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Grey tore his gaze away again and bit his tongue. A slow countdown began as that lingering question floated to the front of his mind: “What do you get from trading me?” he finally whispered.
The scrape of the blade against the stone stopped. “I’m loyal to the fair folk, as should the rest of humanity.”
“You say that like you’re not motivated by greed.”
He emitted a sharp bark of a laugh. “You don’t understand what it’s like to wield true power. Once you taste that, there’s no going back. The fair folk offer so much more than our feeble minds can comprehend. It’s no wonder your kind succumbs to it so easily—how quickly you all go mad with power.”
Grey’s wrists strained against the ties. “That’s what I’m worth to you?”
“That’s all anyone is ever worth: power. Power to climb the social hierarchy. Power leftover from the fair folk’s return. Power bestowed by our rulers and gods.” Cavan hummed and turned the blade over, examining the sheen. “You should be grateful I’m offering you to them. Considering their interest, I take it you’ll serve them well for as long as they’ll have you.”
Bile crept up his throat, but he choked it back. “What if I don’t wan?—”
“Shut up,” he snapped, his cheery façade a far-off thing from when they first met. “Your wants don’t matter. The fair folk’s wants trump all, and the sooner you learn that the better. Especially if you want to survive the Otherworld in their good graces.”
The van rocked to a stop, and Grey’s heart leapt into his throat. “So you’re a zealot,” he hissed, finally feeling brave enough to fight back now that his fate was sealed.
Cavan tsked and pushed himself up. “I know my place. Know yours, hemomancer.” He seized Grey’s arm and hauled him to his feet.
Just the right opportunity for Grey to spit in his face. Cavan jerked back with a twisted grimace as he wiped it away. But he didn’t hit him—not like he’d expected after everything he’d ensured at the hands of other monsters like him wearing human skin.
The mere thought of Noel waking up without him anywhere in sight kept him going. Down a single, horrible friend who couldn’t even keep a promise to press forward for him. If he wouldn’t fight for himself, he’d fight for Noel, even though guilt nagged at him from Cavan’s sentiment. The fair folk were meant to be respected and feared, but worshiped? That was a step beyond Grey’s comfort.
He stumbled out of the van in a blur. Sparkling lights hovered in the air like fireflies—blue winking in and out in a mesmerizing display that rooted him to the spot until Daz grabbed him by the back of his shirt and dragged him further into the trees. A swift kick to the back of his leg, and Grey’s knees hit the grass, his breath catching as his shift collar caught around his throat. When it loosened, Grey shifted his weight to scramble to his feet, but Daz had already seized his ankles.
Mushrooms and flowers decorated the small patch of grass he’d been dropped into, instantly turning a whimsical faerie dream into a panic-inducing nightmare. This was it. This is where he’d leave and never come back. This was the beginning of the end—where death awaited him in the form of a long, painful demise. And he was sure it’d pale in comparison to that macharomancer who’d stolen his eye.
“Let me fucking go!” he yelled, squirming to graze his skin or draw blood to make it stop.
“Shut the fuck up, you dumb brat,” Daz growled as the final zip sounded, trapping him like in that little faerie door he’d tried to free himself from in a dream all those nights ago.
Boots pushed down the grass in front of him before Cavan stooped into a crouch and grabbed a fist-full of Grey’s hair. “If you leave this circle before you’re claimed, I will drive my damn knife through your foot and into the ground, got it?”
Grey gritted his teeth, trying to fight back the pain from how hard he was pulling at his scalp. “I hope whatever they give you for me kills you so slowly you don’t notice until it’s too late.”
Cavan’s eyes narrowed, but he let go, giving him a small pat on the shoulder with a nearly-imperceivable smirk in the glowing dark. “Spoken like one of the fair folk.”
His stomach clenched as Cavan stood, the order for Daz to follow barely registering with Grey’s racing heart. He sat there, frozen to the spot while those words turned over and over in his mind. Grey shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut, and forced himself to think of Noel’s last comforting reminders before he’d gone to sleep and woken to this nightmare.
You’re probably the gentlest person I’ve ever met, and you really expect me to drag you over to the fair folk and sacrifice you like a sheep to a den of wolves?
Grey desperately wished it’d been Noel trading him instead of Cavan now. At least it would’ve been a welcomed goodbye after finding someone Grey trusted as much his adoptive family. He should’ve stayed in the damn room. He should’ve woken Noel up. He should’ve started packing the second he assumed danger had found them?—
Snap.
Grey jolted at the sharp break of a twig nearby, his eyes flying back open to peer into the dark woods up ahead. Those blue bobbing lights were joined by glinting gold irises this time—several pairs hovering between the distant trees. The feather-light graze of gloves brushed across his forehead, momentarily pushing his hair away. Grey’s heart stopped.
“It’s time to go now, little finch.”
The world spun with the swift hook of an arm under his knees and behind his back by a force on his blind side. His body tensed in the cradling grasp of his captor while the trees began to move past—they strode forward. Grey’s shallow breaths tingled in his chest and turned stifled against the heavy, silky fabrics of a suit-cut jacket, a garment far fancier than he’d seen the people from the Grand Capital wear.
Morbid curiosity clawed at him as he let his good eye trail a little further up to the thin ribbon bow drooping over the elegant, black-and-gold-patterned vest climbing up to their partially-lifted jacket collar. He swore he stopped breathing when he finally took in their face though: near bone-white skin and hair, the latter looking as if dipped-dyed in ink just past his ears. Ears that tapered into a fine point and were adorned with jewelry that ran alongside slender, cerulean antlers. Where the whites of a normal person’s eyes would be, theirs were solid black around blue and a small circle of green around that pinprick of all-seeing coal.
This was the most beautiful and horrifying creature Grey had ever seen. Reign’s focus remained dead-ahead with every stride forward, completely oblivious to Grey’s awe and surge of sudden panic. But now, every fiber of his being screamed for him to run.
He bucked, and Reign tsked, their claws cushioned by gloves as they held on tighter through the squirming. Grey’s heart worked even harder as he panted, forcing out, “Put me dow?—”
“Now, now, finch,” Reign chided, finally deigning to spare him a glance that sent a shiver through him with how much want lingered there. Power and control lurked behind every vice-like grip and coo of a word, turning Grey into a panicked bird in a cage—just like the finch they called him.
