8. The Night Garden
A isling felt like hell. Her head throbbed, her muscles ached, and her mouth tasted foul. But perhaps worst of all, she could still feel the Unseelie King’s lips against her skin.
She groaned and pressed the heels of her hands against her forehead. Her skin smelled like pine sap and honey wine and sweat. Though Rodney had removed the glamour as soon as they’d crossed back through the Thin Place, she thought her arms were still tinged a pale shade of mossy green.
The flood of memories, if a bit fuzzy around the edges, sliced at Aisling’s conscience like shards of glass. She could recall the thrill of the temptation, the seductive challenge she’d posed to the king. The dangerous gleam in his eyes when he’d accepted. Massaging her temples in vain, Aisling tried to shake off the lingering dizziness from the revelry. She cursed her own foolishness for thinking she could outdance the Fae—or outdrink their king. Now, in the harsh light of day, the whole thing seemed impossibly juvenile.
Still with her palms covering her eyes, Aisling was startled by Briar’s low growl. He’d been asleep between her legs but had risen to a crouch over the top of her. His hackles were raised and his lips were drawn back to bare a full mouth of shining teeth, eyes locked on the front door. She reached a hand out to soothe him, but the growl in his throat only grew louder. With some effort, Aisling pushed herself up to sit and lifted one corner of the blinds to see what had spooked him.
Fuck.
Aisling tried to vault up onto her feet, but her legs were tangled in a blanket and the sudden movement sent both her and Briar tumbling off of the couch. Tears sprang to her eyes when her knees cracked hard against the floor. She tripped once more on the length of Rodney’s sweats trying to stand before she was able to move, crouching down low, toward the rear of the mobile home. Briar rebounded far quicker and was bearing down on the door.
Aisling threw herself into Rodney’s room, where he was splayed out sideways across his bed, mouth hanging open. He hadn’t stripped off the glamoured suit, or even removed his shoes. Slipping again on a pile of dirty clothes, Aisling lunged forward and shook Rodney hard.
“Wake up,” she said sharply. “ Wake the hell up, Rodney!”
He moaned, shifted, then rolled over. Aisling was close to tossing a glass of water on him when a harsh rap sounded on the front door and Briar, suddenly discovering a protective instinct that had until now been dormant, let loose a volley of aggressive barks. Rodney swore and sat up, then paled when he saw the panicked look on Aisling’s face.
“What is it?” he asked, as though he didn’t already suspect the answer.
“He’s here.”
Rodney was out of bed in a flash, finger combing his hair as he moved. A nervous habit or an attempt to appear presentable, Aisling wasn’t sure. She trailed behind him and wrapped her fingers through Briar’s collar. Despite tugging with nearly all of her weight, he wouldn’t budge.
“Leave him!” Rodney hissed and shooed her to the back of the trailer. She ducked back into his room and pressed tight to the wall. The sound of Rodney opening the door brought dread to pool in her stomach. She could try to climb out a window, she thought, or wedge herself under the bed. But she did neither.
“Majesty,” she heard Rodney say curtly. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Aisling couldn’t hear the king’s low response. Ignoring every instinct to stay in Rodney’s room, she crept up the hallway. Still hidden, but close enough now to make out both sides of the conversation.
“How did you come to find me?” Rodney asked.
“You aren’t difficult to find, changeling, it seems that most recognize you by your hair. An unpleasant man several doors down was kind enough to direct me to your…abode.” Cole . It had to be Cole. The disdain in Kael’s voice was clear, though its velvet tone brought a blush to Aisling’s cheeks. “You carry yourself as a human, púca, but you blend in poorly.”
“I belong to no court, and I am not one of your subjects. I cannot be compelled to answer your questions, particularly if you’ve come to insult me on my own threshold.” Rodney matched Kael’s derision with his own. When Aisling dared peek her head around the corner, just a sliver, she could see Briar positioned between Rodney’s legs. His quiet growl had become a constant hum.
“I have little interest in you or your beast. I’ve come because you were with a pixie last night.” At that, Aisling pulled back quickly and retreated a few steps.
Rodney played it off easily. Casually. Like he was commenting on the morning’s weather. “Was I? I can’t recall.”
“Try.” Not an order—a threat, and a thinly veiled one at that. He was growing irritated.
