He slumped across his bathroom counter, the sleeves of his dress jacket bunched around his elbows and the face of his watch scratched by the counter's edge. Unwashed hair fell over his forehead, and bruise-colored rings underlined his lower eyelids, giving him the appearance of someone who had not slept in two days. If his coworkers were to enter his loft and survey the entire scene—possessions scattered haphazardly across tabletops, costly rugs creased and overturned—they would believe that their colleague had come undone.

But the owner of the ruined loft had not received guests in over two hundred years. Therefore, any appraisal of his situation was left to the three people remaining in the loft: the man who stood before his bronze-framed bathroom mirror, and the two men who stared back at him.

The Cachail's was the most obvious face of the two reflected in the smudged glass. No degree of disarray could hide the expensive haircut and the years' worth of careful grooming that the Cachail had maintained, along with the designer clothing that still adorned his body. His lifestyle oozed from every inch of the loft, and his influence could not be erased through one day of mental collapse, no matter how keenly the other men might wish for it to fade. But even while the Cachail blinked and stared from the mirror's surface, his haunted gaze and bitten lip could not belong to anyone to Cian. The outward trappings were the Cachail's, but the emotional turmoil reflected the man who had come before him.

And the third man beheld these two gentlemen, and he covered his face with his hands and wept.

By Nuada's crown, the fury had already left him. He did not know what to do without it; he did not know how to stand or walk or claim what belonged to him without the maelstrom of centuries lost to prop up his bones. In the harsh fluorescent light of a small bathroom, all that remained was the grief, and two men whose control had been wrested from them now begged for him to decide which of them would remain, even though the grief twisted his mind and made any choosing impossible.

Perhaps he ought to have made decisions while the anger had still invigorated him. For the twenty-four hours that had preceded the grief, his anger had allowed him to act purposefully, if not rationally; he'd singlehandedly dismantled the Unseelie investigation by dismissing Dorian H'Langraash's killer without permission, and his instructions to Veya had ensured that her arrest, if it came at all, would not be at the hands of the Unseelie Court.

Of course, these had all been the actions of a furious Cian, not those of a man saddled with two identities and certainly not those of the Cachail himself. Cian's sense of loss had overwhelmed all allegiances that the Cachail had sworn, and the rage of a father denied his children and a Tuath denied his homeland had driven him to defy the Court at any cost. In the dingy apartment to which Willow had pointed him, he'd peered into the heart of Dorian H'Langraash's killer, and he'd found the anguish of powerlessness, the despair of the weak; he'd understood the sentiments she'd fostered, though her methods had repulsed him, and he'd allowed her to flee if only so that her victory would spite the Court.

But his fury had passed, and the grief now ached in his bones. Cian mourned the loss of a land to which he could never return; meanwhile, the Cachail demanded that a decision be made before any more time was wasted, and the amalgamation of these two men found himself unable to indulge either one.

When he left this loft next, he would be only one man. His body was too weak to house two men's burdens, and his mind could not balance their disparate priorities. But choosing which man to save was an impossible task—both identities had become as real and tangible as the body that they now shared, and their separate histories had lasted for nearly the same amount of time. The single criterion for his decision would need to be this: which man's life was more worth living? Which man was capable of true fulfillment?

The choice should have been obvious. Cian had been the more complete man, the man whose emotions had not been excised from his being. In his earlier years, he'd resembled the Cachail in that he'd thirsted for hidden knowledge, and he'd allowed his passion for ancient texts to drive him across the continent, rootless and loveless and constantly hungry. And yet Cian had eventually stumbled across different sorts of knowledge, the kinds that had inspired him to defect from Unseelie circles so that he could learn from his Seelie neighbors. From Alma, he had learned of laughter and dancing, chats by the fireside and nights beneath the crescent moon; from the children, he had learned healing and strength, the power of companionship and the reversibility of one's own emptiness. In the end, Cian had lived not for knowledge but for people, and in this way he had found contentment.

Meanwhile, the Cachail's had been a half-existence. In the absence of love, he had sought truth instead, and the acquisition of facts had brought him joy. For many years, completing his work had made the Cachail almost happy in his fragmented sphere of existence, pleased to hunt and pleased to learn.

