The setting of the sun woke Pook from troubled dreams.
No light touched him within the little hideaway he'd found to sleep out the long spring day, but he could nonetheless feel it deep in his blood when the last of the sun's rays vanished from the sky, abandoning the world to the dominion of night. Awakened by the shift in power, he opened his eyes and found himself staring at a rough wooden plank only a few inches from his face.
For a moment, he didn't know where he was--not the Sevens, he hadn't slept there in months, and it sure wasn't the Trap, either. He started to sit up, only to ram the top of his head into a low ceiling. Blinking the stars out of his eyes, he slumped back onto the dirt that had been his bed.
A staircase in the alley across from the bookstore--that's where I am. It had been well after dawn when he had been looking for somewhere to hole up for the day, which meant that he couldn't just sleep right in the alley like he usually did. All the doss houses closed up as soon as the sun rose, so that was out. He didn't dare sleep too far away from Alex, anyway, not when the seelie fae were wandering around the city and stirring up trouble every chance they got.
So tired and aching, at the very limit of his endurance, he'd spotted a little service stair in the alley, leading up to a tiny loading dock. Planks closed the stair up underneath, maybe to keep stuff from the dock from rolling under and getting lost...but one of the wooden boards had been noticeably loose. It had been the work of a moment to pry it off, slip inside, prop the plank up behind him, and lie down.
Remembering where he was led to remembering other things--things he didn't particularly want to think about. Like the fact that he was a prince.
Some prince, he thought, staring at the warped boards that were all he could claim as a roof over his head. Maybe I just dreamed it all. Just dreamed that the Rat Soldiers was fed faery food. Just dreamed that they turned their backs on me.
Just dreamed that I'm barely human at all.
The reek of soot and dried blood clung to his hair and clothes, a grim reminder of the reality of the riot that had burned down part of the slums. Clothes are still damp, too. So I guess I really did go into that fountain and get out that damned sword.
He reached blindly behind him, half-hoping that the sword had gone away by itself sometime during the day, while he slept. For a moment his fingers met nothing, and his heart leapt...but then he felt the cold kiss of metal an instant before it sliced his skin.
"Ow! Damn it!" he yelped, and stuck his bleeding fingers in his mouth. Then he froze, listening, but nobody seemed to have heard his voice coming from where it shouldn't be, so he relaxed again.
Well, the damned sword was there all right, just where he remembered leaving it. So the rest of it had to be true, too.
What am I going to do?
For a moment, he wondered if maybe the Rat Soldiers would take him back after all. Then he saw again the look in Darcy's eyes: fear, loathing, and hatred.
And Rose. Rose had known what he was, but after what she'd gone through, she didn't want to have anything to do with him.
Ain't my fault the seelie fae decided to give them all faery food, make them slaves. Hell, I helped get them free, didn't I? Can't they see that?
Don't matter. They ain't taking you back, b'hoy. You got to find your own way in the world, now.
Alone. Just like I was when I ran away from old Fergus in Gloachamuir.
But no, that wasn't true, was it? Even if his human friends had deserted him, the other faelings hadn't. Mina, Duncan, Fox, and Kuromori had stuck right with him, backed him up all the way. And Alex...maybe she wasn't in love with him the way he was with her, but she had to care about him, didn't she? She didn't seem like the kind of girl who just went around kissing guys for no good reason, so maybe there was something there with her, too.
Then there was Dubh...
My brother.
A surge of bitter jealousy went through Pook, catching him off guard with its intensity. Damn Dubh. Their parents, whom Pook had never seen since the day he was born, had decided to keep their precious Dubh and abandon Pook in the human world as a changeling. They loved him, not me. I was just a baby, for God's sake--what did I do that they couldn't love me, too?
I hate them. Him too.
And now Pook had ended up stuck with the sword that Dubh wanted, so Dubh was pissed at him, which just made Pook madder the more he thought about it. He'd tried to give the damn thing away when he'd learned the truth, but would Dubh take it? Hell no, because that would've meant he couldn't go on whining all the time.
At least he wouldn't have to worry about seeing Dubh hanging around the bookstore anytime soon. Mina had threatened the b'hoy but good last night, and if he were smart he'd get the hell out of Dere.
But you know how dumb Dubh is. What if he comes by when Mina ain't there? Starts chatting up Alex again?
Pook pulled aside the loose board and wiggled out. The alley was deserted now, after business hours, and the closest gaslight came from the street, so there was no one to see him. He reached back in and pulled out the sword, pausing a moment to weave a glamour around it to make it look like an ordinary stick. Then he pushed the board back into place and headed towards the main street and the bookstore.
