Ink Exchange

Chapter 15

By the time Irial left, Niall was sure that the Dark King would try to see Leslie again—if for no other reason than to provoke Keenan. Or me. Irial might not actively strike out at Niall for refusing the offer to succeed him, but they both knew it was an unforgiven insult. Leslie was doubly vulnerable for being Aislinn's friend and for being Niall's… what? Not his paramour, but perhaps his friend—that was something he could be. He could enjoy her company, be near her; he could have all of the things he wanted—save one. If she's safe from harm … The best Niall could hope for was that Leslie wouldn't ever cross paths with Irial again. Hope isn't enough.

A commotion at the door heralded Aislinn and Keenan's arrival.

"Where's Seth?" Keenan hadn't crossed the length of the room before he asked the question that was of utmost importance to the court…Is he safe?

Aislinn was not beside Keenan. She had been waylaid by the cubs to allow Keenan to speak to Niall first. It was a weak ruse, but it would buy the king a brief moment.

"I sent him away with Leslie. Well guarded, but—" Niall paused as the Summer Queen approached, her skin glowing with obvious pique. "My queen."

He bowed briefly to her.

She ignored him, her gaze only on Keenan. "That's getting old, Keenan."

"I …" The Summer King sighed. "If Seth was in peril, I wanted to protect—"

She turned to Niall. "Is he?"

Niall kept his face unreadable as he told them, "Fortunately, Seth did not attract the Dark King's attention, but Leslie did."

"Leslie?" Aislinn repeated. She blanched. "That's the third time he's met her, but I didn't think … he didn't pay any attention to her at Rabbit's, and he was dismissive at Verlaine's, and she said he wasn't… I'm a fool. I … never mind." She shook her head and refocused on the topic at hand. "What happened?"

"Seth took Leslie away. The guards followed, but—" He looked not at Aislinn but at Keenan, hoping that their centuries of companionship would weigh in his favor. "Let me stay nearer her until Irial leaves again. I can't touch him, but he has …"

Niall couldn't say it, even now with everything that had passed; he wasn't sure how to finish that statement. Irial's random moments of kindness weren't something Niall liked to acknowledge.

A look of brief understanding passed over Keenan's face, but he did not ask the obvious questions. He did not point out that Niall was treading on unsafe ground. He merely nodded.

Aislinn spoke softly, "She is already interested in you, Niall. I don't want her to lose her mortal life because of a fleeting crush."

It was a warning. He knew it, but he'd been fey longer than his queen had drawn breath. Hoping Keenan wouldn't interfere, he asked, "What are your terms?"

"My terms?" She looked at Keenan.

"Terms under which he can go to her," Keenan clarified.

"Nothing's ever simple, is it?" Aislinn shoved at the gold-and-shadow streaks of her hair, looking like the sort of omnipotent deity mortals once believed the court fey to be.

"I will agree to whatever you ask of me if you let me keep her safe." Niall looked at Aislinn, but he spoke to Keenan as well. "I don't ask for many considerations."

Aislinn paced several steps away from them. For a newly fey monarch, the queen did exceptionally well, but Keenan and Niall had been together in the courts for centuries. There were habits, laws, traditions that Aislinn couldn't begin to understand so soon.

Niall looked at his king while Aislinn had her back turned.

Keenan didn't offer assurances. Instead he spoke softly to Aislinn. "You can set terms to Niall's presence in her life. He wants to protect the girl, to keep her safe. I would allow him to go to her."

"So I just need to figure how much he can get involved in her life?" Aislinn looked from Niall to Keenan, her observant gaze letting on that she knew there were nuances to the conversation that she was missing.

"Exactly," Keenan said. "None among us would willingly place a child in the Dark Court's hands, but if Irial's done no affront to our court, it's not our concern by law. I cannot act, not directly, unless he violates the laws."

Then his king walked away, having told Niall what he needed to know, what he'd already known: Keenan wasn't going to act. The Summer King didn't approve of Irial's predilections, his cruelties, or anything that happened in the shadows of the Dark King's court, but that didn't mean he was willing to enter a fight with the other court unless he could justify it by law. Those were his terms, whether he'd spoken them into the negotiations or not.

The Dark Court—like any of the courts—had volition. If Leslie belonged to the Summer Court, things would be different. But she was unattached, and thus fair game for any fey who wanted her. Years ago, Keenan had forbidden his fey from collecting mortals. Donia had made the same ruling when she took the Winter Queen's throne. The Dark Court, however, had no such compunction. Musicians who were particularly tempting "died young" to the mortal world. Artists retired to unknown locales. The striking, the unusual, the enticing— they were stolen away for the pleasures of the dark faeries. It was an old tradition, one Irial had always permitted his court fey. If he wanted her for himself, Leslie had no defense.

Niall dropped to his knees in front of his queen. "Let me tell her about us. Please. I'll tell her, and she will swear fealty to you. She'd be safe then, out of his reach."

