Aisling liked to watch the mortals when they didn’t know they were being observed.
It felt…appropriate.
She had grown up with eyes on her from the moment she could walk. Servants, tutors, courtiers, all measuring, weighing, appraising. Was she clever enough? Pretty enough? Dangerous enough? Useful?
They never said it outright, of course. Not at first. At first, they told her she was a miracle.
“You were dying,” the King would say, rough fingers tucking a strand of gold hair behind her ear. “Barely three days old. Your little chest couldn’t keep up. Your lungs were…weak. And then the woods gave you back to us.”
She’d believed him. She’d imagined a dark forest and kind roots, wrapping around her tiny body, whispering *live, little one, live,* before setting her down on a bed of moss.
She hadn’t pictured an old woman sobbing in a hospital parking lot, or a different baby being stolen from a human crib.
That part had come later.
Now, at twenty-five, Aisling knew several things with bone-deep certainty.
One: the wildwood did not give without wanting something in return.
Two: the Autumn Court did nothing without angle.
Three: she had been raised on a story that wasn’t the whole truth.
She also knew that the mortal world looked…dull at first glance.
Flat colors. Clumsy buildings. People in ugly clothes rushing around like ants, faces pinched with worry over things like numbers in bank accounts and the opinions of strangers on glass rectangles.
Dull.
But if you watched long enough, the dull cracked.
She sat, invisible, on the branch of a maple tree overlooking a city park. It wasn’t a proper tree by home standards—young, its magic thin as a soup stretched too far—but it had leaves, and that was enough.
Below, three children shrieked as they chased a dog. A woman in a bright yellow coat walked briskly, headphones in, mouthing lyrics. An older man fed pigeons from a paper bag, his face creased with some emotion she couldn’t quite name.
It was…peaceful.
Aisling hated it.
She swung her legs, boots scuffing the bark. From the corner of her eye, she watched the shimmer where the park shaded into something thinner—an overlap. A crack. A doorway.
She’d slipped through three days ago, using a ceremony she wasn’t supposed to know. Whispered words gleaned from half-heard conversations, a drop of her own blood, a stolen token from the King’s private hoard.
He’d notice the missing acorn eventually.
He’d be much angrier about where she’d gone with it.
“Mortals,” said a voice at her elbow.
She didn’t startle. She’d felt him coming—a pressure, a chill that wasn’t weather.
She glanced to the side.
The man leaning against the trunk looked…ordinary. Mortal-ish. Simple black coat, dark hair slicked back, pale eyes. But his shadow pooled too deep at his feet. Frost clung to the edge of his collar even though the day was mild.
“Rian,” she said.
He smiled briefly, quick and sharp. “Lady Aisling,” he said. “You’re far from home.”
“You’re one to talk,” she said. “Last I heard, the Hound of Winter kept his pets on a much shorter leash.”
The Winter emissary’s mouth curved, showing a sliver of too-white teeth. “I’ve always been good at slipping collars,” he said. “We have that in common.”
She didn’t deny it.
“Any trouble crossing?” he asked.
“None worth mentioning,” she said. “Your master’s little play at the seam distracted most of the watchers.”
His gaze flicked to her left hand, where a ring of twisted amber and bone sat heavy on her finger.
“He noticed the acorn,” Rian said.
“Let him,” she said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “He can’t follow me here without making a scene. And he won’t, not unless he wants the other Courts to smell weakness.”
“You have a gift for turning cruelty into opportunity,” Rian observed. “His cruelty most of all.”
“He raised me,” she said. “If I’ve become adept at weaponizing what he taught me, he has only himself to blame.”
Rian’s eyes glinted with approval. “And have you found what you came for?” he asked.
“Not yet,” she said. “But the web is tightening.”
She looked back down at the park.
At the people. The mundane, petty, fragile lives moving along unaware that just beyond their vision, old bargains shaped their fates.
Somewhere in this city—somewhere close—walked a girl with Aisling’s blood and none of her memories.
Rowan.
The first time Aisling heard the name, she’d been thirteen.
A whispered argument outside her door. The seer’s hissed voice—*two girls, two paths, you fool*—and the King’s growl—*we chose you.*
Chosen.
What child doesn’t want to hear that?
She’d clung to it, even when the words that came after darkened its edges.
*The other is out there. Weak. Human. Untamed. She will ruin what we’ve built if we let her.*
The older she got, the less that satisfied.
