Cináed's fingers run through my damp hair as we lay on the bed. He's humming the same lullaby that he sang to me in his room on the ship.

Because we're waiting here until Darren shows up, I decided to shower any remaining pixie dust off me while Cináed left to find some food. He returned with plastic containers of hot soup from the nearest pub, along with some new clothes for me to wear.

"No one likes to redress in dirty clothes after a bath." He explained, tossing me the bag with a pair of joggers and a long-sleeved shirt inside it.

I want to ask Cináed why he dresses like a beach bum if he has such a great taste in clothes. Or how he's managing to pay for all of these things.

"Cináed?"

His fingers are still playing in my hair as he watches the TV screen. "This Law and Order production is surprisingly interesting to me."

The way he says "Law and Order" makes it sound like he's trying to pronounce a food item on a foreign menu.

"Why do people say you're a rogue faery?"

His hand stops moving, and I glance up at his face. While his eyes are distant, they're also filled with pain. He gives a small, humorless laugh.

"Is that what they call me now?"

I sit up. "Just a mortal girl in the castle."

"In a sense, I suppose there is truth in it."

He's staring at his hands in his lap. I'm caught somewhere between changing the subject and holding out for an explanation. As someone who prides myself in keeping my life private, Cináed is shrouded in a whole new level of mystery. And it intrigues me more than it probably should.

Air slowly fills his nose, and he turns off the TV before he continues. "To completely answer your question, I must first tell you about Branna."

My throat constricts. "Fiona's mom?" I murmur.

"Yes. But Branna was so much more than the mother of my daughter. Her and I were lovers for many seasons. Decades of human time."

Decades? How long do faeries live??

"She did not die from her old age, as you mortals call it." He says, basically reading my thoughts. "Her life was robbed by an unknown source. A sickness that no Fae has seen the like of before."

My head rests against the wall. Does this mean that all the King's talk of a sickness wasn't just an excuse to kill mortals? 

We sit in silence because all my words have been snatched away by the thought that humans like me could have been the reason for Branna's death.

After a moment, Cináed says in a voice that's torn with emotion, "There was nothing I could do to save her. Never in my existence did I feel so... powerless."

I reach my hand toward him, but he shies away from it and gets off the bed, moving to stand by the window. A particularly loud group of partiers are passing below and he watches them until their laughter fades.

"Do you want to know the real reason I brought you to the Otherworld?" His tone startles me. I've never heard him sound so... dark.

"Because of the deal?" I respond tentatively when his glowing eyes focus on me.

"Because I was trying to avenge Branna's death. The new King claims that mortals are to blame for the sickness. Well, I knew that bringing you with me meant two less mortals would be left breathing while my lover could not."

As he speaks, his words slither up my skin like dark fire, wrapping around my chest and burning my eyes. I know what he'll say next, but it doesn't prepare me to to hear it at all.

He stands at the foot of the bed, his bright face taken over by shadow. "The real reason I brought you into my world was to let Naoise take you away, and offer you as a sacrifice to cleanse the Fae of mortal blood."

The mumbled conversation I heard through the cottage door is repeating itself in horrifying pieces that cut me like shards of glass.

"The Sacrifice of Samhain."

"This will cure the sickness."

"Purge mortality from the Otherworld."

"You—you knew the King would take me?"

He just stares, looking like the empty shell of the person I thought I knew.

All of it was a lie.

I can feel the pain shifting inside me, transforming into a fiery rage. "Why the hell did you come get me from the castle then?" My voice rises until I'm basically screaming. "Why didn't you just leave me to die like you wanted all along?!"

Now his gaze breaks away, and he shakes his head. "Because I grew to feel for you, Roisín." He snaps, as if he hates admitting it. "Despite my desire to avenge Branna's death," his eyes flicker back to mine, his expression vulnerable, "you scaled the walls around my shattered heart and led me to believe in something I'd long forsaken."

He pauses, and the next word chokes from his lips. "Love."

