she did that, it would pollute her body. Irial, the whole Dark Court, was different this way as well. They took in toxins to no ill effect. For a moment she was envious. He made her feel so many untoward feelings—envy, lust, rage. It was not appropriate for the queen of the Court of Reason to be filled with such things. It was one of the reasons why she’d forbade members of the Dark Court from returning to Faerie. Only the Dark King had consent to approach her.

But he’s not the king anymore.

She felt a twinge of regret. She couldn’t justify giving in to his presence now, not logically.

And logic is the only thing that should matter. Logic. Order.

Irial kept his back to her while her emotions tumbled out of control. “I want to know why Bananach comes here.”

“To bring me news.” Sorcha began reasserting her self-control.

Enough indulging.

The former Dark King was kind enough to not look at her as she struggled with her emotions. He stared out the window as he asked, “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what news?”

“No. I won’t.” She took her seat again, calm and in control of her feelings.

“Did it have to do with Niall?” Irial looked at her then. This odd honesty they shared over the centuries was something she’d miss now that he was no longer the Dark King. No one save her brother and Irial saw this side of her.

“Not directly.”

“He’s a good king.” Irial wasn’t quite pleading, but he would for Niall. The devotion he had for the Gancanagh was one of his greatest weaknesses. She felt another twinge of envy that didn’t show on her face, but that Irial, of course, knew all the same.

“I have no mercy for the Dark King—regardless of which of you it is. That won’t change.”

“I don’t often ask favors of you, Sorch . . . your high-ness”—he bowed his head—“but please don’t support Bananach’s intent. She would destroy my . . .
his
court. She—”

“Irial?”

He looked up.

“She didn’t ask for that. And even if she had . . . my sister is not meant for ruling. She’d be a force of destruction that I cannot imagine. I’ve no quarrel with Niall”—she frowned—“aside from the usual objections to the mere existence of the Dark Court.”

And Irial smiled at her, as beautiful and deadly as he’d always been. King or not, he was still a force to fear.
Like Bananach. Like the Summer Queen’s mortal.
Often it was the solitary ones who were the most trouble; the tendency toward independence was not something that sat well with the High Queen. It was unorderly.

He was watching her, tasting the edges of her emotions and believing she was unaware of what he was doing. So she gave him the emotion he craved most from her: need. She couldn’t say it, couldn’t make the first move. She counted on him to do that. It absolved her of responsibility for the mistake she so wanted to make.

If he were to realize that she knew the Dark Court’s secret, their ability to feed on emotions, she’d lose these rare moments of not being reasonable. That was the prize she purchased with her silence. She kept her faeries out of the Dark Court’s reach, hid them away in seclusion—all for this.

The Queen of Reason closed her eyes, unable to look at temptation kneeling in front of her but unwilling to tell him to depart. She felt him remove the cord that bound her hair. Knew without looking that he stood gazing at her with the expression she wished she could just once see on another faery’s face.

“You need to say something or give me some clear answer. You know that.” His breath tickled her face, her throat. “You can still call it a horrible mistake later.”

She opened her eyes to stare directly into his abyss-dark gaze and whispered, “Or now?”

“Or now,” he agreed. He didn’t mock her weakness. He never did.

“Yes.” The word was barely from her lips before she wrapped her arms around him and gave up on being reasonable for a few hours.

Sorcha sat and re-plaited her hair while Irial reclined on the floor next to her. He never provoked her or pointed out the truth of their relationship during these quiet moments. He didn’t even smoke his cigarettes so close to her. For all his shadows, he had a number of qualities that made her nights too often lonely over the years. No one but the Dark King had ever touched her heart so easily.

He was different this time, though, and she didn’t particularly like it. He wasn’t really hers, but he was the closest to hers that she’d ever had. “Is it Niall? Are you back in his good graces?”

“No. I consider myself fortunate that he even speaks to me these days.” He looked so wounded that she reached out and caressed his arm briefly.

“You do fall in love with the least acceptable people,” she said.

“And you don’t?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever fallen in love with anyone, even you. I enjoy how you make me feel. There’s a big difference.” The admission made her sad, but falling in love was so very unorderly. It wouldn’t do for the High Queen to get caught up in the melodrama of falling in love.

“You wound me,” he said.

“Not likely.” She gave him a genuine smile before picking up her garments from the floor. She held the pale cloth to her chest and turned her back to him. He moved her braid over her shoulder and fastened the tight bindings.

“I am worried about them both. I am worried about your sister’s machinations . . .” He watched her slip on her skirts while he spoke.

“She always presses for war . . . but things feel different this time,” she admitted. Part of politics for them had always been admissions that weren’t public knowledge. During Beira’s reign, Irial had come to her for solace; when he lost Niall, he had come to her for comfort; and when Beira murdered Miach, Irial had come to her—with all his unsettling presence exposed in a rare moment of vulnerability—and together they had mourned the last Summer King. That was the first time she’d opted to indulge in the glorious mistakes they’d shared the past few centuries.

Today is the last time.

“Niall holds her reins better than I did of late, but . . .” Irial scowled. “She’s growing stronger.”

“And Gabriel?” Sorcha waited, hopeful that the Hounds’ allegiance to the Dark Court was intact.

“He supports Niall.”

“With the trouble between Summer and Winter and between Dark and Summer . . .” She let the words fade away, not wanting to speak them into being.

“Niall strengthens the Dark Court. Had I stayed king . . . Keenan would’ve attacked in time. He’s not going to forgive my binding him. Nine centuries is a long time for rage to fester.” Irial’s regret was obvious even if he didn’t mention it.

They, and few others, knew the reluctance of his bargain with Beira. Binding Miach’s son wasn’t something the Dark King had wanted to do, but like any good ruler, he made hard choices. That choice had given his court strength. Sorcha, at the time, was grateful that Beira hadn’t set her sights on Faerie. In time, she would’ve, but then . . . then, it was Summer’s fall, Dark’s entrapment, and her staying silent.

“So we wait.” Sorcha reclaimed the calm reserve that was her daily mien. She gestured toward the door. “You need to go.”

“If I learn anything . . .”

She nodded.

“I do enjoy seeing you, Sorch”—his arrogance came back, covering the worry—“as much as we both know you enjoy seeing me.”

Then he unlocked the door and left.

Inside, she was filled with amusement and satisfaction . . . and a good dose of worry, but her face showed none of that as she strode out of the room.

She beckoned the nearest guard and said, “Escort him to the door so I know he’s gone from my home.”