What, exactly, had they built with her life?
Aisling, miracle child, paraded at feasts, her hand kissed by sycophants. Aisling, pupil to a dozen tutors, drilled in history and politics and the proper way to twist a sentence. Aisling, walking warning sign—*see what a generous King we have, he even saved a mortal once.*
She knew she was a symbol. A tool. A weapon.
If she was all those things, what was Rowan?
She’d started asking the wrong questions to the right people. Whisper. Lucien. The harvest witches who thought their muttering went unheard.
You weren’t supposed to eavesdrop on the advisors’ meetings. You weren’t supposed to pry at the edges of the story the King fed you.
She’d never been good at “supposed to.”
“You could have stayed,” Rian said idly. “Nestled in amber. Waited for the fulcrum to land in your lap.”
“And let them decide my role for me?” Aisling asked. “Be gracious symbol, or obedient wife, or tragic martyr, depending on what suits the plot that day? No, thank you.”
“If you take your life back,” Rian said, “they’ll call you traitor.”
“Of course,” she said. “That’s the fun part.”
He studied her profile. “You don’t care about the prophecy,” he said. Not a question.
“I care about…choice,” she said. “And the lack of it.” Her mouth twisted. “They like to pretend I’m some pure Autumn child now, but I remember things. Snatches. A woman in a hospital gown singing off-key. A mobile over my crib with little lambs. The smell of laundry detergent that wasn’t brewed in a cauldron.”
“Mortal memories fade,” Rian said. “When they’re pulled through young.”
“Not all of them,” she said. “Not if you feed them.”
He tilted his head. “You’ve been…feeding it.”
She didn’t answer.
He smiled, slow and wolfish. “Of course you have.”
A group of teens wandered into the park, laughing too loud, shoving each other. One of them snapped a picture of the sky. Another flicked ash from a cigarette.
Aisling watched them with sharp, hungry interest.
“I want…” She hesitated, tasting the words. “I want the option to fail,” she said finally. “To be ordinary. To work in a coffee shop and complain about my boss and fall in love with the wrong person and screw it up. To have my mistakes be mine instead of a nation’s.”
“You want insignificance,” Rian said.
“I want…scale,” she said. “Proportion. Why should every misstep be a sentence for a thousand others? Who decided that was reasonable?”
“Kings,” Rian said. “Queens. Seers.”
“Exactly,” she said. “I did not agree to be their fulcrum. They made me into one when I couldn’t consent. Why should I play along?”
He regarded her. “You think your other half will…trade,” he said. “Happily step into the role you’re trying to drop.”
“Why wouldn’t she?” Aisling asked. “She’s already tangled. Raised outside both worlds, not fully belonging in either. Haunted by our magic without any of its benefits. At least in the Court, she’d have…power.”
“And you think she wants that,” Rian repeated.
Aisling frowned. “You’re skeptical.”
“I’m Winter,” he said. “We suspect motives. It’s in the job description.”
She huffed. “Fair.”
“She might not want your life,” he continued. “She might want something…else. To burn the Court down instead of rule it. To make a new path. To spit in the face of prophecy and walk away.”
“Then we’ll negotiate,” Aisling said. “I like bargaining. I grew up watching the best.”
“And if she says no?” he asked.
Aisling’s hand closed around the branch. A bit of bark flaked away under her nails. “Then she’s welcome to keep the scraps they left her,” she said. “I’ll still take back what’s mine.”
“Which is?” Rian asked. “Be specific.”
She looked at the park again.
At the girl in the yellow coat, now joined by a friend, their laughter visible in the way their shoulders shook.
“At minimum,” Aisling said, “a few years. A taste. Enough to know what could have been. I don’t expect…happily ever after.” Her mouth twisted. “We don’t get those. But I want a choice that was *mine.* Even if it ends badly.”
Rian chuckled softly. “You are very Autumn,” he said.
“I’m very *me,*” she said.
He sobered. “Be careful,” he said. “Your prince is more entangled with her than you think.”
Aisling’s jaw tightened. “Caelan.”
“Yes,” Rian said. “He plays at distance, at duty, but he’s woven himself into her story. If you think he’ll stand aside while you rewrite the ending…”
“I don’t intend to go through him,” she said. “I intend to go around.”
“Through Winter,” he said.
She smiled, all teeth. “We make excellent…detours.”
