“Paige?” I say, walking toward her.
She’s heading away from me, but she looks over her shoulder when she hears my voice, and her eyes grow wide. “It wasn’t me.”
“What wasn’t—” I stop. In front of her, a fae lies unconscious on the floor. I’m not sure who it is. His face is bloody, and he has at least two bruises swelling up near his right temple. He didn’t go down on the first hit.
“It was Lee.” Paige rises to her feet. “He’s gone after his brother.”
I curse. More than one fae should have been watching their doors.
I start to move past her—I have to find Naito before Lee does—but she grabs my arm.
“Don’t involve the fae,” she says. “Please. I can talk to him.”
“He’s already involved them.” I jab a finger toward the fae on the ground, who’s beginning to stir.
She looks down. “I know, but we had a fight, and I said some things…”
“He’s a vigilante,” I say. “Do you know what that is?”
“No.” She meets my eyes. “But he’s not the person he’s trying to be. I swear, McKenzie.”
“Vigilantes hate fae. They hate humans who help fae.” I start down the corridor again—I don’t have time to stand here and have this conversation. Paige follows.
“Did the remnants not know what he was?” I ask when I reach a staircase. I take the steps two at a time.
“He’s never acted like he hates the fae,” Paige says, descending behind me. “He just thinks they’re dangerous and he’s…I can take care of myself, but he’s looked out for me.”
We reach the bottom of the stairs. They lead out to the arched covered walkway that surrounds the statue garden. Only a few fae are here right now. I spot a guard and head toward him.
“I thought you hated Lee,” I say to Paige even though I suspected otherwise.
“I want to hate him,” she says. “I met him at Amy’s wedding. He asked to meet you, but you were with Aren, so we hung out. Hooked up. He’s actually fun when he’s not being an idiot.”
“You said yourself he was using you to find Naito.”
“And Aren is using you to fight the Court fae,” she counters.
I glare at her, but she has a point. Aren and I started off all wrong. “He’s not using me anymore.” He loves me—I’m 100 percent certain of that—and he’d do anything for me.
I veer toward the guard. Paige notices where I’m heading immediately.
“Please don’t involve the rebels.”
I stop to look at her. She changed out of her wet clothes. Someone delivered new ones. The narrow-sleeved white top looks more like a jacket than a shirt. It’s laced up the middle, and the two tails flow over her hips. The tan skirt is short—I think she ripped off the lower half—but she’s compensated for that with boots that reach up to her knees. Everything is fae-made, but somehow, it all looks like something she’d pull out of her own closet.
This is Paige, I remind myself. My friend. She’s never asked me for anything, and she’s always been there for me even though I haven’t always been there for her, but if anything happens to Naito…
No. I can’t risk it just because she asks.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
There’s a glimmer of hurt in her blue eyes when she releases my arm. It’s gone in an instant, replaced by a carefully neutral expression.
“I understand,” she lies.
It feels like someone’s stabbed my chest from the inside. I’m going to lose my only friend, I realize, and it’s like I’m losing my last connection to my human life. Paige has always put up with my eccentricities and random disappearances. She’s always made me feel normal. I guess I finally need to accept that I’m not. I never will be.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, then I start walking toward the guard. It’s possible Lee passed by here, and the fae didn’t detain him. Under Atroth’s reign, humans were hardly ever stopped or questioned as long as we stayed in the public areas of the palace. It was assumed that, unless the fae were told otherwise, we belonged here. I know Lena is suspicious of Paige and Lee—that’s why she put a guard outside their door—but I don’t know if she’s issued a general alert to all her people.
I’m only a few steps away from the guard when I see movement in the corner of my vision. Lee leans against the wall in the covered walkway opposite the one Paige and I stepped out of. He slides down it, sinking to the ground then propping his arms up on his bent knees. Blood covers one of his hands.
Please don’t let it be Naito’s blood.
I hear Paige take in a breath. She moves toward him before I do, but I’m at her side a second later.
“Lee?” Paige says when we reach him.
He doesn’t raise his head. “I couldn’t do it.”
Thank God. The blood on his hand is his own. I can see the cuts and broken skin on his knuckles.
“I should have been able to do it,” he says.
Paige stares down at him. “Are you serious? You’re talking about killing a person. You’re talking about killing your brother.”
“I hate my brother.” His words come out more like a question than a statement of fact. “I’m supposed to hate the fae. They’ve been trying to kill my father for years.”
His father has been trying to kill them for years, but I don’t correct Lee.
“I’ve been telling myself Dad just needs closure, that he just needs to kill the fae who killed my mother, but I’m as delusional as he is. Naito’s right. Dad’s obsessed. Insane. He has to be to order me to kill my brother. I have to be crazy to consider it.”
“You’re not crazy,” Paige says. “You’re an idiot. What happened to your hand?”
He finally looks up at her. “A wall hit it.”
She sinks down beside him. “Like I said, you’re an idiot.”
“It was a wooden wall,” he adds, a hint of sarcastic humor invading his tone. “I didn’t expect it to break.”
She rolls her eyes as she inspects his injured hand. Paige went to nursing school for something like two weeks before she dropped out, but she’s still into things like blood and stitches and broken bones. There’s plenty of that here in the Realm.
I lean a shoulder against the wall and look down at them, at the way he watches her face as she unties the ribbon that’s playing the role of a belt around her waist. She uses it to dab at the blood on his hand. It’s obvious Lee cares about her.
“Paige mentioned you were looking for me at her sister’s wedding,” I say after they stand. “You knew about my involvement with the fae. How? And how did you know to look for me at the reception?”
He raises an eyebrow in Paige’s direction. When she nods, he says, “A fae told my father your name.”
“In person?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“Do you know who the fae was?” Aren and Lena think Atroth gave my name to the vigilantes, knowing that they’d find and kill me, but Kyol has sworn that’s not true. I don’t know what to believe. Nakano’s people did track my cell phone and attack the place where the rebels were holding me in Germany, and it’s clear they had no problem with killing me, but I trust Kyol’s word. He says Atroth wanted me back alive, not dead.
Lee shakes his head. “I never saw the fae. I didn’t inject myself with the serum until Dad left for Germany. He called when they didn’t capture you. He told me to check out your place in Houston, so I flew down there.”
The vigilantes were not trying to capture me, but I let him continue.
“I broke into your apartment and listened to your answering machine. There were enough messages from Paige threatening to kick your ass if you didn’t show up at the wedding that I figured you’d be there if you were able to. I found the invitation, went to the mansion, asked for Paige, and…”
He fades off, looking to the right. I turn. Lord Hison is there. He’s watching us, walking slowly—even by human standards slowly—through the sculpture garden. He doesn’t glance away when he sees me looking in his direction. He doesn’t look any happier to see Paige and Lee now than he did when he passed us exiting the throne room. He’d rather this war be fought without human help.