“Dad, can we go watch them light the fire?”
Gary craned his neck. Merrill’s body was nowhere to be seen. “Don’t get too close.”
The kids jumped off their seats and made their way over to the pyre. Gary was silent for a few minutes. Then he cleared his throat.
“I had to come. Merrill and I, we were competitors. But we were also friends.”
“He put your kids in danger.”
“I didn’t say he was perfect. He never would’ve wanted anything bad to happen to my boys. Or to me. Sometimes, bad things just happen.”
We were both silent. And then he let out a long sigh. “You’re probably wondering what happened to their mother.”
I turned in my seat. Gary’s face was blank, but his eyes… I’d never seen sadder eyes.
“You don’t have to talk about it.”
He ignored that. “Frez came through the portal with me. We’d been together for so long, through the Decade of Despair, through all of it. We had the boys and she stayed home for a while, but then she wanted to get back to work.
“She got a job in the unseelie king’s court. She did low-level tasks— mostly running errands— she never met him directly, but I guess they found out who she was, and that she had a connection to the king.
“She was walking home one night, probably distracted. Zip had been having some problems and she felt guilty for leaving the boys to go to work. But we needed the money.”
He wiped away a tear and forced a smile as Cil turned and waved at us. “Frez was killed by a human hate group. She was trying to get home to our boys and never saw it coming. They hit her with a car and drove back and forth over her body until she died.”
The blood drained from my face. “Did the authorities find them?”
“No. She was just a lesser unseelie, and we couldn’t afford to retaliate against the humans. Now, they tried to take everything from me again. They almost left my boys orphans.”
Uh-oh. “Gary–”
“It’s beginning,” he said, and his tone told me he wouldn’t be listening to reason anytime soon. Shit.
Yexa found me after the service.
“Thank you for what you did.”
“You’re welcome. I’m sorry it can’t bring your dad back.”
“So am I.” She surveyed the crowd. “I think he’d like this, you know? He always loved it when his friends gathered in a big group. He used to talk of the old days, before he came through the portal— and realized he didn’t have enough power to get back.”
“I didn’t know that— that some lesser fae can’t get back through the portal.”
“We keep it quiet. I could go through if I wanted, but there’s nothing for me there. Although, there’s not much left for me here either. Anyway…” her voice trailed off.
“Wait,” I said as she turned to walk away. “I have some people to introduce you to.”
I led her over to where Cil and Zip were sitting by their dad.
“Yexa,” Gary got to his feet with a smile. “I met you when you were a little girl. You probably don’t remember me.”
I turned my head, and my gaze slammed into Samael’s. He stood alone at the edge of the field, his feet planted as he watched me.
We stared at each other. Samael took a step closer, wearing his inscrutable expression once again. If he came any closer, people would notice him. I was surprised they hadn’t already.
I murmured a goodbye and left Yexa talking to Gary and the kids. Then I made my way over to Samael.
“What are you doing here?”