He inclined his head, acknowledging the point. “Very well, Lady Aisling. The Hound is…amused by this. He enjoys a game within a game.”
“The Hound enjoys anything that ends with someone screaming,” she said dryly.
“True,” Rian allowed. “But he also enjoys…surprises. If you crack the Autumn Court from within and drag their precious prophecy girl south screaming, it will be…entertaining.”
“You act like this is primarily about your master’s boredom,” she said.
“It’s not,” he said. “It is primarily about your rage.”
She smiled slowly. “Good,” she said. “Then we understand each other.”
He accepted that with a little tilt of his head. “Do you know where she is?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Aisling said. “But I know which town. Which seams. Which…books she touches at night.”
He blinked. “Books.”
“Paper remembers,” she said. “More quietly than stone, but it does. The Court forgot that when they started writing their history on walls instead of leaves.” She nodded toward the other end of the park, where a small sandwich board propped on the sidewalk read EVER AFTER BOOKS in curling script. “She works there.”
Rian’s eyes gleamed. “Convenient,” he said.
“Maybe fate has a fondness for irony,” she said.
“Or maybe,” he replied, “prophecy is drawn to narrative symmetry. Two girls, two worlds, both leaning on spines of stories.”
She shrugged. “Either way, I’m going in.”
“Now?” he asked.
“Tonight,” she said. “After dark. When the seams are softest. I want to see her. Before anyone else knows I’m here.”
“You’re sure that’s wise?” he asked.
“Absolutely not,” she said cheerfully. “But when has that ever stopped me?”
Rian’s grin flashed, sharp and quick. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll…sniff the edges. Make sure no overeager Huntsmen are lurking.”
“And if there are?” she asked.
His smile widened. “We thin the herd.”
He pushed off the tree, dropping lightly to the ground as if gravity meant something different to him. Mortals passed within arm’s reach, none the wiser.
Aisling watched him go, then looked back at the sandwich board.
At the name.
Ever After.
She wondered if Rowan believed in them.
She wondered if she still did.
***
The bell over the door had a slightly different chime after hours.
Rowan had noticed that months ago, closing up one night when a man had tried the handle after she’d already flipped the sign. The lock held. The bell jangled, then gave a smaller, softer sound as the door settled back into place.
Tonight, as she turned the key—careful, always careful of the iron cylinder—she listened for that sound like it was an omen.
The day had been long. Ordinary on the surface. People bought mysteries and cookbooks and romances with titles that made her snort. Mrs. Carrow debated whether to have a Halloween reading of ghost stories. Harper and Zia ganged up on Rowan at lunch and made her eat something that wasn’t caffeine.
Nothing exploded. No tall, dangerous princes sauntered in.
It almost felt like…a reprieve.
She didn’t trust it.
She did the usual closing tasks—till counted, garbage bagged, lights dimmed in stages. She left the fairy lights on; Mrs. Carrow liked the way they looked from the street. The store glowed warm behind the glass as she gathered her things.
“See you tomorrow, love!” Mrs. Carrow called from the back door, waving a reusable grocery bag that probably contained soup and knitting trivia.
“Night,” Rowan said.
She waited until she heard the outer door onto the parking lot click shut and the rattle of Mrs. Carrow’s ancient Honda coughing to life. Only then did she exhale.
The store felt…different at night now. Less like a cozy cave of paper and more like a stage.
She hated that Caelan had done that. That he’d taken her safe space and overlayed his shadow over it. Made it part of his world by…showing up.
“You’re projecting,” she muttered, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. “The bookstore did not consent to be annexed.”
She flipped the lock on the front door, checked it twice, then turned toward the back to grab her coat.
A peculiar prickling slid along her nape.
Not the familiar, almost…warm sense of Caelan’s presence. This was…colder. Sharper. Like the air right before you walk into a freezer.
She stopped.
“Store’s closed,” she called, forcing her voice to stay light. “If you’re hiding because you’re embarrassed about your purchase, consider that a sign you need better reading material.”
Silence.
Her heart picked up.
“Seriously,” she said. “We’re closed. Come back tomorrow. We’ll judge your taste then.”
Still nothing.
The prickling intensified, sliding down her spine.
She set her bag down slowly and reached for the paring knife she’d taken to keeping in her coat pocket on Gran’s insistence. It wasn’t iron. It wouldn’t cut through fae armor like in the stories. But it made her feel…less naked.
She pulled it free and moved quietly toward the back of the store, senses straining.
