“Do you remember what I told you before, about fae flesh remaining alive for a while even when severed?” Gillie asked.
I licked my lips, tasting the salt of my tears, before giving a hesitant nod.
“Balor severed Lonan’s arm to fulfil the Carlin’s order.”
“B-but…” I reached up and quickly wiped my cheeks, even though tears were still leaking from my eyes. “The Carlin said Lonan killed them. I remember now. She said those words. She said he—he s-slit their throats.”
“Because she thinks that’s what happened.” Gillie gave me a kind smile. “Truths can be tricky things, Ash. Technically, they did die by Lonan’s hand. And if that is what Balor told his mother, that is what she believes.”
My breath caught as another memory surfaced. That first night Lonan had shown up on my doorstep before he started coming every night after. When everything between us had truly begun. I remembered lying in my bed, staring at him stretched out beside me naked. Seeing the thick scar circling his right forearm.
And I remembered Belial’s intense gaze on the night of Samhain, when he had told me that limbs could be reattached with poison.
I stared up at Nua and Gillie. “H-how do you know that?”
“Odran told us,” Nua said. “He heard the two princes talking at his lake on unseelie land. Balor is holding the debt over Lonan’s head.”
Murderous rage made my gut burn. Fucking Balor. So he’d cut off Lonan’s arm just like he cut off mine.
He’d been the one who murdered my parents.
I felt intense shame that I had believed the Carlin, even though I knew logically it wasn’t my fault. How could I have ever thought Lonan would do that? But then, Balor had convinced me that Lonan had been playing his own game with me.
When in reality, Lonan’s family had played us both.
“He was here, Ash,” Nua said in a grave voice.
My breath caught. I stared at him. “What?”
“Lonan was here. The night before you left for Hybra.” He glanced at Gillie again. “The Carlin had ordered him to kill you. He showed up here begging us to help him find Ogma.”
“F-find Ogma? Why?”
“The Carlin never showed her sons how to find her. They’re all still under her control.” Gillie’s brows furrowed as he knelt beside Nua, his knee cracking. “Which meant he would have been compelled to carry out her order to kill you. He wouldn’t have been able to stop himself.”
I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek to stop a fresh sob from escaping. I remembered him in the throne room, when he slipped in to see me as I was dying. ‘I can’t defy her.’ He’d been trying to tell me then.
He’d tried to tell me that he hadn’t killed my parents, and I hadn’t let him speak. He’d told me then that what we had wasn’t a game or a lie, but I’d been too blinded by rage to listen. I hadn’t believed him.
“He said he loves you, Ash.” Nua’s voice was low and hesitant, like he didn’t entirely want to tell me.
“We gave him the mushrooms,” Gillie added. “We haven’t seen him since. But I assume he managed to find her, because you’re still alive.”
I barely registered his words, staring at the floor with unseeing eyes.He said he loves you.
He’d never said it back to me. I’d assumed that meant he hadn’t loved me because it would have been a lie.
I jerked in shock when I suddenly realised—he’d been there, when I’d snuck back to my cottage to grab my stuff. He’dbeen there.And I hadn’t recognised him. I’d threatened to kill him.
‘I just wanted to sleep here,’ he’d said. His voice had been utterly miserable.
And he’d said it then too. He’d said he loved me, more than once. He’d said he missed me so much it felt like he was dying. He’d said he was sorry and that it wasn’t a game—that it had been real.
He’d said he would give anything for me to remember him. He’d said he’d tried to help me. Tried to stop it.
And he’d been there, that day at Odran’s lake. He’d stared at me with grief and longing, dripping wet from slipping into the water as an alligator to attack Odran for asking if I wanted to fuck.
He’d been at the Midsith, staring at me with wide, terrified eyes. He was the fae from the dinner at the seelie palace, who had followed me out because I’d been so distraught after murdering that broon. And he’d told me he loved me then too, after stopping anything from happening between us because I couldn’t remember him.