AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t know how long y
ou’ll want to stay here,” she answers, stepping carefully into the house so that she doesn’t overbalance and fall over. Between the bundle made up of a comforter and a pillow nestled in her arms, the overstuffed backpack strapped on her back, and a huge plastic shopping bag hanging in the crook of her elbow, it’s a possibility. “I wanted to be prepared. Where should I put this?”
“Um. The living area, I guess. That’s where I slept last night. It didn’t feel right going in the basement.”
I don’t explain. I don’t have to.
She doesn’t pry. As soon as I add that part, Carolina stays silent, carrying her load into the living room.
At least, she stays silent until she notices the billowy blanket that I haphazardly tossed into the corner and promptly forgot about.
She gasps. Her reaction isn’t as bad as when she saw my new fae ears last night. It’s close, though, as she marvels and stares. And then she grins.
“Shadows,” she says softly. There’s triumph in the way she almost murmurs it. “See. I knew I was right.”
Huh?
“You talking about that?” I jerk my thumb over at it. “It’s just a blanket.”
“Sure it is. Now. With the way you can manipulate the shadows, they can be whatever you want them to be. That’s so cool.”
I blink. “Are you telling me that my blanket is made of shadows?”
“Well, yeah.” Carolina frowns. “Wait… didn’t you weave the shadows into a blanket on purpose?”
I would’ve had to know that it was possible in the first place to do it on purpose.
Whoa.
Is it?
I mean, this isn’t the first time I found myself wrapped in a patch of darkness lately. It’s not even the first time I woke up with a black blanket that I couldn’t explain. The scarf might have been a gift from Nine, but he never claimed the blanket I slept with in the sewer.
Is it really possible? Did I do that?
I just… I don’t get it. When I woke up this morning, the blanket was thin, silk-like, but it’s definitely solid. Sturdy. As light as it was, I couldn’t rip it. The shadow—if that’s even what it was—that wrapped around my legs last night reminded me of thick smoke that disappeared as soon as I kicked it away.
I glance over at Carolina. The look on her face is so disappointed, I don’t have the heart to tell her that I honestly found it easier to believe that there’s a blanket fairy dropping off blankets than that I’ve whipped one up out of the shadows myself.
So I lie. Again. “Oh, uh. Yeah. I totally did. I was just teasing.”
Her frown wavers for a beat, then turns into a hesitant grin. She sets the bundle in her hand down, lets the plastic bag hanging off her wrist land on the floor with a muffled thump, then shimmies the backpack off of her back. “You look better. Did you sleep well?”
“Didn’t dream, so that’s something.”
“Any… any visitors?”
“Nope.”
I’m kind of annoyed about that, too. Nine assured me that he erased Rys’s brand so that he wouldn’t be able to track me down anymore. But Nine… I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t hope he’d at least pop in after the sun went down to check on me.
He didn’t. I would’ve known. He didn’t, and I don’t want to think about how disappointed that makes me.
So I don’t.
Instead, I jerk my chin over at Carolina. She might think that I look better after a night’s rest. I wish I could say the same for her. The circles under her eyes are puffy, a dark purple, almost like a pair of black eyes. Did she get any sleep?
I’m not so sure.
