‘Are you?’
‘I didn’t kill Chris. I swear.’
‘He was in the bath when he died.’
Matt snorts. ‘I’m not the only Kinfolk who originates from the water, Cillian. And it wasn’t being in the bath that caused him to bleed out.’
No, the two deep wounds on his forearms were the cause of that– the first far deeper than the other. Matt is right, there are far more hallmarks of suicide here, but Vincenzo is insistent that Matt is responsible and a hunt has been called so there must be something in Vincenzo’s claim.
‘Besides,’ Matt continues, ‘Chris was my best friend.’
‘Really?’
He shrugs. ‘Used to be, at least.’
‘Until you moved on to my sister?’ I snarl.
He hesitates for a moment. ‘I love Rose. And Chris… He was struggling. Especially those last few days. He wasn’t himself. You’re right, we’d been growing apart for a while.’
Matt isn’t lying, but for the Court to instigate a hunt there must also be truth in Vincenzo’s statement– the Kinfolk cannot lie to one another without consequence. But I’m not an arbitrator, my duty is simply to hunt and Matt’s name is on my palm.
‘I’m not going to face the Court, Cillian. There’s no point. Vincenzo holds too much sway there and he’s already decided I’m guilty. If I’m going to die, then I’d rather it was by your hand.’ He looks up at me, and if I wasn’t convinced he was innocent before, I am now. ‘Do it, Cillian. Here and now. Just tell Rose I love her. Please. To be honest, I expected you to kill me long before now for daring to touch her.’
‘The thought had occurred to me, yes.’
I press the knife to his throat, watching as his blood beads up and starts to trickle down to the cobblestones. I’ve made my decision.
* * *
Later, as I wash the blood from my knife, my palm now free of the mark, I can no longer deny that I, too, am losing faith in the Court. I’ve fulfilled my duty, but things have changed recently. Something is very wrong, and I want no part in murdering the innocent. The Unseelie Court might be the court of darkness, of things the human world fears, but we have our own honour, our own sense of justice. We need change.
The Unseelie Court needs a new king. And it will be me.
Chapter1
Niamh
FOUR YEARS LATER
Sussurri. It means ‘whispers’ in Italian. It sounds sort of romantic, but somehow I don’t think anything being whispered inside the walls of the Sussurri nightclub in Glasgow is of the romantic variety. More like drug deals or discussions about where to hide a body.
Maybe you shouldn’t judge a nightclub necessarily by the state of the ladies’ bathroom, but this whole place reeks and the last stall door has been locked the entire time we’ve been in here. The rhythmic thuds and occasional moans leave no doubt about what’s happening inside. The lighting is so dim even the shadows have shadows, and I’m sure there are things moving in them. Things that are huddled in the darkness, watching us. Waiting.
‘This isn’t one of your family’s clubs?’ I ask my best friend Rose, my sense of unease growing by the minute.
‘Fuck, no,’ she says, attempting to get soap out of an empty dispenser. ‘You know my darling brother Cillian would have dragged me kicking and screaming back home long before now if anywhere we’d been to this evening had been family owned.’
‘Would that have been so bad?’ I look around. ‘It is his engagement dinner tonight, after all.’ The Hunters own several pubs and clubs in the city and we normally go to one of those. Elliots is a cosy wine bar round the corner from our flat. And their club in Anderston, The Three Graces, has multiple levels, each with a different vibe. None of them wholesome or anything, and I’m convinced there’s at least one level that Rose keeps me well away from. But at least they’re not sleazy like this place.
‘Well, he should have let me bring the plus-one I asked for and then I might have turned up.’
I sigh, although I can’t deny that the fact Cillian had expressly forbidden me from going to the meal had upset me. He probably didn’t realise I’d heard him, but his words had left no doubt that under no circumstances was I to show my face tonight. I guess my presence wasn’t exactly welcome, and for years now, he’s kept his distance from me. But it’s not been possible to stay completely away from one another. And no matter how hard I try to ignore him, the way my heart races and my breath catches when I’m in the same room as him seems to block everything else from my thoughts and senses. At well over six foot, he’s impossible not to notice. And his dark brown hair is a little longer than most men keep theirs, flopping over his eyes when he moves his head; his milky-blue eyes such an unusual shade that they’re almost mesmerising.
The intensity of Cillian’s gaze is hard to avoid and the way he looks at me– it scares me. Although whether that’s because I’m actually scared of him, or because I’m scared that one day I won’t care about any of the things that scare me– that I will turn my back on every principle I hold dear, in exchange for a few stolen moments with him– I don’t know.
I shake my head. Yeah, not going to happen– from either perspective. And nope, I’m not going to think about any of those times when he was kind, looked out for me, and I simply… misunderstood. Not in the short term, but in the long term certainly. Now, we avoid each other whenever possible, although there is just something about him that… No, Niamh. Stop. For so many reasons. He’s too old. He’s your best friend’s brother. He’s possibly…definitely, not always on the right side of the law. And I’m going to be a fully qualified lawyer by this time next year.
I’ve seen some terrible things happen to people. Seen too many people get away with cruelty and selfishness. I want to make a difference. Fight for some kind of justice. Maybe one day get justice for my parents’ deaths. I push away the familiar grief that always threatens to consume me when I think about all the things they’ve missed out on. All the life they had taken from them.