The mythology aisle loomed on her left. The fairy tale section on her right. The little reading nook, with its mismatched armchairs, sat empty, a throw blanket puddled on the floor where some kid had abandoned it.
“Rowan,” a voice said.
Not Caelan’s.
Higher. Brighter. Laced with something Aisling wasn’t sure how to name.
Rowan’s breath caught.
A figure stepped out from behind the endcap of the romance section.
The woman looked…like a painting.
Not in the airbrushed, commercial way of big-box perfume ads. In the old way. In the way of portraits that hung in castles, meant to intimidate.
She was tallish, but not imposing in the way Caelan was. Her power manifested differently. Her hair was long, falling in loose waves down her back, the color of sunlight through honey. Not one strand seemed out of place. Her features were fine, almost delicate—sharp jaw, straight nose, full mouth painted a deep, rich red.
Her skin held the faintest golden undertone, like she’d been kissed by a sun that didn’t exist here. Her clothes—dark green dress that hit mid-thigh, black tights, heeled boots—were subtly expensive. Not flashy. Just…right.
Her eyes caught Rowan.
Blue.
The color of a clear winter sky. Or a lake surface just before it freezes.
Not like Caelan’s mercury. Not like anything Rowan had seen on a human face, either. Too bright. Too sharp.
“Who—” Rowan began, then stopped.
Because under the glamour—the carefully constructed mortal look—she saw something else.
The shimmer of shifting leaves instead of hair. Skin that wasn’t skin, but polished amber. Eyes that weren’t blue at all, but a deeper, stranger color—like the inside of a candle flame.
Fae.
Of course.
“Hi,” the woman said. She smiled. It was…brittle. “Sorry. I know I’m not supposed to be here. Your sign very loudly says closed.”
Rowan gripped the knife. “We’re closed,” she repeated.
“I know,” the woman said. “I just…really needed to see you.”
Rowan’s stomach knotted. “Who are you?”
The woman’s smile wobbled. “That’s…complicated,” she said. She took a step closer, then seemed to remember herself and stopped. “My name is Aisling.”
Rowan’s heart slammed.
Her mouth went dry. “Aisling,” she echoed.
“Yes,” the woman said. “And before you ask…yes. I’m…her.”
The words hung there, sharp and fragile.
“Her,” Rowan repeated.
“The other one,” Aisling said gently. “The human baby your grandmother was supposed to raise.”
Rowan’s fingers went numb on the knife handle.
For a second, the world tilted. The shelves leaned. The air went thick.
She heard herself ask, distantly, “And how do you know that?”
“Because I’ve been reminded of it my entire life,” Aisling said, something dark flickering under the calm. “Every time someone wanted to make a point about gratitude. Or destiny. Or what a *gift* I’d been given.”
She stepped closer. Very carefully, like approaching a skittish animal.
“You’re Rowan,” she said. “Aren’t you?”
The way she said it—as if she’d been holding that name in her mouth for a long time, turning it over like a pebble—made something in Rowan’s chest twist.
“And if I said no?” Rowan asked, because some stubborn part of her refused to give this stranger an inch without a fight.
Aisling’s smile widened a fraction. “Then I’d say the other Courts have wasted a lot of ink mislabeling their diagrams.”
“You’re from Autumn,” Rowan said.
“Born human, raised fae,” Aisling said. “We’re…mirror images.”
“Is that what we are?” Rowan asked. “Mirrors?”
“Opposite sides of the same bad decision,” Aisling said lightly. Then, more seriously, “Can I…sit?”
Rowan’s laugh came out strangled. “You broke into my closed bookstore,” she said. “I’m pretty sure social niceties don’t apply.”
“You’re right,” Aisling said. “I…just wanted to—” She broke off, swallowing.
Her eyes shone.
Rowan’s brain, which had been stuck on fight-or-flight, stuttered at the sight of tears on a fae face.
“What do you want?” she asked roughly. “Why are you here?”
Aisling took a breath. “Because in three months,” she said, “our lives end. Or…change. Dramatically. And I am tired of everyone else deciding how that happens without asking us.”
Rowan’s laugh was humorless. “You and me both.”
Aisling’s gaze flicked to the knife. “You can keep holding that, if it makes you feel better,” she said. “Just…point it somewhere that’s not your own palm. You’re white-knuckling it.”
