29. Lex
29
Lex
I t wasn’t all fairy wine and wild bloody orgies in Faerie. After Miri and Ivy sent the ruby dust careening into the fairy king, he woke up with his factory default settings, and the queen’s council argued for the next few hours over what they should do about it. The battle maidens and the Fianna came out of their stupor like nothing had ever happened, and the ones that had been wounded in the fight were miraculously healed, maybe from the queen’s magic, though she would never admit as much.
With the veil permanently closed, the angry, maniacal version of him technically was no longer a threat, but he’d found a way through before, and he’d do it again. Because of that, Finn and his Fianna urged caution.
I sat in the queen’s royal library tent, searching through ancient tomes for anything that might help me get home. Of course, half this shit was in a language I couldn’t read or understand, so I spent most of my time chasing my tail.
After I’d woken up near the ruins, Siobhan and Donnelly had taken pity on me and brought me back to their lodgings until I could find my own. But I didn’t plan on staying that long. I had agreed to this deal to save my beloveds. I didn’t want to be here.
Something Diana had said when we’d returned to Faerie and greeted her audience, something in the way she had worded it, stuck out to me at the time. She’d been very deliberate, and she’d kept her focus on me while she muttered her Faero-Gaelic incantation afterward.
“I owe you my thanks,” she’d said, and I wondered if her thanks meant something more tangible than pretty syllables.
Every day was the same. I woke up at dawn, ate before the others got out of bed, and headed to the library, where I sat and researched until my eyes burned. Occasionally, Donnelly would join me, gaze narrowed while he lurked in the corner and reluctantly translated whatever I found. Most days, I reminded myself of Ivy, like we were stuck in that cabin in the woods, trying to figure out how to kill an immortal fairy king. At night, when I couldn’t hold my head up anymore, I dragged my sorry ass back to their tent and passed out before they started fucking.
I’d only had to walk in on that once to know I didn’t want to be there when it happened again.
I missed my spouses too much, and watching their intimacy had me aching for my own. Fucking fairies. Fucking prophecies. Fucking human realm that had to be so damned far out of my reach, I had no idea how I’d ever get there again.
This went on for a week. And finally, when the three of them couldn’t stand my bullshit any longer, they found me hunched over a book I couldn’t read, flipping through pictures I barely understood.
“See, I told you.” Donnelly looked smug as he crossed his arms, walking into the tent with muffled footsteps. Of the three, he prided himself on being the most stealthy, and honestly, the way he silently crept around had scared the hell out of me on more than one occasion. “The fucking library.”
“Alexei…Mate…” Siobhan shook her head and sighed as she came closer. “You can’t hole yourself up in here for the rest of eternity.”
I took a deep breath and leaned back in my seat, rubbing my palms over my eyes before reaching into my pocket for my remaining two cigarettes. I’d been saving them for a special occasion, but if something had brought the three of them here, then I figured I might as well brace myself.
“I saved the world,” I said, taking a long drag and relishing the buzz that came with it. “I can do whatever I want.”
“Hmm.” Siobhan scowled as she grabbed the chair directly across from me, flipped it around, and sat, resting her elbows on the back rung.
“What brings you to the library?” I raised my eyebrows and gestured around. “Looking for a book on fairy sex magic? I think I saw a good one over?—”
“Don’t be a prick,” Finn said, lowering his massive body into the chair next to Siobhan.
I laughed and tapped ash into the crystal tray at the center of the table, ignoring the threat in his tone. “What can I do for you three?”
Siobhan’s dark eyes dropped to the books in between us. “What’re ya reading?”
I cleared my throat and shifted my hips, trying not to look as obvious as I felt. But she probably saw right through me, so what was the point of lying? “A loophole.”
“You think the queen’s that sloppy?” Finn blew out a disbelieving breath. “That deal was binding. Forever.”
