Page 43 of The Unseelie Wish

“As far as I can tell,” Puck continued. “This winds up a few ways.”

“You’re a time traveler, aren’t you? Can’t you already see where it goes?” He arched an eyebrow at the smaller creature.

“Mm, yeah, but also no. Doesn’t work like that. I can visit all the options. Multiple possible timelines are funny like that. Sometimes there are big branches, sometimes small ones. This is a big one. Lots of choices.” He fanned his fingers out in front of him, visualizing the splits. “And it’s like—infinite doors in a hallway. Just because I’ve been to some, doesn’t mean I’ve been to all of them. Fuck, I can’t even tell you if I’m the same Puck that was here before.” He laughed, a sharp and wild expression in his eyes. “Or if this is the same version of you that I was dealing with before.”

Puck had a reason to be as deranged as he was. The half-Seelie half-Unseelie monstrosity could pass through not just space but time, which was far more complicated than a simple linear point-a-to-point-b situation that most mortals might imagine it to be. Izael did not envy the creature. “Then tell me my futures, oh soothsayer.” He was curious, he had to admit. He’d gone and stepped in shit with Alex, and it would be interesting to know at least some of the ways it could possibly play out.

“Option one.” Puck picked up a fried chicken “finger”—it was not a finger, and Izael did not understand why it was called such a thing—and placed it down on the coffee table in front of him, leaving a smear of grease on the surface. “Alex agrees to use her wish to love you. She surrenders, broken-willed, and becomes your pet. But while her heart and soul are yours, her mind remains her own. Unable to defy you, Valroy uses her gifts to destroy the Seelie and wage war on the humans.”

“I—” Izael’s eyes went wide. “You?—”

“Yeah. I know. I’m not a fucking moron.” Puck rolled his silver eyes. “But Abigail doesn’t. And I’ll keep it that way. For now, anyway.”

Curling his hands slowly into fists, Izael debated whether he was able to kill Puck. He could shatter the creature’s bones, eat him whole—but if there were multiple Pucks in multiple places at once, he might as well be trying to murder a fruit fly. There would always be more. Therefore, he had no option but to…take the half-breed at his word. For the moment.

“Anywhoozle,” Puck kept going with option one. “Alex, watching the destruction of the Seelie race and the invasion of Earth, takes her own mortal life out of grief.”

Izael’s shoulders slumped. “But she will love me.”

“Yeah. She will. But some things are more powerful than even that. You’re fascinated with humans, but you don’t get them. You never will.” Puck half-smiled at him sadly. “It’s your curse.”

“Then…I will ensure that she does not kill herself.” Izael grimaced. “I will keep her under lock and key for the rest of her mortal life.”

“Like I said. You don’t get humans.” Puck reached out and picked up another chicken finger. “So that’s option one. You win, she dies. Here’s option two.” He put the finger down next to the first one.

Izael wanted to talk more about option one, and find a way around her death, but that was his problem to solve. Not Puck’s.

“Option two is, Abigail finds out that you told Valroy about Alex’s magic. Abigail rushes to Alex and convinces her to surrender her power. Alex agrees, and she becomes a normal, mundane, harmless human.” Puck paused. “And then, in a rage, Valroy kills her. You keep her soul, but you never see her again.”

“He—he agreed—” Izael stammered.

“And he wasn’t lying. But things change. And with her power gone, you would have no bargaining ability. In some versions, he kills you, too. In some, you survive. For a while, at any rate.” He shrugged. “If you can call becoming a recluse, clutching the glass bauble you put her soul in, and slowly becoming a full-scale raving madman ‘surviving.’ I’ll let you be the judge of that.”

Izael stood. He had to pace as he listened, trying to deal with the sudden anxiety that flooded him. “And how do I know you’re not lying to me? This—this could—just be a ploy.”

“Option three.” Puck kept going, ignoring him. A third chicken finger joined the first two. “She wins. She doesn’t make a wish, she stays on Earth with fae magic. And just like you threatened her with, either Valroy, Abigail, or some other random fucker tries to either remove her power or steal her for themselves. Either way?”

Izael shut his eyes. “She dies.”

“D’aw, and everybody calls you stupid.”

The growl that left Izael was feral. But Puck was, ostensibly, doing him a favor. “Why are you telling me all this? If she’s doomed to die, why tell me?”

“In hopes you, or she, find a fourth version I’m not seeing. It’s happened before. It’s unlikely, maybe impossible, but you never know.” Puck plopped the three chicken fingers onto his plate and sat back. Taking a bite of one, he hummed. “Option two is tasty. Or is this option one? Whatever.”

Izael wanted to scream. Wanted to break every lamp and piece of furniture in the house that he had gifted to Alex. But instead, he kept pacing. There had to be another way. There had to be. Or it was all a fabrication. “Abigail sent you here to tell me this. To fill me with doubt.”

“Nope. I wish. Honestly? I’m not on your side here. I’m on Alex’s. She’s the one who’s gotten the shaft in all this.” He snickered. “Shafts, literally.”

“If I ever, ever discover that you are playing me, you asinine half-breed, I will shatter every bone in your body and devour you. I will ensure you die a slow, painful death as you are dissolved and consumed.” He bared his teeth at Puck, who for once, seemed to be taking his threats seriously. “If Alex is dead, I will have no reason to continue. I will invite whatever punishment might follow. And I will hold on to the fact that I made you suffer as my final warming thought before I greet my end. Understood?”

Puck might have gone a shade paler than he already was. “Understood.” Clearing his throat, he went back to the food. “Good thing I’m not lying, then.”

Slumping back down on the sofa, he put his head in his hands. “Go away, Puck.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m rooting for you two. I really am. You smile at her in a way I’ve never seen you smile before.”

The tenderness in the other fae’s voice was so surprising that it took Izael a moment to process it. But by the time he looked up to address what Puck had said, the half-breed was gone, along with his plate of food.