Chapter Twenty-Five
Shea returned to the mortal realm the way she’d left it: staggering blind through the Féth Fíada.
When the mist gave way to the clear half-light of dawn, she found herself in her own front yard.
Dew soaked into the hem of her jeans, and damp grass clung to her ankles.
Inexplicably, she was barefoot. Her heels stung with blisters.
She had no idea how long she’d been walking, what day it was, or how long she’d been gone.
It still felt like the deep cold of late autumn, the same as it’d been when she left, but who was to say a hundred years hadn’t passed?
For now, Shea decided it didn’t matter. She staggered to her porch and took the house key from her pocket. It slid into the lock and admitted her. She made it no farther than her couch before collapsing into a dead sleep.
Late-afternoon sun woke her, but Shea couldn’t move.
Really, she had no desire to move, until hunger threatened to pickle her insides.
She managed to plug in her phone and stand under the hot water of her shower.
After forty-five minutes, the desolate numbness within her had not thawed.
This was as good as it was going to get.
In the steam-filled bathroom, she scrolled through the notification tiles, endlessly stacked one on top of the other.
Missed calls, texts, and of course, social media notifications: clips from the commentary on her game posts speculating on why she’d resigned; comments calling her an idiot and a half-rate player and an embarrassment and emotional.
She closed the app and ordered takeout, which she ate standing over her kitchen sink.
It gave her the fortitude to watch the entirety of the semifinal round’s official coverage.
On her phone, Grandmaster Jorge Rodriguez’s and Grandmaster Divya D’Silva’s talking heads analyzed Shea’s game.
The digital board updated as the moves were relayed to them, and while they waited, they explored alternative lines, ideas, and picked apart every decision.
Over and over, Shea replayed that one fateful moment: rook to f2.
The evaluation bar tanking from equal to an overwhelming advantage for black.
Divya’s gasp of shock and horror as she watched it happen.
Jorge’s stunned silence. She stared at the screen until her eyes burned, as if it could unveil some truth to her, or the commentators could explain what the hell Ciara had been thinking.
But there was no answer.
What Shea had not expected was news of Daniil’s loss.
The game he played was, frankly, disturbing.
It looked nothing like his usual play style: shaky and uncertain, every move whittling down his clock.
He fought hard, but in the end, he’d resigned.
She listened to the commentators attempt to make sense of it.
“International Master Lily Keenan takes the second spot in the finals, triumphing over Daniil Tsoi,” Jorge said. “This is sensational. This is … I mean, frankly, Divya, it’s unheard of. I honestly can’t believe it.”
“Me neither, Jorge. It’s rare to see complete and total collapse from a player like Tsoi. But a tournament like this will fry your nervous system, and not even he has nerves of steel.”
Shea could hardly process it. He’d been so calm, so …
cocky, really, but that was Daniil. It didn’t seem possible that someone like him would be taken down from pressure of all things.
If anything, he’d be undone by tilt—but he hadn’t made any stupid mistakes.
Maybe Fuamnach was the better player after all.
Fuamnach. Ciara had to defeat her, or else …
No, she couldn’t think about it. She refused to think about Ciara.
Shea frowned down at the video. She considered reaching out to Daniil somehow, but in truth, she didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t want to pick open her own wounds, and it wasn’t like she had anything comforting to tell him.
Looks like your best effort wasn’t enough.
It sucks that neither of us will ever see our sisters again.
Maybe you’ll live another hundred years and get another chance.
No, it was pointless. Everything felt pointless, when the world was a pale shadow of what it used to be. She’d lost everything that ever mattered to her—even Ciara. Shea told herself not to care. Ciara had betrayed her. Shea couldn’t bring herself to hate her.
That was the worst part.
There was nothing left to do but go through the motions.
Sleep through the morning. Wake up to the afternoon light.
Let everything accumulate: the takeout containers on the counter, the dishes in the sink, the dust on all her trophies, the texts and missed calls.
Daniil had been wrong, after all. One way or another, when mortals collided with the fae, they never came back whole.
Three days after her return to the mortal world, her phone alerted her of an incoming call from a number she did not recognize.