“Figured that much out for myself, surprisingly.” I took another long drag and blew out the smoke, returning my attention to the old leather skin in front of me before flipping a page. I expected them to get up and walk away, but when all three continued to stare, I lifted my eyes back to them. “What?”
Finn shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Gods, he’s thick.”
“You’re not thinking back far enough.” Siobhan tsked her teeth and stood, giving me one last disappointed sigh before turning to walk away. Finn’s eyes glittered as he watched her go, eventually rising himself to stalk after her. Donnelly stayed behind, leaning back in his seat while studying me.
I didn’t know if he planned to stay to help me translate or if he was doing his weird silent-but-deadly hunter shit, so I started to go back to my research, but he cleared his throat and drew my attention again.
“Ya know,” he finally said, “you’d get a lot further by asking around rather than holing yourself up in here, looking at books you can’t understand.”
Donnelly rarely talked, so when he did, I paid attention. This was more advice than he’d given me in days.
“Okay,” I said, stabbing out my cigarette butt. “How do I get out of the deal I made with the queen?”
“You can’t.” Donnelly shook his head and tilted it to the side. “But perhaps you could ask a different question.”
My shattered heart crumbled further, slicing open the insides of my lungs, tearing through my rib cage. “How do I get back to my realm?”
He took a deep breath and curled his lips into a devilish smile, his eyes glimmering. “You’re getting warmer. Ask a different question.”
“Why would you help me?” We’d never been particularly close, and I certainly hadn’t had much to say to him since I’d been trapped into staying here.
“Like you said, you saved the world. You saved all of us. Why shouldn’t you be rewarded?” Donnelly’s bright blue gaze shimmered with amusement. “Alas, the queen has forbidden any of us from outright telling you what to do. You are an honored guest. But, if you were to maybe ask the right question, I might be permitted to give you the right answer.”
I paused and considered this. I believed his reasoning and his motivation. I even believed the queen would forbid any of them from offering help. She wanted me to be her little prize, her beautiful human counterpart. But Siobhan, Donnelly, and Finn had gone out of their way to help us before. Perhaps Donnelly would do it again.
“Is there a way for me to get back to my realm?”
His smile widened. “Yes.”
“Does it involve the fairy queen?”
He chuckled and clapped. “There ya go. That’s using your upstairs brain, yeah?”
“How? Tell me. Please.”
“I’ll tell you a story.” He hummed and looked at the pack of cigarettes resting on the table between us, crossing his hands in his lap. “For a price.”
I groaned and rolled my eyes, running my hands over my face and back through my hair. “Just like a fucking fairy. Fine. What do you want?”
“You give me that last cigarette, and I’ll tell you how I evaded the Ghost of Agincourt.”
I sighed, exhausted by all of this shit. I’d been over it since Siobhan gave us the curse four years ago, and now, I almost begged Donnelly to stab me in the face just so it would end. Deciding he likely had the best intentions at heart, I grabbed the pack and tossed it across the table to him, sending the lighter over next.
“I take it we have an accord?”
“Yes. I gave you the cigarette. Tell me your fairy tale.”
He grinned and lit it, inhaling deeply on my last bit of humanity before blowing the smoke out in a thick, sultry breath. “Once upon a time, the king was not so opposed to humans. He used to casually enter the human realm and mingle with royalty. He’d dress up in their human clothes and attend their human events, and even pass out gifts to anyone who, in his opinion, needed his magical assistance. As you might imagine, Alberich got into quite the scandal when the peerage found him dallying in a princess’s bed.” Donnelly leaned back in the chair and put his feet on the table, crossing them at the ankle while he smoked and regaled his memory.
“They tortured him for weeks before I found him.” He shook his head and tapped ash on the floor, taking another long drag. “He was practically in pieces.”
I grimaced, imagining it, but then I shook my head, confused. “I thought the fairy king was immortal.”
“Hmm.” Donnelly nodded. “That doesn’t mean he can’t be hurt. And by that point, he’d been out of Faerie so long, his magic had grown weak. It couldn’t protect him.”
