Falling between worlds is a lot like riding a bike. I'd done it with Jack leading, dragging me through the space between worlds. He was like my training wheels, and the hand that steadied me. The first time I managed it by myself, I didn't even know how I'd done it, wasn't sure what I'd done differently to all the other times. But when you've gone through once, there's nothing really stopping you from doing it again.

I found myself in the library. I guess a part of me had hoped that Kieran and Jack would still be there, that I could just grab them and run. Of course, that would have been too easy. I walked out of the library, finding the Great Hall eerily silent. I stood in the middle of the empty hall, turning around and around, examining the space. It was just a room. There was nothing magical or sinister about it.

I looked up at the ceiling, where the exposed beams curved overhead. Like the skeleton of some giant beast, I'd thought when I first saw it. Now, it was just wood, carved in delicately sweeping lines and buffed to a pale and milky sheen but still just wood. I wondered how I'd ever mistaken that for bone. Me, who knew more about death than any living being had a right to know. How did I mistake wood for the remains of the dead.

I walked up to one of the walls, where a roof beam curved down into a support post and pressed my palm to the wood. I stilled my breathing and searched through the well of darkness at my centre, letting a line of power stretch along the wood, searching to learn its secrets.

"Oh," I said, tasting the whispered memory of death in the wood and connecting it to what I'd read about the spirits of the land. Fae had died making this building, and their deaths had been woven into the foundations so that they were a part of the building's mysteries. Just another facet of the Great Court's magic, built on the slavery of the 'lesser Fae.' It was so incredibly wrong. I wondered if there was anything I could do.

I felt a sudden tingling start up in my hand, where I was touching the wood. I pulled my hand back. As soon as I stopped touching the wood the tingling stopped but I could feel it along my line of power.

Magic is funny like that, sometimes. Just the intent to make things right with the lesser Fae had brought their bindings to the surface. I reached out with my mind and tugged at the ethereal threads that held them captive. I felt a twang reverberate through the back of my mind as the threads came loose.

A whoosh of energy trilled up my body, and danced through my hair. My skin was left feeling prickling and fresh, like how you feel after a good swim in the surf. I noticed that I could breathe more easily and I raised a hand to touch my nose. The swelling had gone down, and the area didn't feel anywhere near as tender as it had when I entered the hall. I felt refreshed and energetic.

A sudden horrifying thought occurred to me, as to where all of that energy had come from. What if, instead of undoing their bindings and setting them free, I'd absorbed them? I searched my mind, trying to find traces of the dead. I couldn't find anything. I glanced around the hall. The wooden frame of the room was dried out and cracked, as though it had passed through a hundred seasons in the last few minutes. Without the magic of the dead clinging to it, the building had aged beyond belief. It didn't look safe to stay here.

I turned to leave the hall and walked straight through the ghost of a brownie.

"I'm sorry," I said, stepping aside to balance myself.

"No," she whispered, her voice fading out as she dissipated like a puff of smoke. "Thank you."

I realized that I'd panicked for no reason then. I hadn't released them from one prison just to lock them in another. They were truly free. The energy I'd felt spring through me must have come from untying their bonds. The energy that had gone into imprisoning the Fae had been released when I released them. Since I was probably the only person with compatible energies in the entire world, not to mention the one who'd released the energies in the first place, it made sense that they'd returned the energy to me. I thought, in this instance, that old saying was true; a good deed is its own reward.

I tried to think where Kieran could be and realized that I knew virtually nothing about the world I was in. I didn't know where they'd take an injured man. I didn't know where Kieran's room was. I didn't know where he would go if he woke up after being beaten. I didn't know where he would go to hide. The only thing I really knew at that moment was that I needed help. Unfortunately, I didn't know where to find that either.

"Can I help you with anything, m'lady?" a voice said, from behind me. I turned to see a cloaked brownie, pulling her hood back.

"Nann," I said, wrapping my arms around the small woman. "How did you know I was here?"

"You all aren't the only ones with magic, you know," she said, smiling at me. "I was told to take care of you, and part of that is knowing where to find you."

"But," I shook my head, trying to make sense of the older woman's words, "do you mean from the night of the ball?"

"Nobody ever told me to stop," she said.

"Bless you, Nann," I said, patting her on the shoulder. "Can you help me find Kieran?"

"I'll do you one better," she said, taking my hand, "I'll take you right to him." And it was suddenly obvious what made the brownies into good servants. When they seemed to pop up out of nowhere, it wasn't just that they were small, fast, quiet creatures, they literally popped up out of nowhere.

Like falling between worlds, Nann took me from one place to another in the blink of an eye, only the flare of orange light around me letting me know that it was an entirely different breed of magic that she used to deliver me to Kieran.

