Lead guitarist Robin is a broody, beloved fan darling. He’s also the only member of The Rade who doesn’t have a love story so far. While fans and the press speculate, Rob’s busy dealing with his traumatic past as a real-life prince of Fairyland. His mother, the queen of the Winter Court, has finally had enough of his self-imposed exile.
Kay was raised in the queen’s palace, stripped of his history and sharpened like a blade to become the perfect assassin. Nevertheless, when the queen sends him after the exiled prince, Robin and his friends turn out to be too much for Kay to handle.
Robin sees his own past, his own flaws in Kay’s charming mix of innocence and bloodthirstiness and thinks he can be saved. The rest of The Rade aren’t so sure, but with patience, music, and compassion, Robin proves to Kay that there’s more to life than what he experienced in the narrow confines of the queen’s service. In the process, he gets closer to the angel-faced assassin than either of them ever thought possible.
But there’s no future for any of them until they deal with the fairy queen who wants them dead.
“It enchanted me too, first time I heard it,” Robin said quietly. He sat up straight and started playing again, the same song, with all its intricate finger movements on the neck of the guitar, but more slowly. “This is my instrument. My whole life.”
K frowned.
“Go ahead. Say it.” Robin gave a little laugh.
“You could’ve had a whole kingdom.” Instead, Robin chose this. K wasn’t sure if he thought it stupid or brilliant. Strange, how close the two diametrically opposed concepts suddenly seemed to one another.
Robin only nodded, his right hand delicately plucking the song note-by-note, cascading into one long, beautiful stretch. Eventually, he said, “I was a lot younger, then. Stumbling out of Fairyland as often as I could, trying to find somewhere to hide. Sounds crazy, I know. I had everything: power, position, palaces. The admiration and envy of my own people.”
K nodded. That was precisely what he’d been thinking, yes.
“But that’s nothing, compared to what’s out here,” Robin said, far too casually. As if he wasn’t betraying everything he’d been given, everything he’d been born to, with it. “Look at you: you don’t even know what a guitar is. How old are you? Fifty? Eighty years old?”
“I don’t know,” Kay mumbled. It had never entered his mind to ask. And even if it had, who would he ask? The household guards who shuffled him from the barracks to the training grounds and back again? His fellow elite trainees, who saw as little of the world outside the palace as he? He wouldn’t dare ask anyone in a position of power a question, let alone one so pointless.
“A whole lifetime, for a mortal, and they’ve all done, seen, heard a million more beautiful things than you, trapped in that palace under her thumb.” Robin sighed as if the thought made him sad.
K bristled. “You’ve been corrupted.”
“Mmm, by the truth. Tyrants fucking hate when anyone gets information from anywhere but them. And that’s what she is, K. A big, selfish, shitty tyrant who uses everyone in her tiny, pathetic, fake kingdom for her own amusement. You included.”
K swallowed hard, hands squirming as if to escape his bonds. He’d held so still, so far. Been so calm and stony that any of the Queen’s guards and spymasters would’ve approved, even the oldest and meanest of them. But now, suddenly, he just wanted to run.
“You ever feel like this before?” Robin asked. And he started to sing the lyrics with the sweet melody he’d hummed before. His voice was rich and deep, and it seemed to send vibrations up through K’s legs and into his chest that --
“No,” K had to admit.
Robin sang for a few more moments about a blackbird learning to fly, and K remained spellbound. When he finished and silence returned, K let out a deep breath. He desperately wanted to hear the song again. It left an empty place in his chest, one he’d never noticed before.
“Why do you think that is?” Robin asked.
“Why ...?” K frowned.
“Why do you think you’ve never felt anything like this before? What does it make you want to do?”
“To ...” K shook his head.
“Go ahead. I told you, I won’t hurt you. Not unless you try to stab me again.”
