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only to change one detail. I didn’t come one week, and a faery—one whose name I will not share—came in my stead to watch her response. She looked forme. She couldn’t focus—and the next week? She was relieved when she saw me. I tasted it.”
    Niall startled. “I thought that you were…the ink exchange was severed.”
    “It was severed enough that we are unbound,” Irial assured him. “I don’t weaken her.” He didn’t add that Leslie weakened him, that he came to watch her each week so she could do just that. It wasn’t conscious on her part, but she drew strength from him. Irial also suspected that his own longevity decreased as hers increased. That wasn’t something Niall needed to know.
    “You are hiding things.” Niall took the cigarette from Irial’s hand and crushed it in the ashtray. He slid forward one of the full glasses that a waitress had wordlessly delivered.
    “Nothing that harms Leslie.” Irial accepted the glass. “That’s the only answer you’ll get.”
    “Because you don’t want to know how I’ll feel about what you’ve done.” Niall lifted not the untouched glass but the one from which Irial had drunk. “If your actions harm you , I would be upset. I hate that it’s true, but it is.”
    “I’m glad.” Irial reached out so his hand hovered over Niall’s. He avoided touching the Dark King during such conversations if possible. Because I am a coward. “Go see her. I cannot give you what you’d like in this life, but I can promise that I mean her—and you—only happiness.”
    “Life was easier before.”
    “For you, perhaps. I could taste all of your emotions then,” Irial reminded him. It wasn’t a lie; he had been able to taste them. He just didn’t mention that he still could. “You neverhated me.”
    “It was easier when I thought you didn’t know that.” Niall watched mortals walking along the street. “I still don’t like that you see her.”
    “You are my king. You could command me to stop seeing her.”
    Niall turned his gaze to Irial. “What would you do?”
    “Blind myself, if you were foolish enough to use those words.” Irial stood, pulled out a few bills, and tucked them under the ashtray. “If not? Break my oath to you.”
    “What good is fealty if I can’t command you?”
    “I would follow any order you gave me, Niall, as long as it didn’t endanger Leslie…or you.” Irial emptied the glass. “Ask me to carve out my heart. Tell me to betray our court, the court I’ve lived to serve and protect for longer than you’ve existed, and I would obey you. You are my king.”
    The intensity of Niall’s earlier anger was equaled now by hope and fear in even measures.
    “You both need me, and”—Irial set the glass down, pushed in his chair, and let the moment stretch out just a bit longer as Niall’s hope overwhelmed his fear—“I will not fail either of you ever again.”
    The Dark King didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to: Irial could taste the relief, the confusion, and the growing sliver of contentment.
    “Go see her. Be her friend if nothing else. You are safe for her to touch now. I made sure of it.” Irial paused. “And Niall ? Let her believe it was me who solved her problem.”
    Niall’s expression was unwavering; he admitted nothing in look or word.
    Irial crouched down in front of him and caught his gaze. “She won’t think less of me for it. It’s you she still sees as tamer than we are. Let her keep that.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you both need the illusion”—Irial put a hand on Niall’s knee as he stood, testing the ever-changing boundaries—“and because you need each other.”
    Niall looked away. “And you.”
    Irial lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “Love works like that.”
    For a moment, they simply stared at one another. Then Niall stood, intentionally invading Irial’s space. “It does.”
    Irial froze. An admission? He stayed as motionless as he could, waiting. “Niall?”
    Niall