“Has she done something to offend?” Rodney asked. Though his words were measured, Aisling knew him well enough to detect the underlying tension there. Skilled as he was in slippery diplomacy, even he was on edge around the king.
“I seek her name.” Kael was slightly louder now as he had moved closer to the open door. It was an ominous demand, particularly after her teasing the night before while she’d straddled his hips.
“She was smart not to give it,” Rodney shot back.
“So you know her?”
“Scarcely more than you do, it would seem. We passed through the Veil at the same time and became acquainted over a drink. I know little else.” It was odd hearing Rodney speak this way, so stiff and formal. A touch too similar to the courtiers he’d mocked at the revelry.
“Does she come from your island?” Louder still. Kael was likely standing at the top of the steps now, just across the threshold. Toe-to-toe with Rodney.
“I’ve not seen her before, nor since,” he replied simply. “I left before she did.”
A long beat of silence, and then the sound of retreating footsteps on gravel and the door slamming shut in the king’s wake. Aisling’s knees buckled with relief and she slid to the ground where she’d been standing.
“I’d say you caught his attention,” Rodney commented when he rounded the corner. He offered Aisling his hand and pulled her to her feet. “Maybe a little too well.”
Briar wound his way between them, panting, and pressed his head into her stomach. She steadied herself against his warm body. “Do you think he knows?”
Rodney thought for a minute, replaying the interaction, then shook his head. “He’d have killed me right there in my doorway if he did.” He nudged Aisling playfully in the ribs then said, singsong, “I think he likes you.”
She looked down at Briar to let her hair fall forward and hide her flushed cheeks. “Do you think I should go back?”
“Not just yet, but we should strike while the iron’s hot. Tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. The idea sent a faint electric thrill through Aisling. She promised herself that what she felt was fear, and fear alone.
Aisling was green once again, though this time she insisted on a slightly more modest gown. This one, the blazing orange of autumn leaves. But she couldn’t enjoy it. Tonight, the glamour felt uncomfortably tight and binding. Her mind continued to stray back to the king; she couldn’t escape the memory of his intense gaze, the confident arch of his brow. His teasing smirk as he led her down that dark hall.
“Try the garden tonight,” Rodney advised from his perch on a stump. The sun was setting quickly, and soon it would be time to return to the Unseelie Court.
“How do you know he’ll be there?” Still clumsy with her elongated fingers, Aisling raked her hair back from her face and clipped it at the nape of her neck. She was nervous and fidgety and was having trouble standing still. She’d tried to convince Rodney to don a different glamor and accompany her, but he seemed sure that it would be less conspicuous for her to go on her own.
“I don’t, but there’s a good chance.” While Aisling had been astride the Unseelie King, Rodney had been hard at work on the drunken revelers. As it happened, he and Aisling weren’t the only pair given to speculate about the king’s activities. Often, Rodney had learned, he spent nightfall in the garden. If he wasn’t there, he was likely kneeling before the altar in The Cut. Rodney wasn’t keen on sending Aisling there just yet.
“And if he’s not?”
“If he’s not, come back and we’ll look someplace else in a couple days. Aisling,” he said her name firmly and waited for her to turn and look at him. “Don’t go into the Undercastle by yourself.”
“You couldn’t pay me,” she said honestly. She’d navigated those passages once on her own—only just—and wasn’t eager to do so again. “What if he asks my name again?”
Rodney shrugged. “Make one up, or give him your own. It doesn’t matter much either way. Your name holds no power over you.”
“It’s too bad we don’t know his full name, that would make this a lot easier.” Kael. Rodney had whispered the king’s name just before Nocturne, and ever since she’d rolled it over her tongue. It tasted illicit. She wondered how it would sound in his dulcet voice and barely-there accent.
“Sure, but where would be the fun in that?” He winked. He took far too much pleasure in this. Aisling rolled her eyes.
Rodney’s directions to the night garden would take her around the back side of the obsidian structure that concealed the entrance to the Undercastle and over the ridge of a hillock dotted with naked, twisted blackthorn trees. The garden, hidden there, bloomed only in the silver wash of moonlight. Even before she crested the knoll Aisling could smell the flowers, sweeter than anything she expected to encounter in the Unseelie Court.