And this was why deciding between Cian and the Cachail was so difficult—the Cachail was half a person, and yet satisfying a half-person would always be easier than satisfying a whole person. The Cachail had never lost a wife, and he had never experienced the soul-crushing loneliness of a new widower. He'd woken in the mornings eager to drive to work, and he'd fallen asleep at nights pleased with the cases he'd completed or the facts he'd uncovered. Cian's void had still ached inside of him, but it hadn't pained him as keenly or starved him of happiness as deeply. Because the Court had desired for the Cachail to live in constant satisfaction, the Cachail had never found real reason to suffer.

The man who had been two men lowered his head onto the cool countertop, and his fist clenched around the counter's corner as he sighed. He would never become solely one person, of course—whoever's goals he chose to prioritize, the other's concerns would always float in the back of his mind—but only two routes stretched ahead of him, and he could not pursue both.

The Cachail's route was one of security, one of partial fulfillment. Even considering it caused the hairs on his arms to rise—he would be receiving protection from the very people who had ruined him, the ones who'd ripped him from his homeland and left his children penniless and defenseless. They were as soulless as the Cachail, elegant savages who spoke the language of power and wished destruction upon those he'd loved, and yet he would never need to fear them if he remained under their thumb. For the rest of his life, he would continue to investigate for the Court, and their relief at his loyalty would be so great that they'd forgive him for his failure to track down Dorian H'Langraash's killer.

And yet—his heart clenched in his chest as he thought about it—his children would remain under the thumb of another Court, a hierarchy just as vicious as the one that he served. His children would be secure in their employment, he knew, but their work would bring them the same partial fulfillment that serving as an investigator would bring to him. They would never be truly happy, and yet they could forget about the scars of the past and thrust themselves into the cold impartiality of the present. Loving no one would mean losing no one; never seeing their father again would mean forgetting that they'd had a father at all.

Cian's route was the thornier one. Cian's route would cause their bare feet to bleed and the wounds in their souls to reopen; Cian's route would destroy them again, for they would stare over the precipice of a cliff into an abyss of things that they had lost. They'd be forced to acknowledge Alma's absence, and this would be painful enough. But they would also be forced to acknowledge Cian's disappearance, the joint loss of their home, the beautiful life that they would never be able to restore.

Cian's route would mean scrabbling at the remains of their past, struggling to rebuild something that was unbuildable. Cian's route would mean constantly yearning to go backwards, even though the route would only proceed one way.

But couldn't one go back, if they tried?

His face crumpled, and he forced a shaky breath from his mouth. Cian's route was hopeless, though it was the route he wanted most; he was not strong enough for Cian's route, for trying to go back to the way things had been and learning again and again that he could not.

But—

Couldn't one go back, if they tried?

The grief forced him to imagine impossible things. The grief painted infeasible beauty behind his closed eyelids, and it whispered that he might be able to grasp it if he tried hard enough, and then it echoed inside of his head until the truth rang in his eardrums and he knew that he could not grasp it, not with all of the strength in the world.

Couldn't one go back?

He couldn't. He couldn't return to Alma or the homeland; he couldn't return to himself.

Go back.

He couldn't.

Go back—

—and then his eyes flew open, and he found himself staring open-mouthed into the mirror, his pupils blown wide, and only one man stared back at him.

The man who remained was hardened. His gaze had turned steely, and his jaw had set, and the redness in his eyes seemed to reflect passion rather than weakness. The man who remained was a bird of prey, but it was one determined to protect its brood.

The man who remained would follow Cian's route, but he would do it as the Cachail. He'd stride down that thorny path protected by the tough soles of his designer shoes, bearing the confidence of someone who does not know what it is to be hurt. He'd scheme and deliberate and outwit, all for his own purposes, all for his family's; he'd hunt for the noble truths that Cian had sought, and he would refuse to fail.

He'd return to several places along the way. The first one was the most critical, and yet when the Cachail left his loft for the last time, he smiled, for he did not feel afraid.

*

"I'd appreciate your assistance with something," said the Cachail, and the Fallen standing behind the doorframe laughed.

