Page 42 of Darkest Mercy (Wicked Lovely 5)

; “Three days ago.” Seth shook his head. “Devlin and Ani and Rae—she’s this—”

“I met her,” Niall interrupted. “They visited in a dream and . . .” His words faded, and a pensive look came over his face.

“Niall?”

The Dark King blinked. He stepped back and withdrew a cigarette case and lighter from his pocket. Silently, he packed a cigarette, lit it, and exhaled. “So . . . Seth . . . Faerie is sealed? And you foresaw deaths you didn’t reveal? You put your own wishes above my—this court?”

Seth nodded.

“Well, you are filled with surprises; aren’t you, boy?” Niall smiled, a very peculiar expression given the circumstances.

“Only the one,” Seth said.

The Dark King looked at him then, not as a grieving faery or as a friend, but as a calculating faery king. “Tell me, seer, do you see my future? Can you tell me what I will do next?”

“No, not entirely.”

Shadowy abyss figures took shape on either side of Seth, and he hoped that he wasn’t about to die. There was no one else on this side of the veil who could balance the Dark King, and if this was what he was like with a High Court presence near him, Seth couldn’t fathom what the Dark King had been like in those couple of days between the gate being sealed and now.

I’m not sure how I am to balance him—or if I can.

“You withheld what you saw because it brought a chance to kill Bananach.” The Dark King took a long drag of the cigarette.

Seth chose the words carefully: “I am sorry that you’re mourning, but Irial made a choice. That choice set events into motion that protect Faerie. If Bananach had gone there, in time she would have killed Sorcha. If Sorcha came here . . . that would be dangerous.”

The Dark King stared at him. “So Bananach’s death is important enough to you that you hid the truth from all of us?”

“It is,” Seth admitted.

The Dark King formed bars of shadows around Seth, imprisoning him in a cage that was solid to the touch despite the seemingly ethereal nature of its origins. He stepped closer. “Who all would you sacrifice? Your friends? Your lover? Yourself?”

“You and Ash are the only faeries I wouldn’t sacrifice to protect Sorcha.” Seth had a flicker of irritation that the three faeries he loved were so difficult, but even so, he suspected that their passions were part of why he did feel more for them than for anyone else. “In either world, no one means more to me than the three of you.”

“So I am to believe you’d choose the Dark King over her royal tediousness?”

“No. Not the Dark King. You, Niall.” Seth shook his head. “It’s not about courts or regents. It’s about the people—the faeries who matter to me. You matter.”

“So much that you sentenced Irial to death.” The Dark King wrapped one hand around the shadow-wrought bars of the cage. “Well, I feel so . . . cherished.”

Seth didn’t move away from the bars. “I did what I had to.”

“Once, I might’ve killed you for what you’ve hidden. I fear that I’ve grown”—the Dark King exhaled a plume of disgusting cigarette smoke into Seth’s face—“merciful over the last year.”

Seth blinked, but after a childhood in dive bars and pubs, a bit of posturing wasn’t particularly intimidating. Maybe a little. He had faced the two oldest faeries—and their son. He’d been nearly gutted by the last Winter Queen. He’d trained with the Hunt. And Niall is my friend. Seth stepped forward so that he was as close to the bars as he could be. “I am not afraid of you.”

“Then you are a fool,” the Dark King said. “In case you missed it when you came into my house, I have been a bit out of sorts . . . because of the actions you allowed to happen. Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

At Seth’s feet the shadows solidified into a floor; above him, a shadowed ceiling formed. “Because you need me,” Seth said softly.

“Perhaps.” The Dark King reached into the cage and slammed Seth’s face into the bars. “The court that has possession of a seer would have an advantage, but don’t think that means I need you uninjured.” He shook his head, and for several moments, he simply stared at the cage.

“Niall?” Seth prompted.

Niall blinked, and in a blur he grabbed Seth’s shirt and slammed him into the bars again. “You betrayed me, and Irial is dead because of it. . . . You took him from me, Seth. You took him.” Niall’s voice broke. Then he released Seth as suddenly as he’d grabbed him, and turned away.

After a few moments, the shadow-formed cage lifted and floated behind Niall. In the foyer, thistle-fey and Hounds silently watched their king walk toward them with Seth imprisoned in a cage of shadows.