Lily hadn’t even thought of saying “no,” but as Cadowain led the way to the center of the dance she began to have her doubts. This was clearly a bad idea. This was the sort of thing Troy would have warned her about, and with good reason. She had realized before that the music was dangerous, addictive. Giving in and dancing to the tune, and doing so with someone she didn’t know and who might or might not have a hidden agenda, was not wise.

“I can’t really dance,” she said. Her palm had become sweaty, clasped between his fingers. “I should have said so sooner, and we probably shouldn’t attempt this.”

“Nonsense. Everybody knows how to dance. You just have to let go and listen to the rhythm. I will lead you.” And he did. And, somehow, it worked. After an experimental turn, Lily felt confident enough to stop shaking, which made him relax his grip as well. “See? Not hard at all,” he commented with a grin.

Mingling with the colorful bodies and swirling trains of silk wasn’t hard. She didn’t move with quite the same grace as the fay did, but this fact didn’t bother her. She would have thought it would be embarrassing, like going to a school dance and being the odd one out who didn’t know the steps or kept stepping in other people’s toes, but there was something exhilarating to being part of the festivities, to celebrating whatever it was they celebrated, to just having fun.

In fact, she was so very at ease that it scared her. How long had they been dancing anyway? The music had changed, she believed. It was more lively and less elegant and Cadowain moved them about in a series of jaunty steps that traced lines and angles all over the place instead of gliding in circles. But when had it changed?

She couldn’t tell. Her eyes darted around, trying to find the orchestra or Troy or something, but she only found more giggling, glittering bodies that danced and danced furiously all around.

“Dancing with you is a pleasure, My Lady,” Cadowain said, jerking her attention back to him.

“Thanks. You lead well.” When she replied, she found her breathing quick and shallow and her words muffled gasps.

“I have practice.” He gave her a wry smile. “But regardless, we seem to fit each other well. There are some partners impossible to steer, no matter the effort. Born with three left feet I say.”

She giggled. It was funny, imagining Cadowain trying to wrestle some stubborn woman into following the graceful steps of the dance and being stepped on constantly for his efforts.

Speaking of the dance, it had changed again. Slower. More regal. She flowed into the new patterns.

“Yes,” said Cadowain, studying her through eyes narrowed in thought. “I conclude you are a delightful creature. Which leads me to a question, My Lady.”

“Go ahead,” she said. He nodded, accepting her encouragement, but it didn’t look like he had needed it.

“What sort of threat does Kelpie hold over you?”

His tone had become serious and his words made her stumble, missing the beat. She would have collided with another couple if Cadowain’s hold hadn’t tightened, holding her steady.

“What?”

He offered her a strained smile. “You may tell me. This crowd around us keeps you safe and he won’t know you shared the secret. That is why I asked you to dance, after all.”

“There’s nothing to tell. He’s not threatening me. Why would you think that?” The dance was no longer graceful and entertaining. Now everyone moved too fast and got too close and Lily felt cold sweat breaking down her back.

“Really?” Cadowain cocked an eyebrow. “I find it strange that you come to the Seelie court with a notorious member of the Unseelie court just after they have launched their hostilities.”

Lily thought back to the bogeys and the redcaps, to their sharp teeth and their bruising fingers holding her down, to the malice shining in their eyes. Glaistig might have said they had been tasked to keep an eye on her grandmother, but in her mind they were still the monsters that hid in the dark. Troy wasn’t like that. He had helped her. He had even held her when she broke down, for crying out loud!

“I—I…”

“You did know he was a kelpie, didn’t you? You weren’t surprised to hear him addressed as something other than that ridiculous ‘Troy’ moniker,” Cadowain said, eying her like a hawk. “Surely you knew that a kelpie is a creature sworn to the Unseelie queen?”

What’s a kelpie?

Something that’s scaring you, it seems.

She remembered that first conversation. She had thought him more dangerous then, but shock and familiarity had dulled the edge of that fear. Perhaps her instincts had been right. Troy had said they would visit the Seelie territories because she wouldn’t last in the Unseelie court, but he had never told her he was Seelie, not in as many words. He had just failed to mention the topic of his position. Why hadn’t she thought to ask? She stared at Cadowain, lost, and saw surprise blooming in his features.

“You didn’t know. What do you know about what a kelpie is then?”

She shook her head. Cadowain brought their dance to a halt and the other couples swirled around them, like a river parting before a rock.

“My Lady,” he said, “kelpies are well known as the cruelest tricksters among the Unseelie. They will lure you to ride their horse form and their magic will seep in before you know it, tying your skin to their hide so tightly that you might as well be one. Then, they will gallop into the water, and still you will be linked to them.”

Our riders never fall.

The echoes of Troy’s words drowned out the music. The memory of his magic weaving around her sluiced over her skin and she felt sick.

“What happens then?”

“You drown, of course. You become a soft, bloated corpse,” he said in a low, measured voice. “And then, he eats you.”

Faeries can’t possibly lie, her grandmother’s notebook said.

There was not enough air in the room. Lily felt her knees giving out beneath her.

“No, no, no, no, My Lady.” Cadowain held her up, his lithe frame stronger than it led the eye to believe as he began to make their way across the dancing crowd. “You can’t possibly faint now. There is much we need to discuss now that I know you aren’t in league with them, and while we can count in our dearest Kelpie to avoid the celebration and brood alone at the table, he won’t sit there forever.”

