Ink Exchange

Chapter 35

Niall had stopped by the loft to gather a few belongings when Aislinn walked in. "I don't want to discuss it again," he started, but then Aislinn stepped to the side. Leslie stood behind her. She was wan, with dark circles under her eyes. Bluish veins were so clear through her skin that, to his vision, she had a slight blue tint to her.

Aislinn said, "She wants to talk to you … not to me." Then his queen-no-more left, closing the door behind her, leaving Niall alone with Leslie.

"Has something happened?" he asked.

"Irial sends his regards." Her movements were as stilted as her words. She wandered away to stare out the window. Shadows danced in the air around her; he'd seen those same shadows dance in Irial's eyes, formless figures that leaped and spun on the edge of the abyss. Now they hovered around Leslie, a retinue of nightmare's handmaidens.

Niall didn't know what to do or say or think. So he waited.

"Can we leave?" She looked over her shoulder. "I can't do this here."

"Do what?"

She watched him, dispassionately it seemed. "What we talked about before."

And he knew that whatever she wasn't saying was horrific enough that she'd decided to leave Irial.

"Will you help me, Niall?" she asked. "I need to set things right."

For a moment, Niall wasn't sure if it was Leslie or Irial asking: her voice sounded wrong, her words not matching the intonations he'd heard from her before. But it didn't matter. The shadows danced around her, and he gave the only answer he could offer either of them: "Yes."

Leslie felt the strange whisper of Irial's nature rustling through her, even now. And it was a comfort, even though she was hoping to end it. What he gave her, what he cost her, it wasn't right for either of them. She would find it easier if she could call him evil, but none of this was about values or ethics. Those answers were too simple. Irial did what he deemed necessary to save his fey, what he thought best for his court—including her. It wasn't what was best for her or for the people who'd been brought to terror in the hands of the Dark Court. It wasn't best for the thousands of mortals who'd inevitably get drawn into Irial's plans once she grew less important to him or he grew more desperate.

She smiled at Niall. They stood in her old room. She hadn't been back there since she'd left with Irial. When she'd walked in, the house was empty, as if no one else had been there in weeks. If she could feel it, she might worry about her father, but as it was she merely noted that she wanted to worry.

Deal with that later. After.

Niall pulled her into his arms, holding her as securely as if she'd been falling only to be snatched back from the edge. His hand cradled the back of her head. "Will you look poorly on me if I admit that I wish I weren't the one to do this?"

"No." Later, though, when Irial's influence wore off, she suspected she might.

"Come on." She took his hand in hers and led him to the bed, her bed, inside her house. It was safe. Because of Irial.

Niall stood motionless as she sat down on the edge of the faded rose covers. She could feel rare brushes with her feelings—thanks to what Irial had done, thanks to the mortals who'd fallen into the arms of the Dark Court—not all of her feelings, but a few of the stronger ones. She felt disgust at the way the faeries treated the dead bodies, horror at the fact that people had suffered because of her. She cringed at the sin-sick weight of it… and at her yearning to return to numbness so she didn't have to feel it. That's what she'd pursued—numbness—and it wasn't worth the cost to her or anyone else.

She pulled Niall toward her; he looked at her with sad eyes.

Her stomach clenched at the fear that threatened to smother her—not in the way it once had, but in hunger.

Irial's hunger.

Then her fear fled, swallowed down by Irial as he sat in one of his clubs, surrounded by the fey who'd been slowly flocking to his side. Hopefully Irial's hungers would take the edge off the pain she knew was coming.

She rolled over, removing her shirt as she did, and tried not to think of what was about to happen. Eyes closed, she said, "Please?"

Niall lowered his hands onto her skin, onto her ink, onto that mark where Irial's presence was anchored into her skin. His touch burned from the small ball of sunlight that Aislinn had given him at the loft, that he'd carried inside him, that he'd brought.

At my request.

The frost that the other queen—the Winter Queen— had given him followed the sunlight: Leslie thought she felt icicles piercing her skin. And she screamed, though she tore at her lip to keep that sound inside. She screamed as she'd done only once before.

This isn't Niall's fault. MY choice. Mine.

"Forgive me," he begged as he forced the sunlight and frost into her skin, freezing the tears in the ink, searing away the tinge of Irial's blood that was blended into that ink, killing the roots of the black vine that Irial's ink had anchored in her body.

"Leslie?" Irial whispered.

She could see him clearly enough that he looked like a hologram in the room. If her eyes hadn't been closed, she would have believed he really was there. Startled, he stood, unsettling the faery who'd been curled on his lap. "What are you doing?"

"Choosing." She bit the coverlet to keep from screaming again. Her hands were fisted so tight that she felt the cover rip. Her spine bowed. Niall's knee was on her back, holding her down.

Tears were soaking the blanket under Leslie's face.

"I'm mine. Not anyone else's."

"I'm still yours, though. That won't ever change, Shadow Girl." And then he was gone, and her emotions crashed over her.

Niall pulled his hands away, and she turned her head to look at him. He sat beside her, staring down at his hands. "I'm sorry. Gods, I'm sorry."

"I'm not." She wasn't sure of much else, but she knew that. Then the agony in her skin, the memories, the surge of horror, it was too much: she rolled over and threw up in the wastebasket. Her entire body clenched as pain coursed through her. Tears joined the perspiration on her face as hot and cold flashes switched in and out of control. Muscles she hadn't known she had were knotting up in response to the pain inside her.

She smiled despite it all; for just a moment, she smiled. She was free. It hurt like hell, but she was free.