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That’s not all his damn fire did.
“It wasn’t so easy for me to find you after that,” Nine adds, “but rumors led me right to Rys. He wants you. You know that, Riley. He’s always felt like he had a claim to you, from the moment the Fae Queen assigned him to find your mother and bring you to Faerie. He didn’t. Obviously, he didn’t, and he’s the only one who knows why. I told you that the asylum was a safe place to keep you out of Melisandre’s reach. What I neglected to add was that Rys helped me arrange it. It was a compromise. We’d work together to keep you protected until you came of age. After that, it was every fae for himself. He charmed you into giving him your touch. He’ll always have power over you until it’s gone. And that’s not even counting the peach.
“I told you. You have the choice. You can burn the brand away, using the fire he left behind. Rys won’t be able to come after you then and it should be enough to counter the food from Faerie.”
“Should,” I echo weakly. “What if it doesn’t?”
“Then it was all for nothing. When the Shadow comes of age, she’s also supposed to come into her powers. Melisandre’s spies warned her where you’ve been hiding. As soon as you were the right age, she planned on having you brought to Faerie to face her.”
To face her. Right. What was it Nine said in the graveyard? That the Fae Queen has no problem killing me just so that I don’t kill her first. Doesn’t matter that I’m not the murderess type. She’s fond of her throne, her power, and her head. What was one pesky human, especially when she had no problem turning us into decorations for her garden?
If I let the faerie food take hold, I’m done. I’ll never be able to eat anything else again. And where do you find faerie food?
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Faerie.
That’s right.
Well played, Rys. The bastard fae used my hunger against me. I didn’t want to follow him to Faerie—whether he wanted me to stay with him, or he would sacrifice me to get on the good side of his queen when it finally sunk in that I’d never be his ffrindau thing—and he found another way to get me to go.
Nine already told me, and I can’t deny it: if I can’t fix this and now, I won’t have a choice unless I want to starve to death.
And I would. I totally would. Before I gave in and let Rys win, I would totally do it.
Not now, though. With Nine here, and my stomach killing me, I have one last chance. It goes against everything I was ever taught, everything Nine ever told me, but self-preservation is the only thing I’m thinking about at this second.
I don’t really want to die. Not if I can save myself.
Or let Nine save me.
“I accept.”
“Riley—”
“Better the devil I know, right? If it’s you or Rys who can track me down, it’s no contest. Touch me, Nine. Do whatever the hell you have to do. Don’t care. You have to save me.”
For the second time, he hesitates.
My eyes are slits in my face as I grit my teeth through another wave of debilitating agony. He’s not moving any closer.
What is he waiting for?
His gaze flickers back to the lantern.
“The fire will hurt, but you’ll have your freedom. The Shadow deserves her freedom.”
“In real life, shadows are stuck to the bottom of a person’s shoe. There’s no such thing as freedom, Nine, not really.”
“Riley—”
A whimper escapes my throat. I can’t keep it back. Another wave of nausea shudders through me, but even that pales in comparison to the terror that jolts my senses at just the thought of going anywhere near an open flame.
For my whole life, I’ve been conditioned to hate being touched. All it took was one fucking awful afternoon to make me throw away all that brainwashing. I hate the idea of giving him permission to lay his hands on me—but there’s absolutely no way that I’ll ever willingly let fire lick at my skin again.
How can I make him understand?
My brain is fuzzy. So much of my focus is on keeping my stomach from lurching into my throat, but I clench my fists and think.