"I knew you would," said Charmeine, opening the front door more widely. They'd arranged their hair more neatly than they had before the Cachail's last visit; pale rouge dotted their cheeks, and they beamed as if they had not sucked the souls from two hapless investigators in the week prior. "Come inside. I take it you've defected?"

This would have been a dangerous statement had the Cachail not planned to abandon the Court, but he grunted noncommittally as he followed the Fallen inside. Paintings still lined the walls of Charmeine's hallways, abstract in their design and baffling in their subject matter, but when the Cachail examined them as he had the pink-and-yellow painting from his previous visit, the same fuzziness did not enter his head. Even odder was the absence of reservation in the Cachail as he walked deeper into the house. He'd witnessed this Fallen standing over the bodies of two murdered investigators, and yet the air of danger that had surrounded them previously seemed to have vanished. Their entire manner had changed; they walked evenly with their arms at their sides, and they glanced backward and spoke conversationally to the Cachail as he followed them.

"You know," Charmeine was saying, "I'd hoped that the curse would wear off sooner rather than later. In the grand scheme of things, your defecting would've done equal damage whenever it occurred, but ruining the H'Langraash expedition was icing on the cake, as they say. Job well done."

"Curse?" said the Cachail with a hint of anxiety, searching Charmeine's face for any signs of bad intent.

"Theirs, not mine," Charmeine explained absently, looking forward into the living room as they entered it. A wide, marble-accented space opened before them, scattered with sapphire-blue couches and shining silver end tables, and twisted, humanoid statues stood in strange positions between the furniture, their multicolored arms bent at unnatural angles. "Most of my paintings clear enchantments. Yours was particularly nasty. Any ancient being could have spotted it, but only a powerful clearing spell, like the ones on my paintings, could have negated it. I wager that they learned your true name somehow?"

"You don't know?" said the Cachail, settling into a velvety blue chair as Charmeine did the same. He'd assumed that Charmeine had learned more about his situation than they'd let on, though the Court was notorious for keeping their business as confidential as possible.

"I knew nothing for certain," Charmeine replied with a wave of their hand. "Only a curse imbued with a true name could've warped your identity so thoroughly, but an outside observer can never learn all the facts. Would you enlighten me as to the finer details of your curse? That is," Charmeine added, eyes glinting, "if you'd still like my assistance."

The Cachail grimaced. "The story is long," he said, turning his eyes from Charmeine to a crouching red-and-purple statue. "It was Old Land business, anyway."

"You do have the Old Land air about you," Charmeine said.

"In my younger years, I was a scholar of the ancient texts, but I used to gather intelligence for the Unseelie forces. I ran into a Seelie woman on one of my journeys—I married her, defected—and the Court believed that I'd emigrated to the new world until one of their scouts managed to trace me to Seelie territory. They were not happy."

"You used to be a good spy, then," said Charmeine, leaning back in their chair.

"Oh, very good. I was one of the best, until my priorities changed. I don't believe that the Court would have retained my services after defecting if I hadn't been such a valuable asset."

"And so they placed you here," said Charmeine, nodding. "I see."

"I don't think they ever expected me to reach this position. But even without certain emotional faculties," the Cachail said with a small smile, "I'm still very good."

"Very good indeed. Chicago is better off without your services. You meant well, I'm sure," said Charmeine as they steepled their fingers, "but the Court is not kind to those of us with...well, alternative priorities." They grinned. "I'm assuming that my alternative priorities are why you need my assistance?"

At the mention of Charmeine's assistance, the Cachail's stomach twisted. He'd prepared himself to speak on the topic, but discussing the children evoked a vulnerability in him that he was not quite ready to reveal.

"I'd like to leave the country," he said instead, shifting his gaze to the geometrically-patterned carpet. "The liminal gates to the Old Land are closed, but the mortal parallel is suitable enough. I'll settle in Ireland if I can."

"And you don't need my help with this, do you?" said Charmeine, their grin unfaltering. "Tell me, why have you come to me?"

The Cachail hesitated, then close his eyes and spoke: "I'm taking seven Seelie with me. They're at Garfield. I need them to know I'm... I need them to know to leave. They're clever enough—they can leave the conservatory on their own—but they won't know to do it unless I..."