* * *
The combined sound of someone pounding on a door and a cat meowing brought Alex awake. Startled, she sat up in bed and fumbled on her heavy spectacles. Vagabond, the one-eyed faeling cat who shared Alex's flat above Blackthorn Books, perched at the top of the stairs, mewing imperiously. The muffled thud of a fist on the front door below paused momentarily, only to be replaced by a loud jangle as the caller started pulling on the bell instead.
Oh, for Chernovog's sake! He's going to pull the accursed thing right off!
The window was directly beside the bed. Alex flung it open and stuck her head out, ready to give whomever it was a good tongue-lashing. The sun had already gone down, but gaslight revealed shining black hair, delicately-pointed ears, and skin the color of coffee lightly cut with cream.
Pook.
Her heart seemed to flutter in her chest, so she sternly told it to stop immediately. Not that her internal admonishment worked any better tonight than it ever did. From the first moment she'd seen him, his beauty had made her feel like every nerve in her body was acutely attuned to his presence. For the most part, it had been something she resented but was powerless to control.
And now?
"You don't have to knock the door down," she called.
He looked up, and she saw the flash of bright teeth in his dark face as he smiled. "Hey!" he yelled up guilelessly. "Wasn't sure if you was awake or not."
"I don't think the dead could have slept through that racket," she said dryly. "Just give me a moment to dress, and I'll be down."
Pook waved cheerfully in acknowledgement. Suppressing a sigh, Alex closed the window. Vagabond, who seemed to have followed the conversation, ran off down the stairs, purring loudly.
Is there any female he can't charm? Alex wondered as she hurriedly pulled off her nightgown. A row of sensible dresses hung sternly in the wardrobe, and Alex wryly acknowledged that she already dressed like the aged spinster she someday expected to be. Between her spectacles and her pear-shaped figure--which, to be honest, had a bit more padding on it than was fashionable--society would never consider her so much as pretty.
Then there were her interests, none of which would possibly be looked upon as suitable for a proper lady, even here in Niune where women had far more expectation of education than in her homeland. The flamethrower she had built sprawled across the floor near the stair where she had left it, and the sturdy table in her sitting room was covered with half-finished inventions and experiments. Parts of a galvanic light lay next to a hand-cranked generator, which butted up beside the teapot she had hoped to incorporate into an automatic tea-making machine. The precious tin foil that might become part of a speaking machine sat on a shelf, out of reach of a playful cat who might tear it to shreds.
Even in a man some of her tinkerings would have seemed eccentric; in a woman, they were simply damning.
So why not dress as if she had neither hope nor desire of catching a boy's eye?
"I love you," Pook had said last night, in the moment before he'd stepped into that accursed fountain. Like an idiot, she had stood there and said nothing in return, wasting her time wondering if it could possibly be true while he walked into danger.
Chernovog...could it be true?
She pulled on one of the dresses at random, wincing as the cloth inadvertently touched her throat. A quick look in the mirror revealed a reddened patch of skin--a light burn in the shape of a human hand. That's where Nigel grabbed me. A shiver went through her at the memory. He meant to kill me.
But he's dead now. Dead. Trying not to think of the sound the ax had made as it chopped his head off, she turned away from the mirror.
"Hey, baby," Pook said cheerfully when she unlocked the door for him. He had his sword propped against his shoulder. To her right eye, which wasn't anointed against glamour, it looked like a stick. As he walked in, he went to prop it against the counter--and in the process swept a pile of books into the floor. "Oops--I keep forgetting how long the damn thing is. You ought to see what I did to a lady's hat on the way over here."
Unsure if she should sigh or laugh, Alex went to help him pick up the books. As she knelt beside him, he took the opportunity to lean over and give her a kiss that scrambled her thoughts and turned her knees to water.
The bell above the door jingled as it opened. Alex started and felt her face heat as her uncle, Duncan RiDahn, maneuvered his wheelchair through the doorway. His long hair, brown liberally streaked with gray, hung loose around an ascetic face. Light flashed from the lenses of his spectacles, and from the gold earrings he wore. He carried a covered basket on his lap, from which rose the smells of fresh baked bread and other food. "Good evening. I trust we aren't intruding?"
Pook stiffened slightly. "Hey, Duncan," he said, but there was a wary edge to the greeting.
