He looked at me, just a quick cut of a glance, and whatever he saw in my face made his shoulders tighten so fast his hand jerked back an inch. I don’t know what I’d shown him, or if he’d only seen in my expression what he expected, but as he started to pull on his glove I jumped to my feet. I reached out for him, for his bloody hand. Yeah, the blood freaked me out, the fact he’d killed that many people scared the hell out of me, but I trusted that they needed killing. And besides, I wasn’t exactly in a position to judge anyone for the blood on their hands.

When I reached for his hand, he jerked away from me.

“Don’t.”

“I know it doesn’t spread or wipe off,” I told him.

He took a step farther back, still out of my reach, and studied my face as he pulled on his glove. “That’s right, you touched the Shadow King.” He shook his head. “I would never touch you with these hands, Alex. Not here.”

I stared at him. Then I rolled down the top of one of the long opera gloves the queen had created for me and pulled it off my fingers. I held up my own bloody hand.

Falin’s eyes flew wide. “No,” he whispered, shaking his head. Then he grabbed my hand in both of his gloved ones.

“No, Alex. Who—” He stopped. “Coleman.”

I nodded. “I’m not exactly lily white either.”

He gently pushed my fingers until they curled over my palm, then closed my entire fist in his hands. “You shouldn’t be stained by this. Let me take it from you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me take the stain from you.” He led me back to the bed as he spoke, which was good, as I was starting to get that electrical vertigo that happens every time you blink when you’re really, really tired. I covered a yawn with the back of my still-gloved hand as I sank down onto the bed, and he said, “I don’t know if I can take it from someone outside my court, but let me try.”

I blinked at him, my exhaustion making the conversation harder to follow. Then a very important fact from what he said hit me. “Wait—so the blood on your hands, it’s not all from people you killed. You took the stain from other people?”

“I have killed enough, Alex, believe me. But no, only a drop of it is blood that I personally spilled. I carry all the victims of the winter court. The taint from every duel, every monarch who killed to rise to or ensure power, and every soldier who killed in every war since the very first winter came to the world.”

My stomach gave a little somersault. “How old are you?”

“Not so old as you’re thinking right now,” he said, and he smiled for the first time since this conversation began. “I was born after the Magical Awakening, and I took on the role of the queen’s bloodied hands only a few decades ago. There have been many more before me who killed at the queen’s bidding and carried the court’s taint.”

“So, circling back to my original question, they hate you because you have the worst job ever?”

He smiled again, but this time it was not a happy one. “Some hate. Some fear. Some are simply repulsed. I carry a lot of death on my hands. Nearly immortal beings do not like to be reminded of their mortality. The blood also gives me some benefits that make the other fae distrustful. Any weapon that I wield is deadly, even if it might not normally be so to fae. Wounds that I inflict are more likely to be fatal, while I can survive wounds that would normally kill—”

Yeah, I’ve seen that one firsthand.

“—The blood also passed to me knowledge and skills from the warriors who came before me, so despite the fact that I am little more than a child according to many of the fae, I can battle the ancients and possibly win. That scares the fae, and makes me rather unwelcome.”

I could see why. I crawled farther up on the bed and Falin followed.

“Let me take this taint from you. It would make no difference to me, but all the difference to you.”

“No.” I pulled my hand from him and fought the opera glove back over my fingers. While I wanted the blood gone, it wouldn’t be right to give it away. I’d been the one who killed Coleman. Hell, I’d more than killed him, I’d cannibalized his soul, which had to be worse. While Falin might be able to take away the blood that Faerie forced to manifest on my hands, he couldn’t remove the fact that I’d taken a life. I’d made a decision, and even if it haunted my nightmares, I still thought it was the right decision.

Once I’d pulled on the glove, I collapsed in the middle of the bed beside PC. The pillows were down and soft, the sheets under me silk and smooth. My eyes closed.

“Alex, you want to lose the dress, or at least the boots?” I didn’t bother opening my eyes. “Not really.” I was going to sleep—probably whether I liked it or not. Besides, I didn’t know what kind of wake-up call the king planned for the morning. I didn’t want to be caught half dressed or barefoot.