We stay there watching each other, the only sound coming from my rasped breaths. I finally hop down from the bed and move toward the door.

"Roisín, please."

Raw, brokenness. That's what I really hear in those words.

I stop, my hand griping the handle. "If you think that I'll ever forgive you, you're wrong." I say in nothing more than a whisper, but I know he hears me. "And you were wrong about something else. I don't believe in love any more than you do."

Yanking the door open, I run right into Vera on the other side. This chick has got to stop doing that to me.

In one glance, I know something about the plan went terribly wrong. She's alone.

"Where's Darren." I say, a new level of panicked adrenaline rushing through me.

For once, Vera's face isn't pulled into a disdainful smile. She doesn't even have a snide comment for me. I grab her arms and shake her, yelling the question again.

"WHERE IS MY BROTHER."

"They took him!" She screams back, all the strawberry coloring drained from her face. "The King's warriors caught us crossing through the portal and took him."

At this point, Cináed is standing beside me, trying to loosen my hold on Vera.

"Where?" He says, but we all know the answer.

Vera's blue eyes spill over, leaving two liquid trails down her perfect cheeks. "Roisín, please forgive me. They took him to the castle to be—"

"No!" I shove them both aside and take off running down the hall.

I can hear them calling my name as I leap down the stairs and pass the sleeping receptionist on my way out the door.

No King is going to kill Darren.

But if he does, whose fault will it really be?

I push my thoughts aside as I sprint down the sidewalk. If I can just make it back through the portal, I hope I can reach the castle in time.

The little park is deserted except for a couple going at it on a bench. I do a double take as I pass them, and realize that only one of the two is a human. The other is clearly a faery. I can see through the glamour she's putting off that she's hiding a pair of wings and a tail.

I halt in front of the portal tree. At least, I think it's the right tree. They all look the same in the dark, and the glowing outline of a door is no longer visible.

A shrieking cackle turns me around, and I watch a dark chariot race down the road. Inside is an old woman, so withered up that her face looks like a washed out prune. She waves her hands in the air as a hooded figure in the driver's seat whips the black horses to go faster.

From the way a passing group of teenagers continues walking down the road like nothing just happened, I assume the chariot is also Fae, and invisible to mortals because of glamour. I guess when all the portals open up, the mortal realm is taken over by freaky monsters.

I shake my head, trying to get that eerie shriek out of my mind. For some reason I can't shake the heaviness that woman left behind.

Someone is going to die tonight.

Running out of ideas, I start to touch all of the trees in hopes that the door will show up. Fear and anger are tumbling around my insides like laundry in a dryer. I punch the last tree trunk and start spewing off a list of choice words.

Darren is going to die, and it's all my fault.

"I never should have taken you from them." I cry, sinking to my knees. "I don't deserve to have you. I'm not a real family."

Resting my head against the tree, I let the sobs roll from my chest as I pound my fists into the earth.

"I'm so sorry, Darren."

A yellow glow lights up my eyelids, and I open my eyes to see the outline of a small door etched into the bark. Sniffling, I quickly place my hand on the outline like I saw Cináed do. When a golden knob appears, I twist it open and let the door swing wide, revealing a tunnel just big enough to crawl through.

Glancing behind me, I see the female Fae watching me from the bench, her mortal partner passed out on her lap. She nods to me, her wings opening and closing behind her.

I nod back. "Thanks."

"Never thank a faery, dearie. Now hurry before it closes."

Crawling through the tunnel, I scurry to my feet on the other side as the door seals shut and leaves me in the pitch black forest once more.

Only this time, I don't have Cináed's night vision or Skye's companionship to get me out of here.

That's when I hear the worst sound in the entire universe...

The piercing scream of a púka.

<<--------------->>

Coming at you a few days late, so thank you for your patience! If this chapter took you off guard, that makes two of us. Vent your thoughts below, and watch for the next chapter that's coming soon! I promise I won't make you wait too long after this terrible cliff-hanger. 

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