Rowan glanced down. Her knuckles were indeed pale, the tendons standing out. She forced herself to loosen her grip, just a little.
“Why now?” she pressed. “Why tonight?”
“Because he’s moving,” Aisling said.
“Caelan,” Rowan guessed.
“Yes,” Aisling said. “You know his name.”
“I wrung it out of him,” Rowan said. “He’s been…lurking.”
Aisling’s mouth tightened. “He’s good at that.”
“You know him,” Rowan said slowly.
“Oh, yes,” Aisling said. “He’s my prince too, remember? My…guardian. My warden. My very special bodyguard.”
There was venom under the flippancy.
“I thought…Autumn adored you,” Rowan said. “Miracle child.”
“They adore what I represent,” Aisling said. “Not me. Not really. I am…a story they tell themselves. A reminder that they can take what they want from your world and call it mercy.”
Rowan swallowed. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you deserve to know what you’re walking into if you go with him,” Aisling said bluntly. “And because I deserve to see the life I didn’t get, at least once, before everything catches fire.”
“How do you even know…what my life is like?” Rowan asked, suspicion prickling. “Beyond…guesses.”
Aisling’s gaze flicked around the store. “Books,” she said simply. “Paper remembers. So do stories. Every time you touched a spine, every time you wrote your name on a little card, a bit of you stayed. Our world is hungry for such things. It…told us about you.”
“That sounds…violating,” Rowan said.
Aisling’s mouth quirked. “Welcome to my whole existence.”
Rowan flinched.
They sat in taut silence for a moment, the space between them dense with too many unsaid things.
“What do you want from me?” Rowan asked again, more carefully this time.
Aisling’s eyes met hers.
“Options,” she said. “A trade. Or at least…a conversation about one.”
Rowan’s stomach dropped. “You want to…swap.”
Aisling’s expression flickered. “Not…permanently,” she said. “Not necessarily. Just…why should we not both taste what the other had? Who decreed that one of us gets all the magic and danger and the other gets…this?” She waved a hand around at the store.
“This,” Rowan repeated flatly. “‘This’ being my life.”
“It’s a good life,” Aisling said quickly. “I can see that. You have…people. Routine. Autonomy.”
“You say that like it’s a consolation prize,” Rowan snapped.
Aisling flinched. “I didn’t mean—”
“My life may not be…grand,” Rowan said. “No palaces. No wild hunts. No crowns. But it’s mine. Bought and paid for with every shitty retail shift and cramped hand from shelving and awkward family dinner. It’s not something to be…sampled.”
Aisling’s jaw set. “And neither is mine,” she said. “That’s exactly my point. They think I’m a mask anyone can wear. That they can plug any girl into this role and get the same result. That I’m some…interchangeable symbol. I refuse that. I suspect you do too.”
Rowan bit back the instinctive agreement.
Aisling watched her, eyes sharp. “I’m not here to…steal your space behind this counter and your…what is it called, latte discount,” she said. “I’m here because Caelan is about to make you an offer that will change everything. And because whatever choice you make will slam into my life like a wagon with no brakes.”
“You don’t know what offer he made,” Rowan said automatically.
“I know him,” Aisling said. “I know his angles. He’ll present himself as your safest option. He’ll give you just enough truth to make his lies sound pretty. He’ll tie his fate to yours and pretend that’s noble instead of self-serving.”
“He has a lot to lose,” Rowan said. “If I go nuclear.”
“So do I,” Aisling said. “Except I wasn’t given…agency. I was given…script.”
Rowan’s brain felt like it was trying to hold too many versions of the same story.
“Let me guess,” she said. “You want me to *not* take his deal.”
“I want us to think,” Aisling said. “Together. Without his shadow looming. Without my King’s voice in my ear. Two girls. Two lives. Making a choice that isn’t filtered through old men’s fear.”
“You sound very sure we want the same thing,” Rowan said.
“I’m not,” Aisling said. “That’s why I’m here instead of marching into your apartment and making demands.”
“You know where I live,” Rowan said.
“Of course,” Aisling said.
The casualness of it made Rowan’s skin crawl.
“Caelan will hate that I spoke to you,” Aisling added. “Which is, frankly, a bonus.”
“You don’t like him,” Rowan said.
“I like parts of him,” Aisling said. “The parts that taught me to use my words like knives. The parts that stood between me and…worse things when I was too young to fight them off myself.” Her mouth tightened. “I do not like the parts that stayed silent when his father used me as a warning.”
