Page 37 of Kiss of Smoke

I squeezed back, but I couldn’t stop the endless flood of wishes and what-ifs.

As the last of the Gentry Fae entered, the willows’ branches seemed to draw together like veils, but they parted once more.

Titania looked up from her daughter, her green eyes glistening, as a woman walked in whom I had heard of but never seen.

My breath caught in my throat. Any Fae would know the Royal Gentry just from the sensation they gave off; this woman felt like ice and steel and starlight. White hair fell to her waist, and her eyes were such a pale, luminescent blue she didn’t look like she’d been born on this earth.

“Lissar,” Titania said, her voice nearly breaking. “Thank you for coming. She would have appreciated this.”

Queen Lissar of Tír na nÓg, the queen of the Four Great Courts of Winter, Autumn, Spring, and Summer, stepped up to the dais, and laid her hand delicately on Tanaquill’s hands. “Death comes for us all. It came too soon for her.”

She was the queen who had been born an assassin, a liminal Fae who belonged to no court but ruled them all. I dredged my memory, but Robin leaned in and whispered, “She was Tanaquill’s godmother.”

I nodded, just a slight jerk of my chin. Her consorts had come with her; the kings of each seasonal court of Tír na nÓg.

The King of Winter, who had eyes nearly the same blue as Lissar’s, glanced over at Jack and nodded.

Oh, did I have questions for Jack.

Especially after he nodded back, then refocused on the pyre as though being personally acquainted with the King of Winter was no big deal.

Queen Lissar pulled out a silver dagger, and laid it on Tanaquill’s chest, carefully arranging her god-daughter’s hands around the handle.

The Winter King gave her a diamond as clear as ice, while the Kings of Summer, Spring, and Autumn gave her things like a never-fading lily, water from the Well of Eternity, and a flame from Tír na nÓg’s Autumn Temple.

The gifts lined the pyre around Tanaquill, and Queen Lissar and her consorts stepped back to watch, but Titania wasn’t ready to send her off yet.

I understood who she was waiting for when the air around us darkened. Several stars winked above us in the grove, where it was daytime despite the rain.

Nicnevin walked in on bare feet, leaving a trail of thorny blossoms where she walked. Glittering white skirts trailed behind her like spider’s webs.

Robin stiffened. I felt his arm tighten, and glanced up to see a muscle tic in his jaw. He kept his eyes firmly focused on the pyre.

It was so rare for any queen to leave her rightful territory. I supposed the death of an heir would’ve been one of the few things that could draw Nicnevin out of Annwyn, or Lissar out of Tír na nÓg.

The Unseelie Queen approached her sister silently, and left a black-petaled rose on her niece’s pyre. The two sisters nodded to each other, but exchanged no words.

I wondered if there was animosity between them, or perhaps they both understood what the other thought and felt, and there was no need to speak at all.

Nicnevin stood aside, and Titania finally raised her torch, touching it to the pyre.

The oil-soaked logs caught quickly, and I watched as the flames leapt up, eating away at the golden hair and blossoms. They withered and blackened, flaking away into fine ash.

“She will live on as Avilion’s soul forever,” Titania said, but there was a certain hollowness in her words.

Tanaquill’s soul, like so many others, was gone.

And there was no telling if it was trapped here, or if she had gone to the Otherworld.

When the last of the pyre had become fine ash, Lissar and her men bowed, and left the grove in silence. The Gentry filed out one by one, still plotting quietly amongst themselves.

We were the next to leave, allowing Queen Titania to have her time of privacy and reflection.

But we’d barely made it out of the grove and onto the grounds of the Seelie Garden before the smell of night-blooming flowers enveloped us.

Everyone stopped dead as Nicnevin formed from the air, stepping forward to touch Robin’s face.

“Did you think you would get away so easily?” she crooned, stroking his jaw.

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