Seven Black Diamonds (Seven Black Diamonds #1)(89)

“A fight? Then how do we explain the way you look healed so fast?” Zephyr shook his head. “We don’t want attention. Until we know what the queen decides about coming out to the world, our job is to stay out of the papers—and to keep Lily safe.”

Violet let out a laugh. “Hell-o, darlings, you have a makeup pro right here. Either we say I’ve been hiding the proof of the boy’s nitwittery while it heals or I simply hide it now.” She linked her arm with Lily’s. “Ninian help us. It’s like they need to bicker, you know? If they weren’t so tediously straight, I’d swear they needed to kiss it out.”

Lily laughed, despite the scowls that both boys gave Violet.

“I’m not ‘tediously straight,’ Vi.” Creed flashed her the sort of smile he typically reserved for cameras, and Lily wondered if they had an audience she hadn’t yet seen. When he grabbed her arm and pulled her in front of him so she was facing him, Lily knew they must.

“Look down,” he whispered.

Laughing, she tugged a little, keeping her face hidden as she did so.

“Zeph’s just not the one for me,” Creed continued, glancing at Zephyr and grinning.

Violet was at Lily’s back then, and she was all but surrounded. A large part of her wanted to object, but Violet and Creed were authorized to guard her. That was one of the terms of her return to the human world. Endellion had wanted to send fae to live at Columba’s, as if there was any way that true fae could hide there. Only Leith’s intervention had forestalled that plan.

So Lily had agreed to being protected. For now, she’d tolerate it, but if she was going to be the heir to the Hidden Throne, she was going to set some rules of her own. Surely, that was something a princess could do.

“They’ve gone,” Zephyr said suddenly.

“Fae? Humans?” Lily scanned the area as soon as Creed released her.

“All I know was that I heard voices in the air, ones that spoke your name.” Creed hobbled toward her. “Let’s get to the dorms, yeah?”

“Okay.” She squeezed his hand. “But I’m not defenseless. You didn’t miss that whole fight with my uncles, did you?”

Zephyr and Violet said nothing. In fact, Zephyr had been unsettlingly quiet since they’d reunited in the Hidden Lands. She hoped he’d be forthcoming about whatever he’d discussed or done with the queen, but if he wasn’t . . . well, she wasn’t eager to experiment with her affinity for compulsion. It felt wrong to even consider, but she was the heir to the throne now. She had no idea who she could or could not trust—aside from Creed and Violet. They alone were the people she knew she could trust without reservation. She had a general degree of trust for Eilidh, Rhys, and Torquil. She had a strong degree of trust in Zephyr for many things, but he had secrets, and he had loyalties that predated her. If she needed to compel answers from him, she would.

“Alkamy, Roan, and Will are probably worried sick,” Lily said. “We can figure everything else out later.

Zephyr did his duty, walking with the others until they reached the dorms. He felt divided from them now, more than ever before. The queen had separated him from them before sending them to meet Leith. He could choose to believe it was for the same reason that she kept Rhys at her side—that her Unseelie descendants weren’t welcome there. He wanted to believe that.

He also knew that the Queen of Blood and Rage had machinations inside her plots inside her maneuverings. She had sent Creed and Violet with Lily into what he suspected she knew might be a battle. She’d sent the former heir’s betrothed with them. There were more than a few explanations for this that Zephyr could guess. Perhaps the queen wanted Torquil injured or dead. Perhaps she wanted Lily to feel closer to Violet and Creed. If Zephyr thought long on it, he realized that he’d known which of the Sleepers to bring. But how? Had the queen known that Creed visited Eilidh? Was anything that had happened to them not orchestrated?

He sighed.

“Are you okay?” Lily asked gently. “I don’t know what happened when we were away but—”

“I saw a bit of the palace, talked to the queen.” Zephyr shrugged. “She explained that I would need to be trained by my . . . by Rhys, so I can earn her respect. Then the king arrived.”

“Uh-huh.” Violet stared at him, not quite calling him a liar, but the statement was there whether she said it aloud or not. “She just kept you back to tell you to be a good boy?”

“Vi,” Lily said warningly.

Zephyr opened the door to the tunnels. “It’s okay, Lily. Maybe Violet’s adopting her court’s dislike for mine. Her father is Seelie after all.”

Violet made a rude gesture, a well-illuminated one as her hand glowed with fire to light their way in the tunnel.

“There is only one court, Zephyr,” Lily corrected him. “Unless both Eilidh and I are killed, there is a united court. One throne. One court.”

He nodded. There might be, but it didn’t feel that way—not to him and not to a lot of the fae he had seen. They divided themselves among their kind even as they watched both their king and queen. There were still rifts.

“You heard the princess,” Creed said in a cheerier voice than Zephyr was used to. “One court. One throne . . .”

He started humming to himself, slipping into some sort of space in his head where he went when he was writing music. That alone was proof that he was feeling better than he had in well over a year and a half. Creed hadn’t been writing, just drinking between concerts. Violet looked at Creed and smiled. She knew as well as everyone on their team, other than Lily, that Creed had been very near the edge until she arrived.