"Is the world sentient?" Marcello asked. "Because there's a difference between chance and something done knowingly."

"It's . . . complicated," she admitted. "It's like asking why bad things happen to good people when you should be asking why do bad things happen to anyone?"

"But there's a big difference between asking when there's no reason and asking when you know it was a decision someone made," Marcello pointed out.

The girl bit her lip. "It was sort of . . . inevitable," she said. "No one sat down and pointed their finger and said 'this family will hate one another even unto the seventh generation' or anything. But we knew it was one of the potential outcomes and we decided not to stop it. You've got a family with all these kids that just happens to survived, only so many resources to go around, but powerful enough to keep their goings-on private, no one with the wherewithal to step in and break up the system, except for maybe some of the people who live in it . . . and it comes out like this."

Marcello listened, and then nodded at her. "That actually makes some sense," he assured her. "That it wasn't planned, it was organic. I feel like...speaking as Earl of Cnoch-na-Niall now, it would do us much better to side with Dierdre Oisin. We need to prove that we're not just out to get anyone who supported Titania, that we do believe in the tradition of the old families. It would go a long way with most of the Southern clans, I think."

"If she'll agree, I think it's better than letting it get out that this guy blackmailed the countess Niall. Niabheara overthinks these things a lot, I know, but in this situation I think she's got powerful instincts: she knows if she lets herself be manipulated, it will literally never end for her. It's what happened to Cnoch-na-Niall with Titania. Granted, that time it was hardly her fault; the attitude has always been to just keep her alive until she was old enough to fight back. No one expected a ten-year-old kid to take on Titania. Hell, no one expected a twenty-year-old to do it."

Marcello grinned, looking rather proud at that. "I am pleased with her for that," he said. "She's...much braver than she lets on. But yes, I agree her instincts are right. I don't want to be beholden to this ass for the rest of my life because Niabheara happened to marry him to her best friend."

"Which sucks because if anyone in that family were actually interested in making alliances, this would have been a good one." She rolled her eyes. "But I don't think they are."

"I know, and we thought it would have been a good one, too," Marcello replied. "Maybe Dierdre wants to." He frowned. "We'll have to figure out a way around it."

"Welcome to the bedrock of fairy society," she said dryly. "Ancient stubborn old bitches who feel like they're owed something."