Lily realized that he was pressing a small card into her hand. She curled her fingers around it so it wasn’t visible to anyone when he stepped back.
Whatever angle Creed Morrison had, Lily couldn’t risk honesty with him. The world was divided: humans made up most of the population, fae-bloods—those with any degree of fae ancestry—existed in secret in the human world, and true fae lived in the Hidden Lands. Possessing a drop of fae blood was enough to result in imprisonment within the human world, but the alternative was to to seek entrance to the Hidden Lands, to turn away from humanity. For many fae-bloods, it was safest to simply pass as human. The war carried out by the Queen of Blood and Rage meant that any of her subjects were considered war criminals by the human courts, even those who had not sworn fealty to the faery queen—or even met her.
“My only heritage is as Nick Abernathy’s heir,” Lily said levelly, suppressing the wince from the physical pain of the lie.
She was, in fact, more fae than human. She’d known that for years. Being so fae meant that the words hurt to utter, but admitting her ancestry to the wrong person could mean the kind of imprisonment that would try even the considerable limits of Daidí’s power. Lily wasn’t foolish enough to risk that with someone she’d just met.
“Liar,” Creed whispered.
“Fae-blood can’t be liars,” she said, twisting the truth just enough to ease the pain of a complete falsehood.
Creed’s expression went carefully blank and he said, “I’m not fae-blood either. Not a drop.” He paused, watching her study him, and then added, “You can learn to hide the physical pain of lying, Lilywhite; surely you know that as well as I do. I know what you are, what we are.”
There was nothing she could say to that, no retort that would disprove his blatant truth.
Creed glanced briefly at her hand, which was curled around his card so tightly that the edges of it were pressed into her skin. Casually, he reached out and trailed his fingers over the knuckles of her closed fist.
She concentrated on not reacting.
“Tonight,” he said. “Later. Anytime. I want to talk to you.”
“I don’t . . .” She looked down at her hand. “I don’t know why you think I’m . . . what you say I am.”
He stared so intently that she could swear she felt his gaze like a physical thing, but she refused to look at him as he said, “Impure water burns your throat. The wrong soap makes your skin blister . . . and alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, they all affect you so much more than they do other people, non-fae people.”
Lily kept her lips firmly closed. She still wasn’t admitting a thing, but she obviously didn’t need to. Creed wasn’t guessing. He knew. He’d known before he’d met her—as she had about him.
“You don’t need much sleep at all unless you have their toxic food,” he continued. “When you do, you feel weak and need to sleep for hours.”
She looked up finally.
“And I’d bet that you have a bit of yard that is meticulously upkept, no pesticides, no gardener allowed in it. You feel it there without needing to hide. Soil or air, water trickling under the earth, or stone humming secrets. You know what you are when you are connected to nature. You know what we are.” His voice grew soft, lulling her into a peace that she only ever felt outside. Suddenly, all Lily wanted was to sit and listen to him forever. There was magic in the way words slid from his lips, magic in the truth of them and in the boy speaking them.
She took a step closer to him.
“You like to stand on the bare ground, burrow your toes into the soil when you’re tired, feel the earth and its pulse beating to match your own. Nature calls to us, Lilywhite.”
Lily reached out and touched his wrist. She wanted to deny everything, but she couldn’t lie again. Not to him, not right now. Creed reached out and covered her hand with his.
She wasn’t sure how long they stood like that—or how long they would’ve stayed that way, but Daidí walked over and held out his hand to her. “Lilywhite.”
She moved to him obediently, grateful for the familiarity of being at his side at a party, grateful to have a routine to fall into instead of whatever was happening with Creed.
Daidí extended a hand to the boy, who accepted it easily.
“Mr. Abernathy,” he greeted, shaking Daidí’s hand briefly. “I’m glad I made an exception to my manager’s rules to be here to sing for Lilywhite.”
Daidí’s stiff expression flickered briefly to amusement at the reminder that Creed was there as a favor and a very expensive one no doubt. “My daughter likes your music, and there is nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for her happiness—or for her safety.”
Creed nodded, acknowledging the warning implicit in Daidí’s voice, and glanced at her again. “Any particular songs you want to hear, Miss Abernathy?”
The titles of Creed’s songs, some of which she’d listened to until she could pick them out after only a few notes, all fled her mind. “Surprise me.”
“Haven’t I already?”
Her eyes widened just enough that Lily was glad Daidí was frowning at Creed instead of scrutinizing her.
Creed smiled, a genuine soul-searing smile that she’d rarely glimpsed in the hundreds of photos she’d seen in magazines, and then with a nod to them both he walked toward the stage that had been set up for him.
At her side, Daidí was silent as they walked to the table at the front of the ballroom where she was to sit like a regent holding court. For all of her father’s suggestions that she mingle with those her own age, he still set her apart. Soon, his colleagues would come and give her gifts. Shayla would arrive and catalogue them, and Daidí would nod approvingly. Everyone would pretend that the people her own age who did approach her did so by their own choice. All the while, she would watch Creed sing for her as if private concerts from global celebrities were her due.
“He’s like you,” Daidí whispered as he seated her at the birthday table. It was a question as much as a statement.
Lily nodded.
On stage, Creed inserted a little earpiece into his ear and nodded at the man who was stationed to the side at a complex-looking control board. Creed seemed less intimidating now, like the unapproachable rock star in her fantasies. He was safer now that he was at a distance.
“I thought as much from the way you studied him in those journals,” Daidí said with a satisfied tone that made her glance his way.
She caught her father’s hand as he started to turn away. When she tugged him down beside her, he didn’t resist. She kissed his cheek as an excited daughter should and assured him, “I admitted nothing. I never have to anyone.”
“You can with him,” he said.
Daidí straightened again, saying no more, but she knew that her father had had his people thoroughly investigate Creed. No one was admitted to Abernathy Estates without thorough background searches.
As Creed started the opening chords to “Deadly Girl,” his eyes were fixed steadfastly on her and her father. She could feel his words like a lure.