Stopping Time And Old Habits by Marr Melissa

Author:Marr, Melissa [Marr, Melissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Paranormal, Fantasy, Young Adult, Collections, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2011-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Niall stood at one of the gates to Faerie. Once he’d marveled that mortals didn’t cross it more often, but unlike faeries and halflings, most mortals didn’t see the gate. The mortals and halflings who ended up in Faerie were taken or stumbled there unawares. The High Queen wasn’t particularly tolerant of uninvited guests, especially those of his court. The Dark Court’s exodus from Faerie had happened long enough ago that the whole of Faerie was her domain, while the mortal world was shared among the rest of the fey.

Not that I’ d want to return the court there.

If Irial knew, if Keenan knew, if most anyone Niall had called a friend these past several centuries knew how easily he was slipping into the role of Dark King, he’d like to think they’d be shocked. The truth, of course, was that more than a few of them had accepted his new role as easily as he had. Because it was inevitable. He understood that now. When Irial had first offered him the throne, Niall had thought it horrific, but time had a way of removing illusions.

The complications of Devlin visiting the Dark Court were unclear to Niall. There was obviously some element of the situation that Niall didn’t know. Irial was a lot of things, but he wasn’t prone to exaggeration. If he thought Devlin’s visit was significant, it was.

Niall splayed his fingers over the veil that separated the worlds. The insubstantial fabric encased his hand as if it were a living thing. I could go to her. Once, Sorcha had been a friend of sorts. Once, Niall had imagined himself half in love with her. He hadn’t been, but she was everything Irial wasn’t. At the time, that was reason enough to try to call his friendship love.

“Help.”

Fingers grabbed his hand and tugged. Someone on the other side clutched him, grabbed hold of his wrist, and clung to him. The voice that seemed to accompany the desperate gesture was thin.

“Please, I can’t see.”

A second hand grabbed Niall’s arm as if to pull him through, and in that instant, any thought of entering Faerie fled. Niall tugged.

An old man came tumbling through the veil. He still held tightly to Niall’s arm. “Please.”

Niall steadied the man, and in doing so glanced down and saw the man’s face: both of his eyes were missing. The eyelids drooped over empty sockets.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“No one,” the man sobbed. “I’m no one, and I saw nothing … I promise.”

“You’re in Huntsdale,” Niall said gently. “Do you know where that is?”

The relief on the man’s wrinkled face was heartbreaking. He whispered, “I do. Home. This is where I should be. I was wrong before. I thought … I followed someone, but”—he shook his head—“she was an illusion. It was all an illusion.”

There was no need to ask which faery he’d followed. It didn’t matter. Mortals had been stolen away, misled, trapped, and tricked for as long as the two races coexisted. Niall had been guilty of doing it.

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