Duncan either didn't notice, or pretended not to. He pulled a rumpled newspaper from under the basket and tossed it onto the counter. HORRIBLE FIRE screamed the headline, followed by a line of smaller type that proclaimed: "Fire ignited by rioting gangs burns three blocks." And underneath that: "Mayor RiCorryn calls for police sweep of slums area."
Mina came in; seeing Alex's interest in the paper, she gave a bitter smile. "We're famous."
"Bigger headlines than when me and Rose painted makeup on General Gladstone's statue in Triumph Square," Pook agreed ruefully.
Mina's dark eyes were restless in her pale face, like a wild thing that had been caged. "We need to talk about what happened last night and decide what we're going to do next."
Pook was eyeing the basket like a starveling wolf. "Can we eat first?" he asked hopefully.
"Eat and talk at the same time. This is a council of war."
* * *
Kuromori and Fox came in just as Duncan was unpacking the basket at the table in the back room. While Mina set about catching them up on everything that had happened, Pook set his attention on the food. The basket yielded up some kind of cold bean salad, bread, and tarts made from preserved fruit. He got Alex's share out first; she seemed surprised when he handed the laden plate to her. After helping himself, he sat down beside her on a crate of books, seeing as all the chairs were taken by the old folks, and tucked in. Habit made him bolt everything he could; for most of his life, he'd never been sure when or if the next meal was coming.
Now...he didn't think Duncan or Mina would let him starve, truthfully, even if they hadn't been paying him a salary for his work at the bookstore. He wasn't sure how he felt about that--glad, in a way, but kind of weird, too.
When he finally got back around to paying attention to the conversation, Mina was just about wrapping up. Into the silence that followed, Duncan said, "The question is, what do we do now?"
Mina's heavy boots clunked across the floor as she prowled the confines of the room restlessly. Something had her blood up tonight, like she was expecting a fight, and he felt it in the little whispers and eddies of power that pricked his skin. "That's easy," she said, and when she smiled her teeth were small and sharp. "We fight back."
Duncan raised an eyebrow. "Whom are we fighting, Wilhelmina?"
She stopped her pacing, looking surprised that he even had to ask. "I seem to remember that the seelie fae want to kill us, Duncan."
"Indeed. And the unseelie fae appear to expect Tamnais to act as some sort of champion for them."
Pook's gut cramped around the food, and he suddenly wished he hadn't eaten so much. "Don't call me that," he snapped before he had time to consider that Duncan might not much like a lowlife like Pook ordering him around.
Duncan only gave him a measured look before responding. "You cannot deny who you are."
"I ain't. I'm Pooka. Freak, if you'd rather call me that."
"You are the son of very powerful fae. It is possible that they will simply leave you alone, even thought you have won the sword rather than Dubh, and even though Camhlaidh has no doubt reported your activities to the court of the Unseelie King. But I very sincerely doubt that will be the case."
"Then we'll fight them, too!"
Mina had paused in her pacing, and now her look became a little less feral and a lot more grim. "Hold your temper, Pook," she said. "God knows, there's no love lost between me and Camhlaidh. I'd like nothing better than to send him to hell myself for killing Abby. But the aughisky helped us in the past, and it sounds like the fideal and some of the others were trying to help you. I'll fight any seelie fae that comes near Dere, but we don't have so many friends that we can alienate those we've got."
Pook clenched his fists. "I ain't helping them," he muttered. "And if they come near me, I'll fight them, too."
Mina laughed darkly. "Going to take on all of Faerie by yourself, boy?"
It made him mad. "If I got to. Been fighting the seelie by myself already--I ain't afraid to add the unseelie to that list."
"You are both missing the point," Duncan said, sounding put out. "We don't know the motives of either seelie or unseelie. Why did the aughisky help us five years ago? Is she allied to Camhlaidh?"
Alex cast Pook an uncertain glance. "Dubh might know the answer to that. I'm sorry, Pook, but it's true."
"Dubh might lie," Mina pointed out. "And he made it pretty clear last night that he didn't want to have anything to do with us."
"If I may ask a question," Kuromori interjected. He rose from his chair and bowed politely to them all. "This sword, which the unseelie fae have given to Tamnais-kun...has it any unusual properties?"
"You mean like magic?" Pook asked, trying to ignore the use of the hated name. Why the hell was everyone so damned determined to call him the wrong thing, anyway?
Duncan steepled his long fingers in front of him and scowled thoughtfully at the sword. Pook had brought it into the back with them, and propped it just inside the door, not knowing what else he ought to do with it. "I would be greatly surprised if the sword did not have any magic. There would be little point in setting up such a test only to reward the victor with nothing more than an ordinary lump of metal."