It was unkempt and overgrown, a darkly wild beauty that drew her down a narrow path that cut through its center. Though not alive, as the Shadowwood Mother’s thicket had been, the garden was possessed by a magic of its own. The tiny white petals of night jasmine shone like pearls, and ivory moonflowers unfurled on slender stems that swayed as she passed. Ahead, large, trumpet-shaped flowers hung down from a low tree like pale lanterns in the darkness. The blossoms were veined with intricate patterns that shimmered a soft turquoise. Aisling reached up to stroke one of the petals with her finger, but a hand around her wrist stopped her short.
“I wouldn’t.” Kael had appeared from out of the darkness, approaching on footfalls lighter and more silent than the vespertine breeze. A trait befitting of a predator. He stood behind Aisling now, chest nearly against her back, and had reached around her to catch her just an inch from the bloom. “Angel’s trumpet. Quite poisonous.”
Aisling turned to look up at the king, who glowed just as the flowers around them, as regal as he was ethereal. Her breath caught slightly. He heard it. “Thank you.”
His moonbeam eyes played over her skin and the corner of his lips pulled up into the barest smirk. “So you’ve returned.”
“So I have,” she said, regaining her composure.
He offered her his arm from beneath a cloak of midnight blue. “Walk with me, pixie.”
Resting her hand in the crook of his elbow, Aisling let Kael lead her deeper into the garden. He pointed out various flora as they walked, most of them in some way poisonous. The blooms hadn’t been maintained for a reason: in the shadows, their dangerous nature was allowed to flourish unchecked, a reflection of the Fae that had planted them. It was a stark reminder to Aisling of why she was there in the first place.
“You enjoyed Nocturne?” he asked.
“Very much. I’ve not been to such an extravagant celebration in a long time.” Aisling imagined that her pixie self would prefer smaller, more intimate affairs.
“I’m pleased it was to your liking.” Kael’s other arm was outstretched, running his fingers through the leaves of a thick shrub. “Though I know of one satyr who was particularly disappointed in how the night ended.”
So he had noticed. Each facet of Rodney’s plan had been executed without fail, every outcome predicted flawlessly. He’d be glad to hear it. “I think I made the right choice,” she replied.
The night seemed to stretch endlessly around them as they walked. The garden’s saccharine smell and the way Kael kept her arm pinned close to his body was nearly enough to make Aisling’s head spin.
“Have you come to tell me your name?” The way he asked wasn’t prodding or intrusive; rather, it was intimate. Something that he hoped she would share with him. A gift. Kael pulled her to stop beside a crystalline pond and took both of her hands in his own.
“Aisling,” she whispered up at him.
He repeated it once, then again, as she had in private with his. “A pretty name for a pretty faerie.”
“Will you tell me yours?”
Instead of answering right away, Kael moved his hands to Aisling’s hips and walked her backward until she was pressed against the trunk of a tree. Its bark was rough against the pointed blades of her shoulders and would likely have scraped uncomfortably against her wings if she could have felt them, but she hardly noticed. His presence, his magnetism, overwhelmed her. Vaguely aware that she was meant to be the one in control, Aisling considered turning to push him up against the tree, instead.
But there was no harm in letting herself enjoy this position for a moment.
Kael reached up to caress Aisling’s cheek softly with cool fingers, a mockery of affection that stilled her heart and halted her breathing for a brief second before she met his gaze and realized the cruel intent that glinted in his eyes. He smiled down at her, a dark, twisted thing that drew a slow-rolling chill up her spine and raised the fine hair at the base of her skull. No longer the seductive, enigmatic King; this was the monster Rodney had warned her of.
Then, quicker than her mind could register, his arm was against her throat, crushing her windpipe and pinning her to the tree. Aisling’s skin pulled and burned as he roughly shredded the glamour she wore, leaving her raw and exposed in her own skin, her own clothes. Without that thin layer of protection, she could feel the garden’s magic grating against her like sand in the wind.
Aisling gasped for breath, her hands clawing at Kael’s forearm in a futile attempt to free herself. He was too strong. Panic surged through her veins as she stared into the unyielding face of the Unseelie King. Waves of hatred rolled off of him, thick and tangible .
“Who are you, human, to think you could make a fool of me?” His words came as a deep, unearthly growl as he lowered himself so that the two were face to face, foreheads nearly touching.
“I’m no one, truly,” she rasped. Fear tightened her throat even further beneath his arm.