We were standing in a dark room. The air was smoky and something banged heavily against the door, like it was trying to break it down.

"Kieran?" I asked.

"Laurel?" he said, bracing against the wall in the corner, trying to stand up. I rushed to his side, and draped his arm over my shoulder so that he could lean on me. "How did you get in?"

"Nann brought me," I nodded to the brownie.

"Thanks," he said to her.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Did Jack find you?" he asked.

"No," I said, "I came back to get you." A piece of the ceiling fell down in the middle of the room and the door shuddered. "We have to get out of here."

"What's the point?" Kieran asked, sagging against me. "They're outside."

"The point," Nann said, stepping up to glare into his face, "is that you promised to do everything you could to help us. Giving up is not an option."

"Besides," I said, bracing my arm around his waist, "we're not taking the door."

"What?"

"Can you get a message to Jack?" I asked Nann, ignoring Kieran's question.

"I can try," she nodded.

"Tell him we're safe," I said, "and tell him we've gone home."

"Okay," she turned to go.

"Nann," I called, "thank you." Then I was falling, pulling Kieran with me.

I took him to my bedroom.

"You're hurt," I said.

"It's not too bad," he said, wincing as I let him fall back onto my bed.

"Don't lie," I said. I got the bag from the hospital with the disinfectant and spare bandages in it, and brought it over to the bed. I didn't think I'd be needing them, since the extra energy had healed me when I undid the bonds in the Great Hall. "Where are you hurt?"

"My foot," he said, quietly, as I knelt beside him. "Ribs, and..." he pointed at his bruised and swollen face.

"Foot first then?" I asked, gingerly removing his shoes. Blood had soaked through one white sock. I peeled the fabric back, cringing when it stuck near the end. A sharp intake of breath from above let me know that I was hurting him, but Kieran didn't say anything. I peeled his sock the rest of the way off. I felt suddenly squeamish. I didn't want to look at his injury, not after everything I'd been through at the hands of Zephan, not after I'd see what he'd done to Oren.

I had to though. I looked. I dabbed the area with disinfectant. I wrapped him in bandages. I prodded at his ribs, finding them bruised. I probed the split in his brow, swiped it with disinfectant and did the best that I could with a butterfly bandage from the first aid kit in my bathroom cupboard.

I tended to his injuries, and I looked at them to do that, but, looking back, remembering that night, I honestly can't recall what any of them looked like. I looked, but I didn't let anything that I saw penetrate. I didn't let what I saw sink far enough into my mind that it demanded a reaction. I remained detached. It was the only form of defense that I had left.

If only I'd managed to hold onto it longer.

"I'm really sorry for dragging you into this whole thing," Kieran said. I was sitting on the floor, beside my bed, packing the bandages away.

"It's okay," I said, not looking up from what I was doing. "Technically, I dragged myself into it, the last time."

"But you did it for me," he said. I heard the note of pain in his voice before I realized what he was doing. He lowered himself to the floor beside me. I watched the muscles shift beneath his skin, pulling the bruised flesh tight across his ribs. "You could have just told Jack. Then you'd have been safe." He searched my expression, his eyes roving over my face. His eyes fixed on mine and I felt the weight of those deep pools of liquid grief draw me in.

I reached out, cupping his cheek with the palm of my hand. I tried to avoid touching the bruised edge of his cheekbone, the swollen corner of his lip.

"It's okay," I said. "I'm okay." Kieran placed his hand over mine, pressing my hand against his face. His breath shook as he drew it in. His eyelids fluttered down, closing his eyes off to me. I ducked my head down, and leaned closer. "Hey," I said, gently. His eyes flew back up to meet mine. "I mean it."

Kieran shook his head, but he didn't let go of my hand. I don't think he could have, even if he'd wanted to. I went up on my knees and shifted so that I knelt directly in front of him. My other hand seemed to travel, of its own accord, to brush the hair off his forehead. My fingers travelled through his hair, caressing down to the back of his neck. His hair was soft and feathery, like down. No wonder it never seemed to lie flat. The feathery lightness was almost gravity proof.

I rubbed the back of his head, gently spreading my fingers across his scalp and winding my fingers through his hair. Kieran sighed, and leaned into me, resting his forehead into the curve of my shoulder. His breath tickled across the side of my throat. I tilted my head to the side, letting my hair fall across my other shoulder so that it didn't fall into his face. The movement brought the exposed skin of my neck closer to Kieran's mouth.

"Your bruises are gone," he whispered against my skin.

"What?" I asked, feeling the muscles in my shoulders sag in relief at the gentle warmth that travelled from Kieran's mouth across my skin.