"Unless you can make contact," said Charmeine, and they rose from their chair and started toward the far exit to the room. "One moment—I'll be back."

Five minutes later, Charmeine returned with a black slate in their right hand and a charcoal-covered stylus in their left.

"I might not have lent this to you," said Charmeine, no trace of a grin on their face, "except that you're stealing labor from the Seelie Court and I couldn't be happier about it."

The Cachail shifted in his seat. Speaking about the children had placed a lump in his throat and an uneasiness in his chest, but Charmeine, dealer of power that they were, had not attacked him for his attachments. He did not know why he'd balked at speaking about the children to them—they did not seem to care why he needed the item, only that its use would harm the Seelie Court.

"I appreciate your help," said the Cachail, and he accepted the tablet and stylus as Charmeine settled back into their seat.

"You write on the slate," said Charmeine, "and the words are displayed before the eyes of the person you care for most. These are the people you hope to rescue, correct?" They stared evenly at the Cachail, and his stomach fluttered. "You wouldn't leave the country with anyone else."

"No," said the Cachail, and he lowered his eyes to the stylus and tablet. "No, I... They're mine. They're my children."

For a while, the Cachail and Charmeine sat in silence, one staring at the tablet, the other staring at the Cachail's face. Then Charmeine spoke, softly and intently: "You seem uneasy."

The Cachail rolled the stylus between his fingers and closed his eyes once again. The uneasiness came from his anxiety at speaking to Charmeine, but it also shrouded the entire plan, the prospect of rescuing the children and then...

"It will be difficult," said the Cachail slowly, and he stared levelly into Charmeine's silver eyes. "Not the rescue. But..."

"What comes after," said Charmeine, and they folded their hands in their lap with uncharacteristic propriety. Their smile seemed to sag, and their shoulders hunched slightly. "That is the trouble, isn't it? You can't fully go back, can you?"

The Cachail shook his head, and Charmeine pursed their lips.

"Here is what I'll tell you," said Charmeine, and their hands fell still in their lap. "You'll have a difficult time of it, I'm sure. And you'll have good days wherever you go, and you'll have bad days. The same is true for me. Today is one of my better days, but I might wake tomorrow to find that the world is tilted on its axis, that I can't think as clearly or speak as well as I'd like to. And none of the factions' governments are hospitable to people who struggle like this, people like me, and so I find myself alone on the path that I walk. You'll find yourself alone, too. You'll walk with seven Seelie, and on your good days you will feel as if you truly exist beside them, and on your bad days you will feel just as alone as I do.

"Whatever you do, you can never go back to feeling whole again," said Charmeine, and their lips curled upwards. "But you can remember yourself. That's my advice to you. Remember yourself on the good days and the bad, and the world will stop tilting on its axis, and everything will fall into place."

The Cachail gripped the slate tightly within his hands, and he imagined painting a picture on the stone surface for his seven children to see, a picture for them to remember on their very worst days. He imagined providing them with hope for the future and hope in one another; he imagined reminding them of what they'd been and what they would always be.

One of the most sacred rules of the fae was to never thank another individual. Giving thanks provided the receiver with power, and they could hang the debt over the giver's head until one of the parties eventually passed. But the Cachail gave Charmeine his thanks all the same.

*

They left in the night, clutching one another tightly and whispering in each other's ears, "I'm sorry" and "forgive me" and "it'll be all right soon." The Seelie had not spotted the children as they'd fled, but Niamh continued to fret about the repercussions, the guards who would chase them and the officials who would condemn them and the government that would ensure that they would not sleep peacefully ever again. But the Cachail held Niamh in his arms and promised that she did not need to fear the Court as long as the Cachail stood watch, that the Court could not demolish the life that they planned to build. Promises were anathema to the fae as well, but the Cachail made this promise with the knowledge that it would never break.

In two days' time, they lingered on the edge of the Atlantic, letting the surf wash against their toes, peering eastward into the rosy sunrise that they would soon chase. Hand in hand, they stood as a chain, and the Cachail imagined that the entirety of their fractured future spread out before them, glorious and painful and bright.

His hands were finally warm.