There were times when he wished that he could explain, could make them understand that he was as trapped by the curse as they had been. The problem, of course, was that they were trapped because of his choices, whereas he was trapped because of the choices of the last Winter Queen. She’d bound his powers, hidden them away inside a mortal girl so he couldn’t stand against Winter, and he was left seeking a single grain of sand in the expanse of a great desert. Literally, billions of girls could have been the one he needed. Each time he chose a girl, she was cursed; her humanity faded. She became either a Summer Girl, whose very life required contact with him, or the Winter Girl, who was filled with ice. He understood the anger some of them felt, probably deserved it, but if he hadn’t tried, the earth would freeze. Over time, every mortal and every faery not of the Winter Court would die.

He bowed his head as he walked. There hadn’t been a lot of choices left to him. He’d had to try to find his missing queen. He’d succeeded after nine hundred years, but somehow even success came with problems. His queen refused his affections; the faery he loved had become the new Winter Queen; and war seemed imminent. Even after completing a seemingly impossible challenge, he was still losing.

As Keenan reached a rocky outcropping, the faery he’d been contacted by stepped out.

“Your, ah, highness, or . . . what do you call a king?” Maili asked.

Her attitude irritated him, so he ignored the question. “What do you need?”

“You weren’t able to reason with Rika. I can do it. I’ll defeat her for you.”

Keenan looked at the faery. Her tone was far more impertinent than he was accustomed to these days, and her posture was anything but respectful. He didn’t expect meekness, but whether he was her king or not, he was a regent. He was the embodiment of summer itself, protector and leader of a court. That deserved a bit of respect.

Honestly, he simply didn’t understand the solitaries; something about their lack of court always unsettled him. Court, especially the Summer Court, wasn’t just about order. They reveled. They danced. They cared for the other members of their court. Sure, there were questions of obedience, but he didn’t ask his faeries to do anything that wasn’t for their own good or the good of the court. He had spent his entire life striving to make them safe, to protect them from the cold that had threatened, to lead them even though he’d been weakened by the curse. Choosing to be solitary wasn’t something he could fathom.

“No,” he said. “Talk to her first.”

Maili flinched as if he’d struck her. “Talk to her?”