“A warning for who?” Rowan asked.
“For everyone else who might question his bargains,” Aisling said simply. “Look at the pretty mortal girl I saved, he’d say, while dragging another through the mud.”
Bile rose in Rowan’s throat. “I’m…sorry,” she said, the words inadequate and clumsy.
Aisling’s gaze softened briefly. “You don’t have to apologize for him,” she said. “Or for what my life became. That’s on the people who made the choices before we could speak.” She tilted her head. “Just as your grandmother’s regret is on *her.* Not you.”
The reminder landed like a small, hard pebble.
“I know that,” Rowan said. “Intellectually. It’s…hard to feel it.”
“Feelings rarely do what they’re told,” Aisling said. “I’ve heard.”
For the first time, the edge in her tone softened into something almost…wistful.
“Is it…awful?” Rowan asked before she could stop herself. “Being there. Being…you. In that world.”
“Yes,” Aisling said honestly. “And no. It’s…intoxicating. Terrible. Beautiful. Like dancing on the edge of a blade. There are nights when the sky burns and the whole Court breathes in time with the wildwood and I feel…vast. Like I could open my mouth and swallow a star. There are also days when every smile hides a knife and every word is a trap and I would give anything to walk down a street without wondering who’s watching my back.”
Rowan’s throat tightened. “You want…” She searched for it. “…breathing room.”
“I want…choice,” Aisling said. “The ability to fail without dooming nations. To love someone without it becoming a treaty.”
“You think you’d get that here,” Rowan said.
Aisling’s mouth curved. “You tell me,” she said. “You’re the one living it.”
Rowan thought of her apartment. Her weird little routine. Honeycomb Café, where the barista might be fae but the customers still got rude about almond milk. Harper and Zia. Gran. The weight of *normal* on her shoulders, even with magic gnawing at the edges.
“It’s not…easy,” she said. “Bills. Cops. Politicians. Bosses. People with power they didn’t earn. But when I screw up at my job, the worst that happens is Mrs. Carrow glares at me and the romance section gets misalphabetized. When I date the wrong person, the fallout is…just mine.”
Aisling closed her eyes briefly. “That sounds…delicious,” she said.
“It’s not all nachos and Netflix,” Rowan said.
“Still,” Aisling murmured. “I want to taste it. Even if I choke.”
Rowan swallowed. “And you’d what,” she said, “slip into my life like a replacement part while I…go do the prophecy thing?”
“I’m not naive enough to think I could pass for you full-time,” Aisling said. “I don’t sound like you. I don’t…move like you. I’d stand out.” Her gaze flicked to the shelves. “But I could…borrow. A week. A month. A handful of days where we swap paths. You teach me how to make small talk with cashiers. I teach you which fork to use at a blood feast.”
“That is not selling it,” Rowan said faintly.
“Sorry,” Aisling said. “Humor as coping mechanism. I learned from the best.”
Rowan’s head spun.
“You’re asking me,” she said slowly, “to trust you to not burn my life down.”
“I’m asking you,” Aisling said, “to consider that our lives are already on fire. We can either let them burn in a pattern someone else drew, or we can…dance in it. Shape it. Make something new out of the ashes.”
“You sound like Caelan,” Rowan said before she could stop herself.
Aisling’s jaw tightened. “He doesn’t own metaphors,” she said.
Rowan almost smiled.
“Does he know you’re here?” she asked.
“No,” Aisling said. “He’d try to drag me back if he did.”
“You snuck out,” Rowan said.
“Like any good rebellious daughter,” Aisling said. “With help from a few…sympathetic parties.”
“Winter,” Rowan said.
“And a few in Autumn who are tired of old patterns,” Aisling said. “Not everyone in the Court wants to see you used like a pawn. Some of them…owe me.”
Rowan thought of Lucien, of Whisper, of the seer who’d started this mess.
“What happens if he finds out?” Rowan pressed. “About this. About us talking.”
Aisling’s smile was sharp. “He’ll be very upset,” she said. “And then he’ll adjust his strategy. He’s good at that. It’s one of the things I…admire, actually.”
“You admire him,” Rowan said slowly.
“A little,” Aisling admitted. “The way you admire a storm for being thorough.”
“And you also want to kick his knees out,” Rowan said.
“Those things are not mutually exclusive,” Aisling said serenely.
Rowan scrubbed a hand over her face.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. This is…a lot.”