"Here," he let go of my hand and I let it fall to his shoulder. He stroked his fingertips across my throat, "you were purple after she," he swallowed, cleared his throat, "strangled-"

"Oh," I said, interrupting the rest of his sentence. I didn't want to force him to finish it, not when it was my own distraction that made it necessary for him to voice the memory out loud. "Well, you know what they say," I tried to smile but I think it came out a little crooked. "Time heals all wounds."

"Do they say that?" he asked, pulling away from me a little.

"Yeah," I said, "but usually only about the kind of wounds that never heal." I took my hands away from Kieran's warmth and folded them in my lap. My throat suddenly felt tight. I looked down at my hands, hoping that he wouldn't notice the tears rising in my eyes.

"Yeah," he said, his voice rough, "that sounds about right." He leaned back against my bed and I struggled to keep my breathing even. I felt a tear roll down my cheek, and raised my hand to wipe the hot line of moisture away. I glanced up as I did it, meeting Kieran's eyes. I froze, my hand pressed against my cheek.

"Sorry," I choked out. I moved to stand but Kieran caught my hand and pulled me back. I fell against him. I felt him wince at the pressure on his bruised ribs. I tried to push off him. He let me ease back enough so that we could see each other properly, but he didn't let me go.

"Don't apologize," he said, staring into me. I felt the almost liquid heat in his eyes flood through me as he looked into me. I felt like he could see right through to the bottom of my heart. It made me feel naked and vulnerable, as though he could see parts of me that I never even knew were there.

"Sorry," I said, reflexively.

"Don't," he gave a half smile. I nodded. He slid his hand up my arm, tracing lines of heat over my skin. He brought his hand up to cup my face, his fingers stretching around behind my ear.

I don't think anyone has ever touched me there before. It sounds like such an innocent place to touch, doesn't it? Behind a person's ear. But it's not somewhere you can casually brush against, not somewhere you'd reach to caress even someone you knew. It was somewhere you might rub a pet, an animal that you liked, the most innocent of caresses, meant only to communicate a simple affection. But there was nothing simple about the way Kieran looked at me.

The soft brush of his fingertips behind my ear made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. My skin seemed to prickle with awareness. A tingling hope flooded my skin from the point where he touched me down the side of my throat. My breath hesitated as it passed between my lips.

Kieran searched my eyes and I knew that my own eyes held nothing but questions in return. Sometimes though, the only answer to a question is another question. Can I touch you? Do you want to touch me? Will you let me?

He shifted closer and brushed his lips against mine. He didn't close his eyes and I didn't close mine. Questions flowed between us, unspoken. There were questions in our eyes and questions in the searching caress of our lips. I tasted the hesitant questioning in the corners of his mouth and found a deeper questing in the sweep of his tongue.

His hands searched down my spine and hovered over the bottom of my shirt. I pulled away from him briefly, aching at the uncertainty in his eyes, knowing that I wasn't any more certain than he was as I pulled my shirt over my head.

I leant back into him, pressing my mouth against his. I tasted the sweet longing in the recesses of his mouth and breathed his breath into my lungs. His hands shook as he plunged his fingers through my hair. I pressed closer against him and he held me tight as he pulled me down to the ground, on top of him.

A breathless laugh escaped me as his fingers tickled across my ribs. He caught the laugh with his lips and stole it from me with his fingertips, seeking the taut point of my breast and finding it wanting him. My breath caught in my throat and it was only the taste of his breath that kept me going as waves of new sensation wracked my body. I felt like I was breaking.

Heat and light and life itself danced across my skin. I was worried, momentarily that I was dying, that Kieran had, again, let his life flood across me to such extremes that my own energies were overcome in the sheer force of his. Then it bled off, leaving me shaking and wanting.

I let myself fall into Kieran, filling my hands with the soft warmth of his skin. I stroked his arms, his shoulders, the sides of his body, wherever I could reach him around the urgent press of my own body, welded to his. He quivered with so much life it almost hurt to touch him. But I knew that not touching him would hurt even more.

His hands kneaded my flesh and I needed him.

"Please," I whispered, tugging at the last remnants of our clothing.

"You sure?" Kieran asked, his voice coming out in a husky breath of sound. I rolled away from him, shocked to feel the wood cold beneath my back. I stood up and practically tore the last of my clothes off in my haste to feel his skin against mine again. Kieran wrapped his arms around me, pressing the heat of his body against the length of mine. He tilted my head back, and kissed a line of fire down my neck. I pulled on his shoulders and we fell back onto the bed.