“Not Aisling?” He spat her name this time, like acid.
“I am Aisling, but I’m no one.” She was at a loss for words as she struggled to breathe under the pressure he kept on her windpipe. Her voice came out hoarse and her shallow breaths were noisy and ragged. Her vision was beginning to darken around the edges. Kael held her there for a second longer before he released his hold on her throat and stepped back. Aisling fell to her knees on the soft earth at his feet, gasping wildly with the effort of dragging air back into her lungs.
“You’ve made a grave error in coming here. Truly unwise, though I’d expect nothing less from a human,” he said disdainfully. When Aisling looked up at him, he was staring at her as though she were an insect he would crush under the heel of his boot.
“Send me back,” she begged. Desperation was roiling in her stomach, rising in her throat and making her eyes sting with hot tears. “You’ll never see me again.”
Kael’s predatory smirk grew. He was delighted by Aisling’s distress. He reveled in it, drank it up as fuel for that vicious fire that burned within his chest. “I think not. It is a pity, really. You were a rather fun plaything.”
A deep flush of shame spread across Aisling’s cheeks. “Fuck you,” she threw back.
“You should have.” The smirk faded from Kael’s face until he wore a neutral, expressionless mask. “You won’t get another chance.”
Aisling’s eyes darted around the garden, trying to identify a way out that wasn’t the path behind him. But she couldn’t run. Even if her legs hadn’t been violently trembling, even if she managed to slip past Kael, there was little chance she’d even make it as far as the edge of the garden. He moved with all the speed and grace of a practiced warrior and with his long stride, he would be on her in seconds.
She had little choice but to let him take her.
Aisling was unsteady on her feet as Kael led her tripping down the spiral staircase. Several times she stumbled, and each time he waited until she’d almost hit the ground before tightening his iron grip on her elbow and wrenching her back upright. She could already feel bruises blooming over her neck, and she was sure she’d have more where the rings on his fingers dug into her arm.
Rodney would know. When Aisling didn’t return through the Thin Place, he would know something had gone wrong. He’d find help, or he’d come himself. She just had to survive until he did.
Wordlessly, they marched through the winding halls of the Undercastle. They were descending still, following the narrowing corridors down and down deeper underground. The air grew colder. Staler. Aisling could feel the stone walls pressing in on them. She thought if she listened hard enough, she might even be able to hear the creaks and groans of rocks settling against each other as the earth shifted around the structure of the tunnels.
Kael kept a steady pace that forced Aisling nearly to jog alongside him to keep up. If she slowed down, she would fall, and she wouldn’t put it past him to drag her the rest of the way to wherever he was taking her. In fact, it would likely give him great pleasure to do so. His jaw was set hard and his eyes remained focused straight ahead, unwavering even when Aisling lost her balance or trailed behind. She kept her mouth shut. She wouldn’t beg, wouldn’t ask questions. She wouldn’t cry, despite the harsh tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
He stopped when they reached a heavy wooden door, guarded by two sentinels—malformed, grotesque redcaps that both raised their lips in a snarl when they saw the pair approach. One had a hand wrapped around a tall spear; the other, a broadsword that he let drag on the ground. Kael threw Aisling to the floor at their feet and she bit back a sob when her hip took the brunt of the impact. The redcap with the spear reached down and roughly hauled her back to stand. He stood only as high as Aisling’s shoulder, but was three times as wide, at least. His thick arms hung long, past his knees, and he carried himself as though they were almost too heavy for his frame. He yanked her around by her hair to face the king.
“Who sent you?” Kael demanded. “A Solitary faction? Or perhaps the Seelie Court has become so cowardly as to use their human pets for spies?”
“Neither,” Aisling gritted out. “I was curious, I’ve—” her words were punctuated by a sharp gasp as several strands of hair were torn out at the root. “I’ve heard stories. I was only curious.”
“And just how did you come by such a convincing glamour? The púca?”
She couldn’t implicate Rodney in this, not if there was to be any chance of him coming to her aid. “I waited by the Thin Place. I bartered with a sprite for it.”
“Curiosity is a poor excuse for deception,” Kael hissed. “You will pay for your lies.” He signaled to the redcaps with a slight nod of his chin before he turned on his heel and ascended the corridor, cloak sweeping behind him as a silent, trailing shadow.