When Diarmán returned to his chamber that night, he found Uachi already there, seated on the edge of the bed. The ranger was on his feet in an instant. Diarmán greeted him with open arms and an eager kiss.

Uachi put his arm around Diarmán's waist, drawing him a little nearer, and his lips softened under Diarmán's. Together they shifted back, bumping up against the closed door.

Then Uachi broke away. He looked down at Diarmán, his brow shadowed with concern. "Where have you—"

Diarmán silenced him with another kiss, harder, and slid his hands up his back. Again, Uachi softened, yielding to the kiss for a moment or two before breaking away and taking a step back, putting space between their bodies. His arm loosened around Diarmán's waist.

"Come back here," Diarmán said, catching hold of a fold of Uachi's sleeve. "Let me kiss you senseless, and then—"

"No." Uachi withdrew his arm from Diarmán's waist. "Where have you been?"

Diarmán, rebuffed, dropped his arms, too. He pressed his palms to the door at his sides to quell the temptation to touch his lover. "Speaking with my father, is all."

"I was worried."

Diarmán bit back his immediate response: You should not have been. Of course Uachi had been worried. He had never met Han Taín and, upon meeting him for the first time, he had witnessed the Faelán king turning two hundred people into two hundred fowl. No doubt it had been terrifying to witness. Uachi could not know the thrill and the triumph Diarmán felt now that he and his father were reconciled.

He reached for Uachi's hand, brushing his fingertips lightly over his wrist in invitation. Uachi responded to the gesture, turning his hand and sliding his fingers into Diarmán's. They both straightened, keeping a space between their bodies, but it was softer now, a boundary drawn and acknowledged.

"I'm sorry," said Diarmán, and he meant it. "I should have come earlier to find you. I should have thought. It was just—so much."

The tilt of Uachi's head was an acceptance of the apology. "What were you speaking about?"

"Everything." Diarmán smiled, unable to hold back the joy that he felt being able to say something so simple: I was speaking to my father about everything. "I can't believe he's alive, Uachi. I thought it impossible, but now it beggars belief that I thought anything else."

"How can he possibly have lived through—"

Diarmán skirted Uachi, still holding him by the hand so he could tug him toward the bed. "I'll be good," he promised. "Sit with me, and I'll tell you."

The mattress shifted under their combined weight as they settled on the edge of the bed, their hands still linked.

"Though we lived in Eldran's Wood, it was not this Eldran's Wood," Diarmán explained. "We lived in the Realm of the Fae. I know I have spoken of it before, but of course you don't understand. Even I didn't understand, not properly, not until I saw him again and realized—the fire did not touch him where he was. It devoured the trees on this side of the door and left everything intact on the other."

"You thought he was dead, but he was just...cut off."

"Imprisoned. Yes! That's it. For thirteen, fourteen years, he was unable to enter the World of Men."

Uachi digested this for a moment. Then, with a frown, he shook his head. "And what is he going to do now?"

Diarmán released Uachi's hand and lay back, folding his arms behind his head and looking up at the ceiling. "He'll rule. We'll rule together, he and I."

Uachi turned. Diarmán didn't look at him, but he could feel the weight of his incredulous stare. "What?"

"It's perfect, Uachi. I don't think I could have dreamed of a more perfect situation. He's alive. He's well. He's free again, thanks to Little Emón—he has a gift after all, the gift of opening doors. Did I say that already? And now, he can live here with us and show me all the things my grandfather never did."

"What things?"

"Ruling. There's so much to manage, so much that Grandfather never taught me and never would have taught me."

"What has your mother to say about this?"

"What should she have to say? He knows how he wronged her. He told me so." Diarmán's heart swelled with the knowledge that all could be forgiven, all made right. "He will make his amends to her and leave her to her liberty. We will all have a peace long denied us."

Uachi did not answer him. Diarmán lay listening to the quiet sound of his lover breathing, looking up at the beams of the ceiling. He did not want to be the one to break that silence, but he was not a man who could bear silence for long.

"What are you thinking?" he asked at last. He was not sure whether he wanted to know the answer; he could tell that Uachi was not as happy as he was.

"I'm worried," said Uachi. "After what happened tonight, there is a lot to see to. The first question is that of the flocks of pigeons currently holed up in Padréc's tower room."

"They were pheasants."

Uachi grunted with frustration. "I don't care what bloody kind of birds they were, Diarmán, they're meant to be lords and ladies of whatever fancy houses pepper the fields of Narr, and now they're all roosting in your attic."

Diarmán opened his mouth to correct him—it's an aviary—but stopped himself, heeding his uncanny instincts for self-preservation. "I know they are."

"And? Certainly we must do something about that?"

"Yes, but..." Diarmán grasped for an answer, but he could not focus on the noble folk in the aviary. Not when so much he thought had been lost had been suddenly restored. Things were falling into place with a beautiful serendipity and he could not hold more than that truth in his mind. "We can figure it out."

"When?" Uachi demanded. "When the Queen's Guard comes pounding at your door, wondering what's become of the dozens and dozens of fancy folk who have gone missing? Certainly your grandfather's death was no secret. Certainly many people are known to have attended his funeral feast. This will not avoid notice for long."

"What should we do, then? Give them all back their legs so they can run crying to the queen about my father's wickedness?"

"Oh, for goddess's sake, Diarmán—"

"There is not a very good option, I'm afraid. If we leave them as they are, folk will come looking for them. If we turn them back into their human forms, then my family will be set upon. I do not know what to do and I do not feel like deciding just now. It's been a very long day."

Again, Uachi fell silent. Diarmán stubbornly refused to look at him. He was irritated, in truth. He had come here delirious with joy, and he'd been met with his hard-headed, hard-hearted lover, grim and grunting. Was it wrong that Diarmán wanted just a moment to savor his unexpected happiness? This stability? Could he not have one night of peace?

"Well." Uachi rose from the bed, the mattress shifting as his weight lifted. "I'll leave to your rest, then."

"You don't have to leave." Diarmán sat up, his irritation subsiding. Instead, he felt disappointment and a sense of slow, creeping guilt. "Please."

"I think there's some bird shit needs sweeping," Uachi said. "And I am in need of a bath. I shall speak to you at breakfast."

The door opened and closed, and Diarmán was alone.