Shea silenced the call. Immediately, her phone rang again.
She repeated this process once more before—on the caller’s third attempt—she picked it up with an irritated “What?”
“Fury,” said Daniil. “You sound awful.”
She hadn’t spoken since she got back home. It was also very late, and he’d startled her out of a dream. “Do you have any idea what time it is here?”
“Three in the morning.”
Blearily, Shea pulled the phone away from her face and squinted at the clock. Yes, he was right. Whatever he wanted couldn’t possibly be this urgent. “Call back in twelve hours.”
“I looked into the player who calls herself Lily Keenan.”
Shea sat up in bed. The blanket fell off her shoulders and cold air settled heavily over her. She couldn’t remember if she’d forgotten to turn on the heat, or if she’d forgotten to pay her electric bill. “I don’t want to talk about your conspiracy theories.”
“It’s not a conspiracy theory.”
“Still don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why not?” he replied impatiently.
“Why…?” She trailed off. At this hour, everything seemed fake. Was this actually happening, or was this some lucid nightmare? How did he get her number, anyway? “Because, I don’t know, it’s three in the fucking morning, and the whole situation is a little painful?”
“Oh, are you still wallowing?” Mock sympathy bled into his voice. It made her want to reach through the phone and strangle him, which was admittedly preferable to the numbness she hadn’t been able to shake for days. “You were too soft and got manipulated. Get over it.”
“Soft?” she echoed in disbelief. “What, you would’ve checkmated her?”
“I wouldn’t feel bad about it, either. It was her choice to make a bad deal. It was her choice to put you in that position.” He paused. “But I’m not in love with her.”
“I am not in love with her.” Shea bristled. She didn’t know what she felt about Ciara of Bri Leith and the desperate choices she’d made, but Shea wasn’t going to discuss it with Daniil of all people. “Jesus. I don’t need to put up with you right now. My sister is gone.”
“So is mine,” he retorted hotly. “You’re not the only one who lost something. You’re just the only one moping around like a pathetic loser.”
Loser. His insult hit its mark, and it smarted far worse than she expected. She sucked in a breath through her teeth.
“You don’t have to talk,” he said, more gently this time, which for Daniil was still gruff and vaguely irritated. “Just listen.”
“Okay,” she said quietly. “Fine.”
Silence crackled on the line.
“Get up.” Something like concern had crept into his tone. “Drink some coffee or something.”
Shea couldn’t even find it in herself to argue.
Like she was being piloted by an outside force, she dragged herself through the shapeless dark of her hallways and into the kitchen.
She flipped the switch and squinted into the flood of light.
From somewhere above herself, she watched as her hands picked through the wreckage, shoving aside dishes and trash until she found a mug that was passably clean.
When she turned on the coffee machine, it sighed and hissed into the quiet.
“It’s brewing,” she said. “I’m listening.”
“When’s the last time you ate?”
“What are you, my mom?”
“I need you baseline functioning.”
“I am.”
He did not dignify that with a response. He only said, “Lily doesn’t exist. She does, in that she is really an international master with an apartment in London. But it’s a fake identity. Her government identification. Her birth certificate. Her school records. All of it is forged.”
Shea absently pressed her fingers to the warm glass of the coffeepot.
The heat, right on the edge of pain, was almost a comfort.
So he’d begun to put things together. She wished she could’ve spared him the trouble and told him what she knew, but even the thought of it made her tongue burn and the knot of faerie magic in her chest pull taut.
She dreaded to think of what would happen if she actually tried to speak. “Oh, yeah?”
“I see I’m boring you,” he said flatly. “Maybe you’ll find this more stimulating.
After some digging, my team unearthed a few photos of her.
The most recent one is from 1953. The earliest is from the 1840s.
She’s left a long trail of fake identities in her wake.
Lily is the most recent. She’s a fae who’s been living in the mortal realm for centuries. ”
The machine whirred. Coffee trickled almost musically into the pot.
“I’m sending them to you now,” he said, clearly frustrated at her lack of response. “Look at them. I think you might find them interesting.”