The Summer Queen bit her lip. She almost flinched away from him. "I don't want my friends under my rule. I didn't want any of this. …"

"You don't know what the Dark Court is like. I do," Niall told his queen. And he didn't want Leslie to know. Self-consciously he touched the scar on his face. Irial's fey had done that to remind him of them every day.

"I want her to be free of all of this." Aislinn gestured at the fey cavorting in the Rath. "To have a normal life. I don't want this world to be her life. She's already been so hurt—"

"If he takes her with him, he'll hurt her worse than you can begin to fathom." Niall had seen the mortals the Dark Court had taken into their bruig, seen them after they left the faery mound—comatose in mortal hospitals, muttering and afraid in every city, shrieking in sanatoriums.

Aislinn looked across the room, unerringly finding the Summer King where he stood waiting. She bit her lower lip nervously, and he knew she was considering it.

Niall pressed her, "If Irial has decided to claim her, you and Keenan are the only ones who can stop him. I can't touch him. He's a king. If you invite her to our court first, ask her to swear loyalty to you—"

"She's doing better lately," Aislinn interrupted. "She seems happier and more herself, stronger. I don't want to stop that and introduce all of this mess into her life. … Maybe he's just toying with us."

"Would you risk that?" Niall was aghast that his queen was being so foolhardy. "Please, my queen, let me go to her. If you won't bring her to you, let me try to keep her safe."

Keenan didn't approach—staying at a distance, making clear that it was the queen who was in charge—but he did speak. "Perhaps there is something to her we do not know, some reason for Irial to pursue her. And if not, Niall would still be there to try to keep her out of his reach, perhaps to distract her so she doesn't go willingly to Irial."

Keenan caught and held Niall's gaze. Although Aislinn could not see it, Keenan nodded at Niall; the king offered permission, consent to act. But Niall still needed Aislinn to assent. "She is your friend, but I am … grown fond of her as well. Let me keep her safe until he leaves. Remember how hard it was for you when Keenan pursued you. And she does not See him, not like you saw us."

"I want her safe from Irial" — Aislinn looked back at Keenan then, staring at the Summer King with some trace of the old fear in her eyes—"but I don't want her caught up in this world."

"Do you truly think there's a choice?" Keenan asked, his voice making clear that he did not. "You wanted to keep your ties to the mortal world. With that come risks."

"There are always choices." The Summer Queen straightened her shoulders. The wavering in her voice, the glint of fear in her eyes—they were gone now. "I won't make her choices for her."

Keenan did not disagree, although Niall knew him well enough to realize that he too thought Leslie's choices were growing limited. The difference was that Keenan didn't care; he simply couldn't involve himself in the life of every mortal who was plagued by a faery. This one didn't matter to Keenan, not really.

To Niall, however, she mattered more than any mortal ever had. He asked, "What terms, my queen?"

"You cannot tell her—about me or the fey or what you are. We need to learn more before we do that. … If there's a way to keep her safe from our world, to keep her unaware, we will." Aislinn watched his face, obviously looking for reactions, trying to gauge the wisdom of her terms.

Niall had centuries of experience, however. He stared unblinkingly at her. "Agreed."

"You may distract her, spend time with her, but no sex. You may not sleep with her. If Irial's interest is fleeting, you will be out of her life," Aislinn said.

Keenan did intervene then. "Don't start any wars without my accord. She might be important to you and to Aislinn, but I'll not go to war over one mortal."

She's more than just a mortal. Niall wasn't sure why that was or if it mattered. He nodded, though.

Then Keenan, half smiling, added, "Just be true to yourself, Niall. Remember who and what you are."

Niall almost gaped at his king, but he'd spent too long practicing hiding his emotions. He merely let out his breath. Keenan's intimations were directly in conflict with Aislinn's expressed wishes.

He knows what I am. Addictive to mortals, leaving them willing to say or do anything to have another touch, another fix…

Oblivious to this, Aislinn peered down at Niall, shining so brightly that no mortal could've faced her without pain. Small oceans shimmered in her eyes; dolphins breached within them, breaking the blue surface. "Those are my terms. Our terms."

Niall took Aislinn's hand, turning it over to press a kiss into her palm. "You are a generous queen."

Aislinn let him hold her hand for a moment, and then she pulled him to his feet and asked, "Why do I feel like I've left out something important?"

"Because you are also a wise queen, m'lady." He bowed his head to her so she couldn't see his expression.

Then he left the Rath, not wanting to waste precious time to list all of the other terms she could have set upon him: time limits; alliances he could make with other courts and with solitary fey; vows he could make to Leslie that wouldn't reveal what they were yet would protect her more fully; renouncing the Summer Court to swear to another court for Leslie's safety; bartering his own person in her stead.

Keenan should've spoken some of those into the negotiation. He should've bound Niall more tightly. Why hadn't he? He should've supported Aislinn's intent; instead he'd suggested Niall seduce Leslie. Niall could pretend he hadn't understood the import of Keenan's words and gesture; Keenan could pretend he hadn't suggested such a thing. It all added up to a kind of lie, though, a deceit that made Niall uneasy.