The bed didn’t even shift as Falin joined me. I was lying on top of the turned-down covers, so he didn’t try to crawl under them. He slid his arm under my neck, and I scooted closer to him, resting my head on his shoulder. PC stood, circled twice, and then apparently decided he wanted human comfort more than a pillow. He climbed over me and tried to wedge himself between our hips, though six pounds of muscle didn’t give him a lot of moving power. He ended up stretched out across both of us.

“I really messed up with the queen, didn’t I?” I asked, close enough to sleep that I was thinking out loud.

Falin’s arm tightened around me. “You did okay in the beginning. The dancers were a test. The first was an insult. If you’d accepted the changeling it would have acknowledged that you were not fae enough to be treated with the respect a Sleagh Maith deserves. The second was closer to your status, and was to appeal to your uniqueness. Offering the third accepted you as royal, and had you danced with Ryese, she’d have been planning your wedding ceremony by the end of the night. I think you threw her when you refused all three and then chose your independent green man.” His thumb drew small circles where it touched my arm. “It was my actions that likely bought you an enemy.”

“So why serve her?”

“I have no choice. I am bound to her, to her will and her word. When I became her bloodied hands, I became hers completely and truly. A monarch’s bloodied hands can be her deadliest subject, so the bond is the curse’s fail-safe. It makes me both a weapon against my queen’s enemies and ensures that I pose no threat to her.” He pulled me closer to him. “I won’t be bound forever. The curse will pass to the next bloodied hands when my service to her is complete.”

I thought about this as sleep pressed hard against me, but I wasn’t quite ready for it to come yet. “Why did you become her bloodied hands? Why would anyone?” Power, maybe, though it came with the loss of choice and will, so it didn’t seem worth it. Love? I cringed, fearing that would be what he told me.

His gloved hand moved up to my face, and he brushed back my curls. “I was born to be what I am.” When I stretched to look up at him, he went on. “I was switched as an infant, and I grew up believing I was human. When I was sixteen I was brought to the court for the first time, to learn what I was, what I was meant to be. The queen’s assassin. Her knight. Her bloodied hands. Sleagh Maith, while one of the most human-looking fae, have the lowest tolerance for iron and technology. With the changes in the world since the Awakening, she wanted her knight to be able to function as her great champion in both Faerie and the mortal world. That’s why she had me switched.” He paused. “I see the fae woman who birthed me once in a while. She let the baby she switched for me grow until he is about four. He’s a handsome boy. I wonder who he would have been, if it hadn’t been for me.”

I wrapped my arm tighter around him and hugged him because I didn’t know what to say. Though his delivery of the information was casual, there was a rawness to it that spoke of old pain. I recognized it. I’d heard it in my own voice before. So I held him, and he held me back, neither of us saying anything. I was drifting when he finally broke the silence.

“Alexis?”

“Mmm?”

He was quiet for so long that I thought he might have fallen asleep. I cracked my eyes open and found him looking at me. Then, as if he’d changed his mind about what he wanted to say, he pressed a kiss against the top of my head. “Go to sleep.”

I did.

Chapter 34

I was having the nightmare again. The Blood Moon hung red and swollen over my head. Coleman stood by my sister’s bed, a dagger in his decomposing hand. He looked at me, half his face sloughing off as he leered. He lifted the blade.

I screamed and tried to run but tripped over the hem of my gown. A gown trimmed with delicate ice roses. I’d never worn a gown in the dream before.

“Alex! Alex, wake up.”

Falin was suddenly in the dream, standing beside me. He shook my shoulders. “Wake up.”

I blinked at him. The Blood Moon vanished. So did the bed and Coleman. But I was still standing in the exact same spot, Falin holding my shoulders. PC pawed the air in front of me.

I looked around. We were surrounded by shadows with no discernible source. And nothing else. I took a step forward and loose sand shifted under my feet. Where in Faerie is a desert of sand and shadows? I frowned. And why could I tell there were shadows in the darkness? I didn’t know, but I did know that the shadows were somehow separate from the darkness.

“Where are we?”

Before Falin could answer, a scream shattered the darkness. My head shot up as a man in striped pajamas hurtled through the air, headed straight for us. His arms flailed around him, but that did little to slow his free fall. I ducked, which wasn’t the most rational decision, but how often did people fall toward me? Not exactly a situation I prepared for. When the man was still a dozen or more yards over our heads, he vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.

I straightened, gasping for breath I didn’t remember losing. “What was that about?”