“No,” I say, turning to meet Taryn’s concerned gaze. “Because she died three years before I was born.”

ELEVEN

Eleventh Eve of the Oak Moon

In the human year1903

To my dearest Finnian,

There is much to tell you, but I must start at the beginning. If you do not already know, you come from a powerful line of seers. Before exile, I had recurring visions of Faerie’s destruction at the hands of the Light King. As it is dangerous for seers to reveal their gifts, I took matters into my own hands in order to prevent my vision from coming to fruition. Though it broke my heart when Queen Aine banished us, at least I knew Faerie would remain unharmed by the Light King.

Or so I thought.

Shortly after entering this realm, the vision returned and has come to me multiple times over the centuries. Faerie destroyed, her people executed or enslaved, and all at the hands of the Light King. Not even Cormac’s death changed the outcome. I thought all was lost, that our homeland’s demise was inevitable. But then a new vision came to me, and now hope springs within me once more.

If you are reading this letter, it means the night when Luna casts her shadow without Rhiannon’s consent has finally come to pass. It is the night when destinies collide and where the path to your fate begins. For it is only you, my brave Finnian, who can harness the magic that saves our fair world.

I know this is a weighty burden to bear, but you are not meant to carry it home alone. To break the bonds that trap the night, you must spill the blood of the One True Power, for she is the key. Remember, the path to victory is not in combatting the darkness but in melding it with the brightest of flames. Only then will you be able to vanquish the oppressive light. It will be difficult, but where I failed, I believe that you, third son of my son and future king of kings, will succeed.

I wish I had the years with you as I did your brothers, but please believe that I already know and love you. And though we did not share time in this earthly realm, on the day you return home to Mag Mell, I will be there to welcome you with open arms and a grateful heart.

With all that I was, am, or ever shall be,

Your grandmother, Moira

Dark Queen of the Faerie Night Court

TWELVEFINNIAN

“Here, Finn, you look like you could use this.” Taryn’s tone is gentle as she places a glass of whiskey in my line of sight. I accept it and down the contents before handing it back. “You know what? I’ll just go grab the bottle.”

I suppose her concern is valid but I can’t find the words to reassure her like I normally would. I haven’t said anything for the last ten minutes. I just keep reading the letter over and over, trying to process everything my grandmother wrote. That she thinks this is my purpose, my destiny. I don’t even know if I’ve ever believed in fate or destiny. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea that I don’t have control over my own life, that I don’t get to choose what I do and when I do it.

And now my grandmother is speaking to me in cryptic riddles from a letter she wrote a hundred and twenty years ago talking about how I’m supposed to save a place I’ve never been, nor am I able to go.

“Finn? I know I shouldn’t center myself in this moment, but you’re starting to freak me out. Can you at least blink so I know you’re not catatonic?”

Shoving my fingers through my hair, I pull myself out of my stupor and meet Taryn’s concerned gaze. “Sorry, I just… I don’t know what I’m supposed to make of all this.”

“I think it’s pretty amazing, don’t you?” Taryn lightly traces her fingers across the lines on the top page. “More than a century ago, your grandmother sat with ink and quill next to a gas lamp and poured her story onto these pages for you before you were even born.”

Complex emotions form a knot in my throat. “It’s hard to get my head around it, to be honest,” I say. “I’ve never been needed for anything before.”

Taryn places a warm hand on my arm. “My brother needed you. He couldn’t have found me without your help, Finn.”

I nod, keeping my eyes on the letter. “It was the first time I felt like I was a part of something bigger than myself.” Turning my head, I stare into her lavender eyes, and I swear there’s a tugging sensation in my chest coaxing me closer to her. “And I’m really fucking glad, because now you’re here.”

“Here as in out of captivity?” Her gaze flicks down to my mouth and back up again. “Or here…with you.”

Unable to stop myself, I lift a hand and brush the back of my knuckles over her soft skin, from cheek to chin. Then I gently press the pad of my thumb to her lips before I replace it with my own and seal our mouths in an unhurried, sensual kiss.

The black of her pupils grow bigger, and my nose fills with the delicious scent of her body’s reaction, which is triggering mine within the confines of my boxer briefs. It takes a Herculean effort to regain control and not let the moment devolve into something more.

“Both,” I say hoarsely.

She touches her lips with her fingers, then smiles wide. “Good answer. What’s in that?” she asks, pointing to a smaller envelope peeking out from inside the main one that I didn’t notice.

“I don’t know.” Setting the letter off to the side, I retrieve the envelope that’s about the size of a typical Thank You card and pull out a parchment page folded in half. Like all of the paper, it’s no longer a crisp white and the edges of one side are rough like it was torn from a larger page to fit properly.

On the front, in the identical handwriting as in the letter, are two words: The Beginning.

Taryn and I share a look, then I unfold it for us to read together.

Seek the home of water sprites

who play inside the dancing lights.

Skies of glass where flowers bloom,

loosened stone is parchment’s tomb.

One is done with petal fire,

two then three unearth the spire.

By the time you get this, the first battle in this war will have been lost. We cannot afford to lose another. Take care, dearest Finnian, and may Rhiannon guide and protect you on your quest.

This all just got way weirder. Not only am I supposedly Faerie’s only hope of not being decimated, but now my dead grandmother whom I’ve never met appears to be sending me on some kind of Indiana Jones scavenger hunt for a hidden treasure. I suddenly need to get up and move.

Taryn takes the torn paper from me as I stand, which frees up my hands to yank on the roots of my hair until sharp pain lights up my scalp. Before I give myself bald patches, I drag my hands down my face and start pacing in front of the couch as I try to make sense of all this.

“Taryn, just so I know that I’m not misinterpreting something here, I’m supposed to decipher my dead grandmother’s cryptic messages in order to go on some kind of quest to fulfill what she believed is my destiny to save all of Faerie—a place I’m not even fucking allowed into—from imminent destruction. Is that what you’re getting, too?”

Looking from the letter to the note and back to the letter, she nods. “Yyyyyep. That’s what I’m getting. She said this clue is the beginning, so I guess we start here?”

She’s holding the small paper up, but that’s not what my attention snags on. “We?”

“Yeah, we.”

I plant my feet and cross my arms over my chest. “No way. I told your brother I’d keep you safe until he’s able to clean house. We have no idea what Edevane is up to or who might be working for him. Galivanting all over Vegas is putting a target on your back. That’s the exact opposite of keeping you safe.”

She laughs with indignation and rises to stand directly in front of me. “First off, I want to make it abundantly clear that I’m only here to appease my brother. If I want to walk out that door, there’s not a damn thing you can do about it, and I don’t need your protection. I can take care of myself. Mystic conjurer and all-around badass, remember?”

That’s right. I almost forgot that she isn’t only a conjurer—one of the specialty lines of fae, similar to what humans think of as witches—but she’s also a Mystic, meaning she’s one of the very rare who have extremely heightened magical abilities. Only one is born every seven generations within any family line with specialty powers.

“Still, Taryn⁠—”

“Secondly,” she cuts in, jabbing a finger into my chest for good measure. “Just because I left Faerie doesn’t mean I don’t care what happens to the realm and the innocent Elementals who live there. My mother—bitch that she is—doesn’t deserve death. If anything, I have a much more vested interest in saving Faerie than you do.”