“It’s all right,” Kenzie said, gripping my arm and slowly sitting up. She took a deep breath, and color returned to her cheeks and lips, easing my panic. “It’s fine, Ethan. I’m fine. I just…couldn’t catch my breath for a second. What happened?”
“Leanansidhe,” Annwyl said, joining Keirran a few feet away. Their gazes were solemn as they watched us, beautiful and inhuman under the moon. “The Dark Muse has taken her price.”
Dread gripped my stomach with a cold hand. But Kenzie wasn’t looking at me, or any of us, anymore. Her mouth was open in a small O, as she slowly stood up, staring at the ring of fey surrounding us. “Have…have they been here the whole time?” she whispered.
Keirran gave her a small, faintly sad smile. “Welcome to our world.”
One of the Summer sidhe came forward, tall and elegant in a cloak of leaves, golden hair braided down his back. “Come,” he said, holding out a long-fingered hand. “A mortal gaining the Sight is cause for celebration. One more to see us, one more to remember. Tonight, we will dance for you. Prince Keirran....” He turned and bowed his head to the silver haired fey across from me. “With your permission…”
Keirran nodded solemnly. And the music rose up once more, eerily compelling, haunting and beautiful. The fey began to dance, swirling around us, flashes of color and graceful limbs. And suddenly, Kenzie was in that crowd, swept from my side before I could stop it, eyes bright as she danced among the fey.
I started forward, heart pounding, but Keirran held out his arm. “It’s all right,” he said. I turned to glare at him, but his face was calm. “Let her have this. Nothing will harm her tonight. I promise.”
The promise thing threw me. If you were a faery and you said the word promise, you were bound to carry it through, no matter what. And if they couldn’t keep that promise, they would die, so it was a pretty serious thing. I didn’t know if Keirran’s human side protected him from that particular rule, or if he really meant it, but I forced myself to relax, watching Kenzie twirl and spin among the unearthly dancers.
Resentment bubbled. A part of me, a large part, actually, wanted to grab Kenzie and pull her back, away from the faeries and their world and the things that wanted to hurt her. I couldn’t help it. The fey had tormented me all my life; nothing good had come out of knowing them, seeing them. My sister had ventured into their world, become their queen, and they’d taken her from me.
And now, Kenzie was a part of that world, too.
“Hey.”
I turned. Kenzie had broken away from the circle and now stood behind me, the moonlight shining off her raven hair. She’d dropped her coat and looked like some kind of faery herself, graceful and slight, smiling at me. My breath caught as she extended a hand. “Come and dance,” she urged.
I took a step back. “No thanks.”
“Ethan.”
“I don’t want to dance with the faeries,” I protested, still backing away. “It breaks my Things-Your-Classmates-Won’t-Beat-You-Up-For rule.”
Kenzie wasn’t impressed. She rolled her eyes, grabbed my hand and tugged me forward even as I half resisted.
“You’re not dancing with the faeries,” she said, as I made one last attempt to stop, to hang on to my dignity. “You’re dancing with me.”
“Kenzie…”
“Tough guy,” she answered, pulling me close. My heart stuttered, looking into her eyes. “Live a little. For me.”
I sighed in defeat, let go of my resolve.
And danced with the fey.
It was easy, once you actually let yourself go. The faery music made it nearly impossible not to lose yourself, to close your eyes and let it consume you. I still kept a tiny hold on my willpower as I swayed with Kenzie, back and forth in the center of the ring, while beautifully inhuman Summer fey twirled around us.
Kenzie moved closer, leaning her head on my chest while her arms snaked around my waist. “You’re actually really good at this,” she murmured, while my heartbeat started thudding loudly in her ear. “Did they teach dancing in kali?”
I snorted. “Only the kind with sticks and knives,” I muttered, trying to ignore the warmth spreading through my stomach, making it hard to think. “Though my old school did make us take a class in ballroom dancing. For our final grade, we had to wear formal attire and waltz around the gym in front of the whole school.”
“Ouch.” Kenzie giggled.
“That’s not the worst of it. Half the class played sick that day, and I was one of the only guys to show up, so of course they made me dance with everyone. My mom still has the pictures.” I looked down at the top of her head. “And if you tell anyone about that, I may have to kill you.”
She giggled again, muffling her laughter in my shirt. I kept my hands on her slim hips, feeling her body sway against mine. As the eerie music swirled around us, I knew that if I remembered anything about this night, it would be this moment, right now. With Kenzie less than a breath away, the moonlight spilling down on her as she danced, graceful as any faery.
“Ethan?”
“Yeah?”
She paused, tracing the fabric along my ribs, not knowing how crazy it was making me. “How ’bout that interview now?”
I let out a long breath. “What do you want to know?”
“They found her later in the woods,” I interrupted. “Maybe a mile from where we had first seen the phouka. She was still alive but…” I stopped, took a careful breath to clear my throat. “But her back was broken. She was paralyzed from the waist down.”
“Oh, Ethan.”
“Her parents moved after that.” My voice sounded flat in my ears, like a stranger’s. “Sam didn’t remember the black pony—that’s another quirk about the fey. The memory fades, and people usually forget about them. No one blamed me, of course. It was a freak accident, only…I knew it wasn’t. I knew if I had said more, argued more, I could have saved her. Sam would’ve been angry with me, but she would still be okay.”
“It—”
“Don’t say ‘it’s not your fault,’” I whispered harshly. There was a stinging sensation in my throat, and my eyes were suddenly blurry. Releasing her, I turned away, not wanting her to see me fall apart. “I knew what that thing was,” I gritted out. “It was there because of me, not Sam. I could have physically stopped her from getting on, but I didn’t, because I was afraid she wouldn’t like me. All her dreams of riding her own horse, of competing in rodeos, she lost it all. Because I was too scared to do anything.”