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The lantern. How the hell could I have forgotten for even a minute? The fierce flames flicker, licking at the glass enclosure. It’s an unmistakable leftover from the Light Fae before he left me and I—tired and afraid and alone—fell asleep in the confines of the empty, chilly sewer.
No. No. It’s all coming back to me now. The smug expression on his sculpted face, the promise—the threat—in his bright gold eyes, the way his perfect lips pouted before he conjured up his weirdo dust and blew it right in my face.
That’s right. I didn’t just fall asleep.
I was put to sleep.
Dick.
Lifting my hand to my face, I rub my eyes, my cheeks, my lips. Now that I’ve remembered, I can actually feel the dried remains of his stupid powder on my skin. I wipe angrily with my gloved fingers. When that doesn’t do anything, I yank my hoodie’s sleeve until it’s pulled over my thumb, then scrub.
Better.
At least, my face is. I knock the dust off, my nose wrinkling when I catch a whiff of something nasty. Phew. A terrible stink is coming off of my sweatshirt. Even worse? I can’t tell if it’s coming from me or if it’s something I might’ve touched down here in the disgusting sewer.
I blow air through my nose, trying to get the stink out. Then, because I don’t want to accidentally sniff that crap again, I roll my sleeve up and, still on my knees, I scoot away from Rys’s lantern.
I remember that fire, too. My hands hurt just looking at it. Rys might have pretended he was leaving it behind with me because he cared. Yeah. Right. It was just another way for him to remind me that, no matter what, as a human squaring off against a fae, I was forever at his mercy.
I can’t stay down here. Glancing up, I don’t see anything. I’m not exactly sure what that means. Did the manhole cover get shifted, settling in place so that I’m trapped down here? Or is it dark up there? The stream of sunlight that eked its way down here earlier is gone.
So is Rys.
How long was I sleeping? No way to tell. I feel rested, though, like I’ve slept for a while and that scares me. I don’t know what he hit me with or what it did to me except for knocking me out. Where did he go? Why did he leave me here?
Considering I lost a week after my pitstop in Faerie with Nine, I’m terrified to discover that I’ve been sleeping down in the sewer for a couple of years, like I’m Rip Van Riley or something. After everything that’s been happening to me lately, I don’t even think that would surprise me.
I gotta do something. Stand? Standing sounds like a plan.
My knees are okay. That’s good. I felt a jolt all the way from my knees up to my thighs when I slammed into the stone floor, but no permanent damage.
I didn’t experience any discomfort when I got to my feet, either. I give my ankle an experimental turn. No pain. Maybe getting some sleep wasn’t so bad after all.
Shifting a little, I put my full weight on my bad ankle. The only thing I feel is that same silky, sleek material under my bare foot. I had forgotten all about it once I saw the glow and remembered Rys’s lantern, but it’s the same unfamiliar blanket I’d been sleeping under—and that I slipped on when, still half-asleep, I convinced myself that I’d brushed up against something fuzzy.
One question, though. All I have are the clothes on my back, my gloves, my sweatshirt, and that’s it. Where did I get a blanket from?
I’d never tell him so, but Rys’s lantern comes in handy. Squatting down, I move to the side, allowing the bright flames to illuminate the crumpled fabric that’s sprawled on the ground from where I kicked and slid on it. I can see the outline of a large, thin blanket that, when I pick up the corner and run it between my fingers, is way heavier than it looks. It’s made of a glittering black material that looks like satin but feels like flannel.
It’s a strange shade of black, dark yet almost reflective of the Light Fae’s fire. And while I have no freaking clue what this is or where it came from, I… I’ve seen material like this before. I’m almost positive. Unless I’m wrong, the long, duster-looking coat that Nine always wears is made of this stuff.
That’s so weird.
What is it doing here? I doubt Rys
blew that crap in my face, then conjured a blanket out of thin air to tuck me in. Something tells me that, even if he did, he’d never use anything that would remind me of Nine. This blanket? It totally screams Nine.
Too bad it couldn’t be from him. I mean, Rys did say that he had to leave since it was… what did he call it? The time of shadows. Nighttime. As a Dark Fae, Nine could cross back over from Faerie—but how could he find me? I’m hiding in a sewer. Despite how easy it was for Rys to track me down, this has got to be the last place on earth anyone would ever expect me to be hiding.
And that’s if he was even looking for me in the first place.
No chance. Not after the scene in the Acorn Falls cemetery. I told Nine that I never wanted to see him again and, even after he told me that he’d come if I wanted him to, I promised that I would never change my mind. So what if Rys seemed convinced that Nine would come for me?
He wasn’t there when I sent the Dark Fae away. He doesn’t know that, at that moment, I meant it. Just like I meant it when I told Rys that I’d rather live in the sewer than go anywhere with him.
I glance back up at the ceiling again. I really, really don’t like how I can’t tell if the manhole cover has been replaced or not. Now that I’ve learned that Rys’s kind of fae needs a ray of light to appear the same way that Nine travels through shadows, maybe it’s a good thing that I don’t know. No light means I’m safe from Rys either way.
For now.