“So what happened?”
“I brought him home, took him to my house on that side of the realm. It wasn’t much, certainly wasn’t fit for the king. Between Siobhan and I, we nursed him back to health.” Donnelly took a long inhale on the smoke before putting his feet back on the ground and sitting upright so he could stab it out in the crystal. “When we brought him back to Faerie, in near-perfect condition, he stood on the platform and proclaimed he owed us his thanks.” Donnelly repeated the same Faero-Gaelic passage that Diana had muttered on the stage the day we’d returned her home safely. A jolt of sheer excitement shot down the center of my chest. “Which essentially means the same thing…except for one tiny detail. The Faero-Gaelic word for thanks has its roots in the same word for favor.” He repeated the sounds, pronouncing each one slowly and phonetically.
I froze, my spine straightening, as I finally understood the point of Donnelly’s story. The queen had stood up in front of her entire population, stared at me, and proudly proclaimed that she owed me a favor. I knew then what I had to do. Donnelly had been right. I couldn’t break the deal…but Diana owed me a favor, and maybe I could persuade her into a new one.
“Fucking hell.” Tears burned at the corners of my eyes before I could blink them back. I cleared my throat and reached across the table to grab his hand, squeezing it in a show of gratitude. “Thank you, Donnelly.”
He snorted. “Don’t you want to know how the story ends?”
I waved my hand in a gesture for him to go on.
“Nearly a hundred years later, I was the one who had been captured on the human side. By this point, the king had gone mad and been cursed to stay in Faerie, but…” He twisted his lips into a curious smile. “With fairy magic, a favor is a favor. A gift is given so that a gift may be received. My magic called to his, despite our distance, despite the different realms, and he sent Finn to find me.”
I struggled to understand the implications of this. What exactly was he trying to say? That I could get out of Faerie? That the queen’s magic would extend across the realms? “But I thought the veil to the human realm was closed. I thought no one could ever back there?”
At that, Donnelly leaned in close and narrowed his brilliant blue eyes. “Aren’t you glad you know someone who can travel through space and time?”
* * *
“May I have a word with your lady?” I raised an eyebrow at Poppy, who sat outside Diana’s tent like the world’s most unassuming bodyguard, sharpening the blade of her knife on a rock. She’d grown up completely now, her form that of a woman. Sure, she looked about twenty, with big brown eyes and long pale blond hair, but I’d seen her catapult through time and take people to the top of the Sphinx. Poppy may not have lived up to her prophecy in the end, but that didn’t mean she was inconsequential.
“What do you want?” She narrowed her eyes, seemingly both suspicious and disappointed to see me.
“I need to talk to her.”
Poppy put down her weapon with a sigh and stood, crossing her arms over her chest. “The only reason I haven’t gutted you yet is because you risked your life to save Carter.”
“Yeah, and how’d that work out for me?” I raised my eyebrows. “Stuck here for eternity with the likes of you.”
She sneered.
“Who’s there, my child?” came a voice from inside, followed by several giggles in different tones. The white tent flaps pushed aside before the queen emerged, raking her bright eyes over me before curling her mouth into a grin.
“Alexei,” she purred, running the back of her fingers down the side of my face. She looked amazing, her skin radiating the same power and grace I always associated with her, a far cry from the feral, confused woman my uncle had delivered to me before my wedding. “How are you faring in your new circumstances?”
I nodded, stepping back as she pulled her pristine white robes around her shoulders and came closer. Behind her, the king stepped out of the tent, his hair now cropped short to his head and his beard completely shaven. He had a light in his eyes that I’d never seen before, and as his grin grew larger, I realized they were a beautiful shade of dark brown, almost like Miri’s.
“I’m well, thank you.” I glanced between them—their matted hair, their flushed cheeks, their swollen lips. They’d been catching up for days now, and from the looks of it, they hadn’t stopped. Not that I blamed them. Once I got home, I planned to tie all three of my spouses to our bed and take them for a fucking week. “I see you two are reacquainted.”