"What sort of metal is it?" Alex asked, peering owlishly at the blade. "It can't be iron, because otherwise Pook couldn't touch it. Oh! I could shave a bit off and run some tests--"
"Your enthusiasm is admirable, Alexandreya, but perhaps we should wait before reducing it to bits for chemical analysis. Tamnais, were you given any hints as to its nature?"
Pook shook his head. Like the fae ever gave him anything he could use, whether it was information or a sword. "Nah. There was some bitc--uh, I mean, some cherry in the middle of the fountain. She just gave it to me. Oh, but it did do something!" he added, snapping his fingers. "Something magic. It started out like smoke, just in kind of a sword shape. It didn't turn solid until after I'd touched it."
The look on Kuromori's face was neutral, but Pook thought he saw curiosity in the easterner's dark eyes. "Maybe I inspect the blade, Tamnais-kun?"
"Sure."
Kuromori picked it up carefully, sighting down the blade, then inspecting the grip. Mina came over to take a closer look herself.
"This is a katana of great craftsmanship," Kuromori said gravely. "Moreover, I would judge that it is the perfect length and weight for Tamnais-kun to wield."
"It formed itself just for him, when he touched it," Mina speculated. "That's why it looks funny--his idea of a sword is the eastern style because he's used to seeing yours."
Then it came to Pook. He jumped up off the crate, almost dumping his plate off his lap in his excitement. "I bet I know what it does! The magic, I mean. It probably makes me a great swordsman or something."
Kuromori bowed, offering the weapon hilt-first to Pook. "Then shall we step outside where there is more room and discover for ourselves, Tamnais-kun?"
Grinning, Pook grabbed his sword. Mina jumped out of the way when he nearly caught her with the tip of the blade. "Sorry," he said, and went out the back door.
Everyone else trailed after. Feeling confident, Pook stopped in the yard and turned to face Kuromori. The easterner bowed to him again, then drew his own katana in a soft hiss of steel. Unlike the fae of Niune, those of the east had no trouble handling cold iron.
"Be careful--I don't want to hurt you," Pook cautioned him.
"I appreciate your concern for me, Tamnais-kun. Perhaps you should make the first move?"
Pook raised his sword and brought it around.
A few seconds later, he found himself lying on his back in the muddy yard, his now-empty hands stinging smartly, with no clear idea how he'd gotten there.
"Pook! Are you all right?" cried Alex. She ran up and dropped down by him on her knees.
Feeling stupid, Pook just nodded. So much for any chances of impressing her with some fancy sword-work.
Kuromori appeared on his other side. "Forgive me, Tamnais-kun," he said, "but I fear that we have yet to discover the properties of your weapon."
"Yeah...well, it was an idea," Pook muttered, rubbing at his bruised rump. "Guess the damn thing's pretty much useless to me, then."
"Not entirely," Kuromori said, holding out his hand to help Pook up. "The sword may not make one a great warrior simply by holding it, but perhaps one might learn to use it by more conventional means."
Startled, Pook glanced up. "You offering to teach me?"
"If that is your wish, Tamnais-kun."
"But...why?"
A faint smile tugged at the corner of the easterner's mouth. "Perhaps it is my fate in this lifetime, Tamnais-kun, that the gods have seen fit to place me here at this moment, when I might be of use. Or perhaps it is simply fortunate chance. Either way, it would please me to impart to you to way of the warrior. You are an impetuous young man--it is your nature, even more so than that of all young men--but you have your own peculiar code of honor, and I believe you would be a worthy student."
Pook wasn't sure he followed all of that, but he did get that Kuromori was offering to help him figure out how to use the stupid thing. "Okay," he said, and let his friend pull him to his feet. "When?"
"The evenings would be best, I think."
"Yeah." Pook's spirits sank again, remembering the Rat Soldiers. Time was, he'd get off work at the bookstore and head straight for his gang's turf, to spend the night running black market stuff up the river, or picking pockets, or brawling, or just boozing it up. That was over for good, now. "Not like I got anything else to do."
"Which brings me back to my original point," Mina said. She drifted up, her hair a pale smear in the gaslight. "We can't just sit here and wait to find out what the seelie are going to do to us next. We have to go on the offensive."
Duncan looked up sharply, his earrings flashing in the gaslight. "What do you have in mind?"
Mina smiled her razor smile. "I mean that the seelie declared war on us last night, and by God I mean to take the battle to them."
