She listened to him for a little while longer before she had to start the conversation. As tempting as it was to just stand and listen to the concert. “Were they lying to me?”
“About what, specifically?” His deep voice carried over the music without much effort. God, he wasgorgeous.She knew she shouldn’t think so. But he was like a painting come to life. He was too much to be real, and yet there he was.
“Your…desire to kill all the fae in existence.”
“Hm.” It seemed he had no problem playing and talking at the same time. “And what if they were speaking the truth? We have hardly been kind to you.”
“I don’t exactly have the big picture view. I’m not exactly in a position where I feel capable of judging the situation fairly.” She sipped the wine again. She didn’t know if she could get drunk in a dream, but fuck it. She liked the flavor, and she figured she’d earned it.
Those glowing eyes flicked up to her briefly before returning to the keys. “And you would think yourself qualified to be both judge and jury.” It was so hard to get a read on his mood. Namely, because thereweren’tany moods. He was as passionate as a rock. Or a statue.
“No, I’m not saying that, I’m saying that if I’m expected to take part in thegenocide of an entire race,I would like to knowwhythey deserve to die.” She rubbed a hand over her face. He was making her feel like she was insane for even asking thatmuch. “Besides, aren’tyoufae? Aren’tyouon the list of people who would die?”
“I accept my death, should it happen. Indeed, I look forward to it.”
“That—” She stared at him, shocked. “Wait. What?”
“Look around you, Ava. This library, this room, is the only home I have known for nigh on eighteen-hundred years. Imagine that, if you can.” Still, he played the music as though he were doing nothing else in the world. “And tell me if you would not embrace death with willing and grateful arms.” For the first time that night, a flash of emotion crossed his features.
Hatred.
Pure, total, and all-consuming.
Like a crack of lighting, it was gone as fast as it had arrived.
But its echoes remained. “More so, if my death is merely the cost of ridding the universe of the blight that is the fae.”
Yikes.
“If it aids you in your choice,” Serrik continued. “Assisting me saves your kind from impending war and eventual extinction at the hands of the Unseelie tyrant king, Valroy.”
“Hold on.” Downing half a glass of her wine, she coughed, and then downed the rest of it before pouring herself a new glass. “Okay.What?”
That earned her the barest hint of amaybesmile. But it was gone by the time she tried to see if it was really there. “The Unseelie King Valroy. Kept at bay by the tireless efforts of his wife, the Seelie Queen Abigail. He has vowed to subjugate her people, rule over all Tir n’Aill, invade Earth, and leave it a smoldering ruin in his wake. As for the human race? Well. You see how much my kind respect yours.”
“You’re on that list. Again. I repeat.Youdragged me here.Youput me into this mess.”
“I am aware. I had no choice but to try again.”
“Save the human race and commit genocide against a group of people you claim should be wiped out…or?” She took another swallow of her wine. “What’s option two? Be trapped in the Web until something terrible happens to me like Gregor and all the people before him?”
“Precisely.”
“How long did Gregor last, before he got trapped turning into…a living corpse?”
“Before the curse befell him? Longer than most. Six years, two months, one week, and three days.” Serrik finished the piece of music. That time, he seemed done, and did not start another. Resting his hands in his lap, his golden eyes fixed on her.
It was unnerving. She wished he’d go back to playing. It kept the pressure off.
“Six years?” Ava choked on her wine. “Some immortality. That’s what you call longer than most?”
Serrik’s golden eyes didn’t waver. “For someone trapped in the Web, bound to a book of spells they cannot wield? Yes. But he has spent another hundred and fifty years rotting since.”
She paced the library, wine glass dangling between her fingers. The library was a sea of detail. Strange things tucked into every corner. She could lose months of her life exploring the place. Too bad she was liable to lose her life before she had the chance.
“So let me get this straight,” she said, her voice dripping with the kind of sarcasm that could strip paint. “I’ve got two choices. Option one—help you commit magical genocide. Option two—be hunted by monsters, go mad trapped in this supernatural spiderweb, or be mutilated until the book decides I’m no use to it anymore and…what? Somebody else comes along and you try again with themanyway?”
“Essentially.”