Aisling’s expression softened. “I know,” she said. “I dropped a storm on your head. I’m…sorry.”
“You keep apologizing,” Rowan said. “For someone who claims not to do regret.”
“I regret other people’s choices,” Aisling said. “Not mine. Yet.”
“That’s…healthy,” Rowan muttered.
“You sound unconvinced,” Aisling said.
“I work in a bookstore,” Rowan said. “I’ve read enough psychology to know that our childhoods fuck us up regardless.”
Aisling laughed, surprised. It changed her face—made her look less like an immaculate portrait and more like a person.
“There’s the other half of me,” she said softly. “Sarcastic and fatalistic.”
“We share more than DNA,” Rowan said.
“Two sides of the same bad bargain,” Aisling murmured.
They stood there, two women in a pool of lamplight amid rows of stories, trying to rearrange their own.
“Can I come back?” Aisling asked finally. “Not to pressure. Just…to talk. To…not have to pretend we’re something other than what we are.”
Rowan hesitated.
Every instinct screamed *no.* Too many variables. Too many dangers. Caelan would be furious. The Court would…explode.
But there was something in Aisling’s eyes—loneliness, raw and bright—that hit a bruise in Rowan’s own chest.
“Yes,” she heard herself say. “But…rules.”
Aisling’s brows rose. “Rules.”
“If we’re going to…do this, whatever this is, there are rules,” Rowan said. “You don’t glamor my friends into forgetting me. You don’t mess with Gran’s mind. You don’t make bargains with anyone I love without me hearing every word first.”
Aisling nodded solemnly. “Those are good rules,” she said. “I can abide by them.”
“And you tell me if anyone else from your world pokes their head in,” Rowan added. “Caelan, your King, your Winter friends. No surprises.”
Aisling smiled wryly. “I like surprises,” she said. “But I take your point. I’ll do my best. Just…remember, our worlds are…leaky. Sometimes things seep through without invitation.”
“I’ve noticed,” Rowan said.
Aisling’s gaze flicked to the clock on the wall. “I should go,” she said. “Your…friend with the curly hair is coming to walk you home.”
Rowan blinked. “How do you—”
“Paper,” Aisling said again. “Doors. Habit. She’s done it three nights this week. She’ll worry if you’re not waiting out front like usual.”
“I can handle myself,” Rowan muttered.
“I know,” Aisling said. “But let her walk you anyway. Mortals deserve their small acts of bravery.” She hesitated. “Thank you. For…not stabbing me immediately.”
“I’m still considering it,” Rowan said.
“I’d be disappointed if you weren’t,” Aisling replied.
She stepped back into the shadow between two shelves. Glamour shimmered around her, brightening her hair, dulling her edges.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, pausing, “I think you’d look terrible in a crown.”
“Good,” Rowan said. “I’d rather not accessorize with head-based symbols of oppression.”
Aisling grinned. “We might make it out of this after all,” she said.
Then she was gone.
Not with a dramatic swirl of leaves or a puff of smoke. One blink she was there; the next, the space was empty, the faint scent of something like apples and ozone lingering.
The store felt…bigger after she left. Emptier.
The bell over the door chimed softly as Harper burst in, hair damp from drizzle, worry written all over her face.
“Sorry, traffic was an asshole,” she said. “You ready?”
Rowan stared at her for a second, heart pounding, then did the only thing she could think of.
She laughed.
Harper blinked. “That is…not the reaction I expected.”
“I’m very ready,” Rowan said. She grabbed her bag and slipped an arm through Harper’s, clinging a little tighter than usual.
“Uh-oh,” Harper said. “That’s your ‘I’m about to confess to something insane’ grip.”
“I’ll tell you,” Rowan said. “I just…need a minute to figure out how to phrase ‘met my alternate universe self in the stacks’ without sounding like I’ve finally cracked.”
Harper’s eyes went wide. “Wow,” she said. “And I thought ‘my fae boyfriend dropped out of the ceiling’ was going to be the wildest sentence this week.”
“He’s not my—” Rowan started, then gave up. “Let’s just walk.”
They stepped out into the October night.
And somewhere, in a different world, Caelan stood at the edge of the wildwood, staring at a map that now showed not one, but two bright threads running between Court and town.
He touched the point where they crossed.
“Aisling,” he murmured.
The trees around him creaked.
The game, it seemed, had just added another player.