"We don't know enough about the situation," Duncan objected.
"Hell yeah we do!" Pook met Mina's gaze, felt an answering smile starting up on his own face. The blood thrummed in his veins, carrying its dark river of power through his body. "We know they want to kill us. Nothing more we need to know, is there?"
"And where are you going to find them?" Duncan asked.
Mina laughed. "We'll use the signposts they've put out themselves. They marked their battlefield in human blood, remember? They'll return to the site of the riots. We only have to lie in wait."
"But wait where, and when?" Alex asked. She absently pushed her spectacles higher on her nose as she regarded Mina with a steady gaze. "The riots covered a fair amount of ground, and according to Pook there were other killings before that. There aren't enough of us to keep watch on that much of the city. Nor is there any way of knowing when the battle will be fought, or if the seelie have yet more gambits to play beforehand."
Pook frowned and scuffed the ground absently with one hob-nailed boot. When two gangs wanted to get together and fight, they just issued and challenge and showed up at the right time. But even he could see that sending a challenge to the seelie fae wouldn't be too smart.
"Maybe Fox could help?" he asked, half to himself. When no one answered, he glanced up uncertainly. "I mean, she can see things, can't she? Maybe she could take a look-see and figure out when and where the fae are hanging out."
The mention of her name had gotten Fox's attention, but she only looked confused. Her hands endlessly reworked the bits of string she constantly carried with her, weaving cats' cradles. She glanced down at the string and frowned at it, as if surprised to find it there. "I see fog, and smoke," she said in a singsong voice. "The maze is dark--I can't find anything." She shot a pleading look towards Duncan, as if he could do something to help her.
"It's all right, my dear," he said soothingly. "Do not distress yourself. But if you do see anything of use, you will tell us, won't you?"
She nodded uncertainly.
Well, that was a disappointment. "Maybe one of us could try too?" Pook asked doubtfully.
Duncan looked vexed. "If you had paid more attention to my teachings, Tamnais, you might recall that such seeing is women's magic. The woman must be a maid who has never been a mother, and she must have power."
"I've got the power, but I've been pregnant," Mina said. There was a darkness in her eyes that made Pook wonder what had happened, and at the same time warned him not to ask.
"And I don't have the power," Alex concluded glumly. "Chernovog curse the luck."
"So there ain't nothing we can do?"
"There is a special case," Duncan said hesitantly. "Although I fear that once again it will be of no use to us. There is an obscure spell in which a virgin male may add power and clarity to the woman leading the vision. It might help lead Fox through her confusion."
Pook blinked, trying to sort out what the problem was. "I got power, don't I? Weren't you the one going on last night about how much fae blood I'm stuck with?"
Duncan seemed surprised for some reason. "You do have the power, yes."
"Well, then, I'm your b'hoy!" At least some good might come of his complete lack of a social life. "That sound okay to you, Foxy-Fox?"
Fox beamed at him. "Oh, yes."
"Tomorrow night, then," Duncan decided. "I will need some time to investigate the spell further and make certain that we have what we need to perform it."
"Tomorrow," Mina said, and Pook felt the faint dance of her power on his skin as she stirred restlessly. "And then we'll take the fight to the seelie, and make them rue the day they set foot in Dere."
* * *
Pook walked along the bank of the Blackrush, smoking a cigarette. The seasons had finally turned all the way, and there was no denying now that spring was here to stay. The air so near the river stank of slime and sewage, and the infrequent streetlamps cast pallid reflections onto the rippling water.
We're at war, he thought, and asked himself how he felt about that. Not that he hadn't already been fighting the seelie in his own way, but this was somehow different. Then, he'd hunted them. Now...maybe they were going to start hunting him, too.
Mina won't let it come to that. She's knows what she's doing. We're going to take them on their own turf, teach them not to mess with us.
But Duncan don't think we're doing the right thing. And I got to admit, he's pretty smart.
Something moved in the weeds by the river.
Pook froze, his heart in his mouth. Damn it, not again. The last time he'd run into something nasty near the river, it had been the bean-nighe, the washerwoman of Dere. She'd told him that his friends would become his enemies...and she'd been right.
She so much as opens her mouth, I'm running the other way.
But it wasn't the bean-nighe this time. Instead, a dark shape rose up out of the water beside a bridge, pushing through the dense thicket of reeds that had sprouted along the bank with the warming of the weather. An eye that glowed a sickly, greenish-white turned towards him, and he saw a lank mane, its wet strands entangled with waterweeds. Barnacles encrusted its gray coat, and the chitinous remains of a crab hung snagged in its long tail.