Alberich’s grin deepened. “He is quite beautiful. How do we know Alexei?”
“That’s a long story, dear.” Diana returned her gaze to me, now much kinder than it had been the last time I’d tried to make a deal with her. Alberich had spent a week learning how to speak multiple languages again, but the queen made no effort to remove the ruby dust from his head. Somewhere deep down inside, that maniacal version of the king still existed. He sat in a tent inside his mind wherever Ivy had locked him away. Instead of retrieving him to heal him, the queen had simply allowed it to continue.
Whether it was retribution for what he’d done to her or that Ivy’s magic was irreversible, I didn’t know. Nor did I care. That motherfucker had raped Miri and tormented Ivy for months. He was lucky amnesia was all he got. If it were up to me, I’d have already sunk a sword into his heart and torn it out to eat it in front of him.
“What can we do for you, Alexei?” Diana’s warm voice brought me back to my request, but something in her eyes made me pause. A playfulness flitted just behind them, making me wonder if she already suspected why I was there.
I continued nonetheless. “When you lost your memory?—”
“You lost your memory?” Alberich gasped and turned to Diana. “You poor thing.”
“It’s okay, love. All over now.” Diana smiled and patted his cheek before returning to me. “Please continue.”
“When you lost your memory, I took care of you. I brought you back to Faerie, back to your right mind.”
Diana’s smile widened, her eyes glittering with unshed emotion. “Yes, you did.”
“You announced to the entire population that you owed me your thanks.” I cleared my throat and put my hands behind my back, straightening my shoulders as I prepared to deliver my ask.
“Yes, I did.” Diana moved to the chair at the edge of the platform, her proverbial throne, and sat, sprawling her arms out to either side and crossing her legs at the knee. “And?”
“I would like to cash in on that favor.”
“What…favor?” She deepened her grin, pausing to let the request fall between us, the tension growing damn near stifling. Like that, she fit the role of the queen. She could be nothing else. No one in the world held as much power as she did in that one moment. Not even when Alberich took his seat next to her, crossing his legs and leaning into his wife with adoration in his gaze.
“I may have only been here a few days, but I’ve learned enough about fairies to know you choose your words carefully…especially you, Diana, queen of the fae.” I steadied my gaze on her, wishing I had my gift again, willing the pit in my gut to form should she lie. “You wouldn’t proclaim to owe anyone anything unless you meant it…unless you wanted them to use it.”
“Ahh, I see.” Seated in the rays of morning sunlight like this, her skin glowed, damn near iridescent, as the conversation continued. “You’ve been talking to Donnelly.”
“Hmm.” I neither confirmed nor denied her accusation. I wouldn’t have my informant getting in trouble if this all worked out.
“And what is it you believe I owe you?” She raised an impeccable eyebrow at my presumptuous attitude.
“I want to return to my realm,” I started. “I want to spend the rest of my life with my spouses.” A list poured out of me, tedious and specific as fuck. I didn’t want her making any assumptions for me, filling in any gaps with her own devious plans. This went on for longer than I thought it would, but I needed her to understand that I was tired of being fucked around. It was time for this story to end already, for me to begin the one I should be living.
When I was done, she nodded, seeming to deliberate over every single word. Finally, she leaned forward and held up a finger, waving it toward me like she wanted me to come forward.
Heart pounding and trying to hide it, I forced my shaking legs to move. Between the two of them, they could make my body explode into a million little pieces and I wouldn’t be able to stop them. No one in Faerie would either, and without my spouses, I was so woefully weak.
She stilled when I got within arm’s reach, only lowering her voice so that our conversation stayed between the three of us.
“What about our deal, Alexei? I saved two lives. You owe me at least one.”
