Fairy Cube, Volume 2 by Kaori Yuki

Ian, Rin and Ainsel talk with Eriya's grandmother, who listens to Ian's story and tells her own, of growing up in Ireland and her encounter with a fairy named the Cancanagh. She was blind, but she could tell that he was seducing young women, a different one each time. When she offered him her own life, he refused, saying children smelled of milk. He promised to come for her if she became beautiful when she grew up, but he never did. Devastated, she moved far away, to Japan, and yet, Kaito might be that same fairy...

Ian's aunt, Lise, shows up and breaks into Ian's home with the help of Rin and Ian. There, they find Ian's father, chained to a wall and starving by his son, Tokage. Eventually Lise tells them that she is a fairy, named Leannan Sidhe, who lives on the life and creativity of humans. Her sister, Ian's mother, was also a Leannan Sidhe who lived off their father. But she fell in love with him and wanted to stay with him forever. Doing so would have eventually killed Ian's father as she sucked his life force and creativity away. But while she was with him, he was phenomenally creative. Now, though, she is missing, and Lise is looking for her.

Tokage, meanwhile, has discovered the link between Rin and Ian, and sets a trap for her and curses her so that whenever she touches Ian, she produces flames. She had told Tokage that she and Ian shared a pure love, so now, he gleefully informs her, he will give her a chance to prove it. Now, she will never be able to touch him again.

But she fights back, and Ian attacks Tokage, with dark wings sprouting from his back. Rin blacks out and when she comes to, a fairy named Raven tells her that he needs Ian's soul to perform the sacrifice that will help the Golob Group bring their remaking of the world into reality. Meanwhile, inside the spell-warded school, Tokage tells Ian how his mother got rid of him because he was a fairy son and she wanted to stay in the human world. She buried him in a portal to fairy, and he was raised an outcaste in the fairy world. But when he was used by a town of fairies as a sacrifice to their God, to keep him imprisoned within the earth. Tokage called on the God's power and slew them all, including the woman who raised him, as she was also going to sacrifice him. But killing the woman who raised him and showed him only kindness seems to have driven him insane.

Rin, to save Ian's life, agrees to go with Raven, knowing Ian will rescue her. Lise helps Ian recover from the attack, and Ian is happy now that he knows he was never delusional about fairies. He understands why Tokage is angry, but cannot forgive his actions.

Meanwhile, Rin meets Shina, the woman and fairy behind the plan to kill all the humans on Earth. While she is at Golob Group, though, she meets a young girl with green hair and red eyes who looks only about six or seven years old. Yet the girl says she is missing her son, Ian, and needs help finding him. Could this be Ian's mother, somehow? Rin also meets a little contrary fairy named Derek, who befriends her when the girl tells him not to like Rin. Rin uses Derek to send a message to Ian, who realizes that in his rush to vengeance against Tokage, he risks becoming just like him. But Ainsel helps him see and we get to see more of Kaito's past. Meanwhile Rin decides to pretend to support Golob Group in hopes of helping Ian stop their plan. As Ian and Eriya's grandmother talk some more, they realize that Rin has become the face of Golob Group's ritual. Can they stop the other fairies in time?

I liked this book, which reveals a lot of background on the characters and shows Ian's importance to the fairies both to stop the plan to kill the humans, and to fulfill it. During the book, Tokage moves from being the main villain to being a supporter of Golob Group, although he still does plenty of nasty things. But he's becoming less important to the storyline than the plot to kill all the humans in the world so that the fairies become resurgent.

There are no simple characters here, excepting maybe Ian and Rin. All the other characters have complex pasts and conflicting loyalties. Some of them are tortured by what they have seen and done, and by how they have achieved their goals. Needless to say, this is what attracted me to Kaori Yuki's writing in the first place, as part of the Earl Cain saga, the Godchild series, and now with this one. The story goes just fast enough without feeling rushed, and yet has me anxious to read more. I'll be looking forward to more volumes of this series even if I don't think it will be overly long in toto.