The aughisky.
The water horse's lips pulled back, exposing carnivore teeth, and Pook wondered if he ought to just pull foot out of there. The aughisky had eaten one of the Rat Soldiers--or, at least, he suspected she had. Maybe she's got a taste for Rat Soldier now. Going to gobble me up even if I ain't one of them no more.
"Good evening, my prince," said a voice from the shadows of the bridge.
Pook let out a startled yelp and swung his sword around wildly. The edge connected with nothing but air.
"Where are you?" he yelled. "Show your damn face!"
"Of course, my prince," said the calm, honeyed voice. A tall man stepped from the darkness; gaslight touched his blond hair and pale skin. His clothing was entirely black, down to the lace that dripped from his cuffs and nearly swept the ground when he bowed. "I am, as always, at your service."
"You're Camhlaidh--Mina's dad," Pook said flatly. Fear warred with anger, and this time anger won. "I don't want nothing to do with the likes of you, so why don't you just bugger off and take the pony with you?"
"If that is what you truly wish, then of course I will do so," Camhlaidh said with a smile that Pook suspected was more than a little patronizing. "I thought simply to see if there were any ways in which I could be of service to you."
Pook swallowed. It's a trap. Got to be. Mina said he's bad news. "I don't want nothing from the fae. ÔCept maybe for you all to stay the hell away from me. You want to serve somebody, you find Dubh."
"Prince Dubh is well known to me." Camhlaidh's smile turned conspiratorial. "Well enough that I cannot say I was greatly surprised that he failed the test that your sword required."
"Well, yeah--that goes without saying, don't it?" Pook said, pretending to a bravado that he didn't really feel. Then again, that Dubh is dumb as a brick wall and twice as thick.
"I thought that perhaps you might have some questions," Camhlaidh went on. "Questions that only one of us might answer. The aughisky came with me as a show of good faith, as it were. I am sure that my daughter mentioned that she has been an ally in the past."
Pook hesitated. Yeah, Mina had always spoken well of the aughisky. But Duncan worried about the water horse's motives. "I got a question, then," he said. "Did she eat George?"
The aughisky snorted...then spoke a single word.
In George's voice.
"Yes."
The hairs on the back of Pook's neck tried to stand straight up. "Y-you can talk," was all he could manage.
"Only in the voices of the dead," said the aughisky, and if Pook's eyes had been closed he would have sworn that was George standing right there. Well, George if he'd had the brains to put together a complete sentence, anyway.
"Stop that!" he said. The aughisky watched him through emotionless, glowing eyes, and he wondered again if she was thinking about putting him on the menu, too. "Don't talk like him. Gives me the crawlies."
"The boy was bleeding out his life when he hit the water," the aughisky said...but this time, thank God, she sounded like somebody Pook didn't know. A little girl. "I took the offering that was made."
"Um, yeah." Pook nervously ran his free hand back through his hair. Deciding that it was safer for the moment, he turned his attention back on Camhlaidh. "If Mina was here, she'd say don't listen to you. She says you killed her friend."
Camhlaidh's eyes darkened, but his smile never wavered. "And does Mina rule you, my prince? Has the dyana taken your will and made you her puppet?"
"No!"
"Then perhaps you should make your own judgments. I fail to see why you put such faith in her to begin with. You have spent the last two years fighting against the seelie fae, and in all that time has she done anything to help you? Or has she sat at home, in her comfortable mansion, while the seelie devoured the lives of children?"
Pook hesitated. "She...she didn't know."
"Didn't know...or didn't want to know?" Camhlaidh sighed and shook his head sadly. "I fear that wealth has corrupted my daughter as it does all mortals. She no longer remembers where she came from. No longer cares for the lost, the hungry, the homeless. If I am not mistaken, I believe that she even told you that you were wrong to flee Gloachamuir? That you should have been grateful to be beaten, starved, and locked in a pit?"
Pook swallowed hard. "How...how did you know about that?"
"The unseelie fae have watched your life more closely you than you realize, my prince." Camhlaidh bowed again. "I see that you have a great deal to think on, so I will withdraw. If you have need of me, simply call my name beside the river, and I will come to you."
At Pook's mute nod, the fae turned and slipped off into the shadows, disappearing as if he had fallen through a crack in reality. The aughisky snorted, then made her way to the water, vanishing beneath its black surface in a swirl of bubbles. Feeling cold and alone, Pook stood there for a long time, watching the ripples fade.