I think I would have kept falling if he wasn't there beside me, holding me fast to that time and that place. I think a part of me stayed there, with him. That's why I feel like I'm missing a piece of myself, now. It hurts. I can still feel my entire body ache for his touch, but I know I'll never feel that way again.

If only the skin forgot, I think, maybe the heart could too.

I traced my fingertips over his chest, reveling in the creamy softness of his skin and the hardness of the flesh beneath it. He was so warm, so hard and soft, all at the same time.

Alive.

"I've been meaning to ask you something," I said, whispering the words in the darkness of my room.

"What?" his voice came out as a breathy huskiness, that filled the room with a vibrating awareness.

"It's about your mother," I felt his body stiffen beneath my hand. I stilled my fingers, waiting for his body to stop humming with tension.

"What about her?"

"She said she knew a necromancer..."

"And you want to know who he was."

"Please," I said. I didn't know what I was asking of him when I said that. I didn't know what it would cost him to talk about it, but I knew what it cost me, not knowing. I had to know what happened, how the last necromancer had dealt with things in Faerie Land, if it was even possible for people like us to survive there, now. I needed to know what he'd done and what had been done to him.

If Zephan's actions were the future of Faerie Land, I wasn't sure it was a future I wanted to see. But if Zephan was just another symptom, helping Kieran to gain the throne might not do a lot to change things. I needed to know if, in helping Kieran, I was fighting for a world I would never see, or if I was helping to create a future I could call my own. It shouldn't have made a difference, I know; I should have been able to do the right thing no matter what, but it did make a difference. It made a difference to me, and it made a difference to how far I was willing to go.

"He was my father," Kieran said, and I felt like he'd pulled a rug out from underneath me, only instead of the cold hard floor of reality, there was nothing beneath us but air.

"What?" I asked. I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"It's not what you think," he said. "I mean, he wasn't like you. He didn't have permission to stay in Faerie Land. His parents didn't have it and he kept everything really quiet."

"A secret," I said.

"Yeah, it was," Kieran closed his hand over mine, holding me against his chest. "Our little secret. Then Eolande thought that she could take the throne early if she had an all mighty necromancer by her side, so she went public with it and threatened my grandfather." I made a low noise in the back of my throat, to show that I was following. "But my father was loyal to the king. Didn't want anything to do with Eolande's plans, but the threat was there, so they..." he rolled onto his side, so that he was facing me, holding my hand wedged between our bodies. "I've never told anyone this before," he said. He cleared his throat. "I've never had to tell anyone. Everyone knows."

"It's okay," I said.

"What's okay?" he asked.

"Nothing actually," I said. "It's just something you say to make people feel better."

"Does it usually work?"

"Ah," I thought about it for a moment. "No. Not usually. I guess it's one of those things where the fact that someone cares enough to lie to make you feel better is supposed to count for something."

"Right," Kieran said. "Thanks?"

"Get on with your story."

"Where was I?"

"You were telling me about your father," I prompted.

"He was..." I listened to his struggle to get the word out, but I couldn't supply it for him because I honestly didn't know what was coming. "Assassinated."

"I'm so sorry," I brushed my hand over his shoulder.

"It's okay," Kieran smiled. "It happened a long time ago. But after that there was no way anyone wanted Eolande to be queen, especially not Gramps. So she was disowned. Executed. And the king took me in."

"And Zephan?" I asked. "Where does he fit in?"

"His parents were in an accident when he was younger." He shrugged. "We grew up together."

"And then he tried to kill you," I said.

"It runs in the family." That reminded me that I had to ask him something.

"Hey, Kieran?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah," he said, sleepily.

"It's kind of a weird question," I said.

"Okay."

"And you might get offended."

"Okay."

"But it really is important that you tell me the truth."

"Laurel," he said firmly.

"What?"

"Just tell me the question."

"Yeah," I nodded. "Sorry." Kieran waited expectantly. It almost hurt to break the silence with my question, but I needed an answer. "Did you kill your grandfather?"

"What?" he sat up, suddenly.

"Did you?" I sat up beside him.

"Where did that come from?" he asked.

"You're not really helping my confidence there."

"I don't know why you'd think that."

"I just need an answer," I said. "I don't care whether you did it or not, but I need to know."

"No," Kieran said. "No, I did not kill my grandfather. He raised me, Laurel. He cared for me more than my own mother did. He taught me everything I know." He shook his head. "How could you even ask that?"

"Because," I said, leaning back, "if you swear that you didn't do it - and I believe you - I might have a way for you to get your kingdom back."

-----------------------

♫ Headed straight for the castle ♫

What do you think of Laurel and Kieran?

And this new revelation to take back the kingdom?

Til next time,

x zuz