“Not in league with—Discuss—But—” It took her several tries, but then they were away from the press of bodies, in the opposite corner and slipping through an archway where a cool breeze made her teeth chatter and her scattered thoughts regained some coherence. “What should we discuss? You said you knew nothing about what happened to my grandma. And why would I be in league with anyone?”

“I said the queen hadn’t had not shared her plans with me, which she hasn’t has not done,” Cadowain said. The archway led to a small balcony overlooking the forest of high trees they had crossed to arrive in court and he propped her up against the balustrade. “But I have other means to garner pertinent information, and low as I might have fallen, an event of this import wouldn’t go unnoticed. But I couldn’t share this with you while I thought you allied with the Unseelie court. Security reasons, you understand.”

“No. No, I don’t. You’re not making any sense.”

He looked toward the ball and then back at her. “You do know that Seelie and Unseelie are natural enemies, right?”

“No? I mean, why would you let Troy waltz in if he’s so evil?”

“Because we are civilized enemies, of course. Are you or are you not a doctor?”

“A doctor in training,” she conceded.

“I see. For how long?”

“I don’t know. Time is tricky with you fay. Four days? A week?”

“Oh dear.” His face fell. “Look, we don’t have much time, so you must listen carefully. Seelie and Unseelie are enemies, but they are also bound by balance, yes? Not a side would dare to strike the other because the power balance will eventually shift and those you offended will be in a position to strike back. Easy to understand, yes?”

“Yeah. I don’t see how I fit into your story, though.”

Cadowain stole another glance back and then gave her an irritated glare. “I am trying to explain that part. Now, try to imagine what would happen if one of the sides found a way to tilt the balance permanently in their favor.”

“Is there any way to do that?”

“It appears the Unseelie court has found it. There exists a… third power of sorts, if you will. An unstoppable force that exists both in fey lands and in the human realm, independent of both light and darkness. The Unseelie court believes if they can harness this power and use it to wage war on us, this action would permanently shift the balance and leave them ever dominant.”

“The consequences to that would be—”

“Dire, yes. Of course. And there lies the importance of Mackenna because we believe her to be the key to this third power.”

“What? For being a faerie doctor?”

“No, for knowing—”

“A most curious place to dance,” said Troy.

Cadowain bit his words mid-sentence and stiffened. Troy stood behind him, leaning a shoulder against the archway, and while his body language was calculated to present a lazy, calm facade, his eyes glinted like cut emeralds.

“My Lady needed fresh air,” he replied.

“I do not doubt that.” Troy gazed between them and, when his eyes found Lily, she remembered Cadowain’s words. He eats you. “The question is why she required it.”

“Well, it seems she is underfed, and lack of food, coupled with my dashing company—”

“Are you one of them?” Lily spoke over Cadowain. Breathing had become a hard task again and her attention focused on Troy. The dance and their surroundings fell away, and she ignored the little voice in the back of her head screaming that losing control like that was too dangerous.

“Them?” Troy arched an eyebrow, the perfect picture of mild curiosity.

“Winter. The Unseelie court. The beasts who tried to eat me.”

“Yes.”

Just like that. Just a word, plain and simple, enunciated with care in that curious, clipped accent of his. Not even a hint of unease in his features upon being exposed.

The world dropped below Lily’s feet.

“Why?” The question tore out of her insides and sounded more like a sob than she intended it to. She tried again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you knew,” he said. Surprise began to crack his calm exterior and Lily thought there was a flash of perplexity in his eyes.

“No, I never knew! I told you I didn’t know what a kelpie was, remember? I knew nothing of what you are!”

“You needed not have known beforehand. The redcap speaker told you in as many words. He said he and I both served the same powers, did he not?”

The memory had slunk in the darker parts of her mind with all the other things she couldn’t cope with that got shoved under a metaphorical rug so that she could keep functioning. That whole night had been experienced, the details pertaining to her grandmother extracted, and the rest had been stored and forgotten. Killing redcaps with her bare hands, watching them burn of iron poisoning, escaping death, having the skinned hand of a monster touch her while she drowned in the noxious vapors it breathed… it was all surrounded by a haze, but Troy’s words pierced it.

The redcap had, in fact, told them that exact thing. Right before he made an offer for her custody, right before Troy refused and all hell broke loose.

She had known she had been traveling with one of them all along.

“I didn’t take note of that. I was half in shock and you were negotiating over me, how could you expect me to realize it?” And now, shock was fighting with anger, and both emotions were losing in the face of fear and a yawning abyss of dismay.

“You are, in fact, expected to realize it and more so when the situation is dire and you know nothing. It is at such times that you must pay the most attention. Even if you had not, and even if this behavior could be excused due to your mental state at the moment, I fail to see how you can place the blame upon me when you did not think to raise a single question.” Troy’s anger rose to meet her recriminations, and she saw in him the cold eyes and menacing lines she had glimpsed during their first conversation, when she feared to be hit. She had all but forgotten about that moment, that feeling.

“Well, now, entertaining as this exchange may be—”

“Does your kind eat people?” she asked, once more speaking over Cadowain. She had barely heard his attempt at ending the confrontation. Right then, Cadowain formed part of the outside world, and where she stood, only she and Troy existed.

A muscle jumped in Troy’s jaw. “What relevance does it have?”

“Do you eat people?” She insisted, fear and hope and disgust knotting together in her stomach and spiraling out of control.

“Yes.”

The world began to spin. Lily ran.