“Are you not living it?” I gestured around to her life of luxury. “I could have left you in a Russian shithole. I could have thrown you to the worst of the human realm. Here you sit. On your throne. With your… husband. ” The urge to call him a psycho piece of shit rattled through me, but I managed to choke it down.
Alberich gasped again, this time furrowing his eyebrows and twisting his lips into a snarl. “How dare you speak to my wife like?—”
“Shh, it’s all right, my love.” Diana leaned back in her seat, eyes focused on me with both challenge and trepidation. She liked that I’d come to this conclusion, but she couldn’t just let me out of our arrangement, not without losing face in front of the fairies. If she conceded this to me, then she’d have to concede to everyone, and where would it end?
“Magic like that comes at a cost.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if there were all the time in the world. For her, there was. For me, my spouses aged weeks every second that I stayed here. “I cannot break the deal.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.” I dug my argumentative feet in, knowing this was the right way to go. If Carter were here, he would have said his luck was speaking to him. “I want you to return the favor you owe me. I want you to send me home. A gift for a gift.”
Alberich’s jaw dropped, and Diana curled the ends of her lips into a pleased smile.
“The old words,” she said, nodding. “Even if I could agree to this, the veil is closed. Ivette has claimed the human realm. None of us may enter.”
I looked at Poppy, who up until this moment, had stayed quiet and still on the other end of the platform. Now, she crossed her arms and squared her jaw at me.
“No,” she said, glaring at me with daggers in her eyes. “He can rot.”
“Hmm.” Diana held up a hand as if there was nothing she could do. “So it is. The child will not accommodate your request.”
“Why not?” I raised my eyebrows. “Don’t you think you owe me, too, you little monster? My uncle housed you for years. Carter kept you safe from the…” I cut myself off from saying fairy king, lest this new version of amnesia Alberich suddenly have a flashback to his alter ego. “You know he’s upset without me. You know Ivy is, too. You know they want me back. They probably miss you, too.”
She clenched her hands into fists and stood straighter, not daring to look away. “You held an axe to my throat. You threatened to kill me.”
“You kidnapped my family and took the villain back in time to kill my brother.” I reminded myself to keep my tone calm and level. Arguing about who was most evil when we both were in the top ten didn’t make sense. “I think we’re square.”
“Come now, Poppy,” Diana said, breaking up our argument. “Would it even be possible? Are you able to travel between realms?”
Poppy pursed her lips and took a deep inhale before giving us a solemn nod. “I’ve already done it.”
My heart dropped into my gut.
This. This was why Siobhan and Donnelly came to me now, rather than immediately after the deal had been made. There would be no sense in suggesting I get out of this arrangement if there wasn’t a way back into the human realm. Poppy must have told Siobhan, who would undoubtedly have told Finn and Donnelly.
“Poppy.” Diana tsked her teeth in a chastising tone. “You should confide these things in me. How can I make sound decisions if I do not know what my children are doing?”
“Yes, my lady.” Poppy gave her a small curtsy before walking to stand next to me. “Do you want me to take him back to the others?”
Rather than answering, Diana turned to her husband. “What do you think, my love?”
“I don’t like the way he talks to you.” Alberich pouted. “You should send him wherever he wants to go, so I don’t have to see him again.”
The queen made a delicate laughing noise and pushed to her feet, gliding toward me. Her white robes flowed behind her, a blond halo of hair floating around her head. She looked like an angel, and in that moment, I wasn’t sure if she offered salvation or death. Neither would have surprised me.
“Oh, Alexei.” She shook her head and ran the back of her fingers down my cheek, dropping her gaze to my lips before glancing back up at my eyes. “What a tragedy it is to let you go. I had hoped to have you for many moons to come.”
The enormous weight that had suffocated me since I saw Carter and Miri drop evaporated. I was going home. Finally. After all this time.
“All my requests will be granted?”
Diana chuckled, grabbed my face, and leaned in to kiss me. Before I could ponder her response, Poppy’s small hand slipped into mine and the world went dark.