Within a second, her phone buzzed against her cheek: a new email notification. Through the haze that clouded her mind, she once again wondered how he’d gotten ahold of her contact information. “What are you getting at?”
“Did you see my game?”
“Yeah. It was really bad. Like, probably the worst I’ve ever seen you play. Just awful chess.”
“I know,” he said frostily. “The point is, I woke up that morning feeling perfectly fine. Just before I played the first move, she said something to me. I can’t remember exactly what it was now. But I started feeling sick. I couldn’t focus.”
“You think she put some kind of enchantment on you?”
“I suspected as much,” he said. “But these photos prove—”
“Why does this matter anymore, Danya?” It burst out of her. None of this information was new to her. None of it would change anything. “You never have to think about the fae ever again. We lost. It’s over.”
“You know that’s not true.”
Of course, both of them would be thinking about the fae for the rest of their lives.
“And,” he added, “I didn’t lose. You didn’t, either. Both of our opponents were underhanded. I refuse to accept those results.”
“Maybe you should,” she snapped. “Life has to go on.”
For a moment, he said nothing—like she’d well and truly stunned him. “Is that what’s happening for you right now? Life?”
No, she thought. I think I’ve kind of given up on that.
“What do you care?” she demanded.
“Because I hate wasting my breath. Have you forgotten everything I tried to drill into your thick skull? You’re so…” He made a sound of pure derision. “You’re pathetic. Worse, you’re a coward. Go ahead and keep giving in at the very first setback you encounter. See how that turns out for you.”
“Okay,” she said, with a bitter laugh. “Fuck you, too.”
She hung up. This time, he did not call back.
Good, she thought. Good riddance. If she made it through the week, maybe she really would quit chess. Then she’d never have to hear his voice or see his face ever again.
The coffee machine beeped, as sudden and loud as a gunshot.
Swearing in surprise, she poured herself a cup and slumped onto the kitchen floor.
The mug trembled in her hands. Conflict always got her going, either over the board or in an argument.
She definitely wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon, so she might as well drink it.
She took a sip. It was bitter—and a little burnt. She didn’t have any unspoiled milk, and it was too much effort now to get sugar from the cabinet. If nothing else, terrible black coffee was a fitting accompaniment to her self-pity.
Shea turned her phone over. The blue light illuminated her face, its glow harsh in the darkness.
Absently, she opened the email from Daniil.
No subject line, no body, but he’d attached an entire folder of photos.
Shea flipped through them. The ones toward the beginning were grainy black and white.
They didn’t look like Lily at all. Seeing her without facial piercings—and in all this historical garb …
No, these weren’t photos of Lily. They were Fuamnach, unglamoured and undisguised.
Her mind swam. Thanks to the bond of enchantment, she couldn’t disclose what she knew about Lily to anyone—not that her word would mean a thing.
But Daniil had figured it out himself, and with these photos, they could prove it to Midir.
They could get Fuamnach expelled from the tournament.
Even if Aideen wouldn’t be free, she’d be safe. For now, that would have to be enough.
She called Daniil back. He answered on the first ring. “Well?”
“I get it now. I think we can get her disqualified.”
He huffed. “Glad you came to your senses.”
“Hardly.” Shea set down her coffee. “How did you even find these pictures?”
“I’m rich,” he replied simply.
“Right.” It was a little disappointing. She’d imagined him in a dark room, standing before a corkboard tacked up with photos and maps and printouts of forum posts, all of them connected by a length of red string.
Realistically, he probably had some contact at the FIS—or had paid one of those content creators who could identify an exact city block by looking at a Google Maps image.
“So,” he said. “What now?”
Shea drew a knee into her chest. From here, she could see out the windows that overlooked her front lawn—and the moonlit mist drifting over it that seemed to whisper, Come away, come away. “We have to get a message to the Otherworld.”
“Obviously.” She could feel his glare through the phone. “But we have no way to contact anyone and no way to get back to the Otherworld. Even I don’t have the resources to get around that.”
“I think I do.” If Ciara had taught her one thing, it was how seriously the fae took honor and duty. “When’s the soonest you can get a flight to Dublin?”