Devlin did not move as she observed him. She did not falter at the sight of his opalescent hair or inhuman eyes; she did not flinch at his angular features or otherworldly stillness. He wasn’t sure what reaction he expected: he’d never been viewed as he truly was by a mortal. Over in their world, he wore a glamour to appear like them. Here, he was known for what he was, the Queen’s Bloodied Hands. The girl’s assessment was a singular event.

Her cheeks became pink as she boldly stared at him. “You certainly look like a kind man.”

“I am not.” He stepped toward her. “I exist to keep order for the queen of Faerie. I am neither kind nor a man.”

The girl fainted.

Devlin leaped forward to catch her and knelt on the ground, arms empty—as her form settled inside of his skin. He couldn’t hold the insubstantial, but she apparently could take residence in his body as if it were her own.

Her voice was in his head. Sir?

He couldn’t move: his body wasn’t his to control. He was still inside of himself, but he was not animating his body. The girl’s spectral form had filled his skin as if it were her own body.

Can you move? he asked.

Of course! She sat up and, in doing so, left his body.

He swallowed against the burst of peculiar emotions coursing through him. He felt free and excited and a number of the things that were unlike the restraint of the High Court—and he liked it.

She lifted a hand as if to touch him, but it passed through him. “I’m not dreaming, am I?”

“No.” He felt unexpectedly protective of her, this foundling mortal. “What is your name?”

“Katherine Rae O’Flaherty,” she whispered. “If I am awake now, that means you are an ethereal creature.”