I knew the danger of wishing too often and too hard. Wishes were not simple things: there always had to be a magical balance in the world, and this fallout from my last wish—catching the eye of Sy Dage's entourage—should have been enough to warn me. I had a sinking feeling that if I wished myself out of my Stellar Lounge obligation, I might end in a plane crash or some other terrible accident. I wanted to continue my mortal life. I just didn't want to do it anywhere near Sy Dage. I didn't set an alarm for the next morning, so I woke up comfortably at noon, cocooned in the nest of overstuffed pillows and fluffy blankets that made up my bed. I'd taken a lavender salt bath the night before, but as soon as I levered myself out of bed, I wandered back to the bathroom, stripped off my overlong t shirt, and sank into a fresh bath. I knew I spent too much of our precious spare cash on creature comforts, but the creature comforts of mortality were too valuable to me. The smooth, ticklish lick
I knew I was distracted during my set that night at the pub, but my usual fans only showed in half the numbers and the bar felt sleepy on a Sunday night. Everyone busy drinking alone and dreading Monday. Cass's face told me as we were packing up that she was still sour over the four hundred I'd let go to Birdie the night before, and I carefully didn't ask her about tips for this gig. There was a prickly silence between her, Toby, and me in the car on the way home. This was a new kind of silence for us—not weary, post-show silence of late-night exhaustion, but tense and anticipatory. I didn't break it until I was back on the roof with Toby and we were halfway through the bottle of cheap red wine he'd brought up from the kitchen. "Cass is mad at me," I said dully, staring out at the muggy midnight city."I mean, she thinks you're trying to sabotage your own career." Toby shrugged, passing the bottle back to me. Toby was never one to mince words. "Just because I don't want to do on
Unseelie magic tided over the stadium with the force of tsunami coming into shore. I flinched bodily, partly from visceral disgust and partly from astonished admiration. The lyrics rolled, just that one lonely voice, flowing into the dark. It was gorgeous—darkly, silkily, deeply gorgeous. And the magic inside of it was scathing, seething, like ripe rot and h*llish heat wrapped in chocolate. I felt myself wavering on the spot, and I grabbed Toby's arm for support. I'm sure he mistook it for excitement, because he grinned at me, electrified, as Sy Dage's lonely voice roiled through the air, binding the audience into an invocation of emotive power. Suddenly, the darkness behind Sy was broken by fresh spotlights, revealing a full band—drummer, bassist, vocalists, backup guitar, strings. The rich sound of the band swelled into life. A stagehand scurried out onto stage and handed Sy his guitar, which Sy slid on with smooth, practiced ease. The jumotron cameras zoomed in on his fingers
It became immediately clear as soon as I climbed into the car—which would, more appropriately, called a limo—that Sy's good guy welcoming act up in the box had been just that—an act. He didn't say one word to me as we got into the car or until we stepped out of it again and waded into the warm brown-wood interior of the pub. The pub was literally a two minute drive away, but the crush of fans outside the stage door—so dense that we had to be surrounded by security to make it the ten feet to the car—demonstrated that Sy Dage did not just 'go' anywhere. His every movement was a production, coordinated by a team of security and managers and professional organizers. The pub was crowded, and a quick flicker of familiar magic against my senses told me where most of the crowd had come from: Sy's concert. They were humming with his darkly gorgeous Unseelie magic. It made my skin crawl.There was a massive cheer from all around as they spotted Sy. Cell phones were raised for photos. Women
I knew who to expect before I opened the door, but still I only had a moment to brace myself for the devastating stare from my uncle, the High Fae Lord Raelen, before I was face-to-face with him.There's a reason mortals have always been awed by fae-folk in their full, true forms. Lord Raelen was nearly seven feet tall to mortal eyes—which mine, at the moment, were. His whole being shimmered with an opalescent brilliance, from the elegant folds of his long white cloak to the silver sheen of his long, slick hair. His face was a portrait of otherwordly dignity and nobility, with sharp, slanting cheekbones and cool silver-blue eyes. Lord Raelen was one of my few true family members, my father's brother. He'd raised me, after my parents' deaths in my youth. He was my only real connection back to Faerie during my stint as a mortal away from home, as well as a High Lord of the Seelie Council. And he looked very, very angry. I dipped a courtesy. "I greet you warmly, Uncle. Well met."B
I splurged on a rideshare to the studio the next morning instead of changing the train schedules. I hugged my guitar against me as the car swerved through London traffic, trying to regulate my heartbeat and keep my breaths deep and regular. When the car slowed outside the studio, I still hadn't succeeded. I clamped my teeth together to keep them from chattering.I could play tough in Sy's face, I was panicking. Adrenaline shook my nerves and rattled my thoughts loose. This was it. This was the chance I had come to the mortal plane to pursue. It just wasn't happening in nearly the way I'd been hoping.Inside, there was an officious but cheerful crowd of studio assistants and executives who shepherded me into the practice room, took one look at my guitar, and instead handed me a Gibson J45—a gold standard of a guitar I'd never suspected that I'd ever hold in my hands. I was standing there, still marveling, when Sy rolled in, coffee in hand, followed by his doting entourage. Sy was gr
We kept the practice room past our allotted time and only left when the studio manager came to us and told us the custodial staff wanted to go home so we better wrap up. Sy raised his eyes to me, fierce and dark and expectant. I felt the spark in my own gaze. I wasn't ready to say goodbye. "There's a good pub around the corner," said Sy."What, do you know all the London pubs?" I laughed. I didn't know when I had gone from scowling at him to laughing with him, but here it was. "More or less," he laughed right along with me. "The magic gives me a hand when I need it, of course. Or Google.""The greatest magic of all," I giggled. "But yeah, a pint sounds great."So we sat together in a booth in the pub that was reliably around the corner, as promised (either by Sy's gratuitous use of magic or his surreptitious use of Google). He ordered us strong IPAs—another favorite of mine, but I didn't ask how he knew. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the furtive barrage of phone cameras
I was practically vibrating as I strapped on my borrowed Gibson for the Stellar Lounge show two nights later. I was standing side by side with Sy in front of five dozen actors, comedians, influencers, television personalities, and other assorted famous faces, all assembled in the absurdly large living room of a celebrity late-night comedian's London home. The stir of chatter was dying away: attention was shifting toward us. It was almost time. And somehow, I wasn't afraid. Because I knew what Sy and I could do together. He was wearing his usual dark t-shirt and jeans, and I had smoothed my silver hair into a long, wide ripple around my shoulders. I wore my favorite concert costume: a diaphanous gown of light, floaty blue material that shimmered around me like a cloak made of summer sky. We were an odd match, visually. I saw famous people raising their famous eyebrows in impatient skepticism. But I didn't care. Because I had Sy beside me. And we had our magic.We'd been rehearsing—c