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I don’t know. I won’t know until I get over my stubbornness and call for him to see me again.
It’s been four days in the human realm. Did enough time pass that I can use Nine’s name without having to eat crow first?
Guess I’m going to find out.
13
In the living room of the Wilkes House, there’s a corner tucked near the stairs that I avoid.
It’s not like the basement. It doesn’t take a genius—or a shrink—to figure out why I won’t go down there. I can go near this corner without feeling like all of the air has been sucked out of the room—I just don’t.
Ever since that first night here, I noticed that the corner was darker than it should be considering the way the moonlight shines through the open window. It’s like there’s a boundary surrounding it. At a certain point, the light stops, like it ran into a brick wall.
The corner of my room at the asylum had a strange shadow just like that. A patch of darkness that seems eerily out of place.
I know instinctively what it is.
I made my bed on the other side. It’s where I sleep, far from the bathroom where Rys’s lantern is kept, and opposite of the dark corner. Carolina thinks it’s because I’m careful to stay tucked out of sight in case someone decides to peek in the front window. She keeps suggesting that I should at least find a bedroom upstairs where no one would ever see me.
I can’t. I don’t tell her why, but I have to stay in this room.
I have to keep an eye on the portal.
Who knows what might come popping out if I’m not watching it?
I’ve given up on arguing that I’m the Shadow. After she pointed out the blankets and explained that I manipulated the shadows into something that I could actually touch, I decided it was kind of ridiculous to keep denying it. Either I have this weirdo skill because of the prophecy, or because it’s something a fae can do—and since I don’t want to focus on the fact that I’m half-fae, the Shadow it is.
And, if I’m the Shadow, that means that the Fae Queen’s not going to just let me go. Rys can’t find me, and Nine obviously won’t come for me unless I ask him to, but this is the freaking queen of Faerie we’re talking about. Eventually, someone’s coming for me.
It’s been twenty years that I’ve had that threat hanging over my head. I know time doesn’t work the same in Faerie, but it’s running out. If she was waiting for me to come of age, that deadline’s already gone.
She could come for me at any time. Right now, there’s nothing I can do except wait, and practice, and hope like hell that I can figure out a plan on the fly.
It’s only been a couple of days since I had to accept that I really am the Shadow and, thanks to Carolina smuggling that scrap of paper out of Faerie, there really is a prophecy. I’ll come up with a plan sooner or later.
For now, I’ve only got one thing on my mind.
Sitting in the dark house has done wonders for my night vision. I’ve always been able to see better than I probably should have—perk of being half-fae, maybe—and now I’m almost like a freaking cat, it’s that good. Propping my back up against the wall, I tuck my shadow blanket around my hips and focus on the portal across from me.
My voice cuts through the dark room. “Ninetroir.”
It’s instant. One second, I’m alone. The next?
I’m not.
I knew it was a portal. I freaking knew it. The patch of impossibly black space is suddenly full. He blinked into existence within a heartbeat, the pale, slender figure coming closer and closer as he strides forward.
Just in case I opened the portal and some other Dark Fae has crossed over, I take a deep breath, reach inside of me, and tug. The shadows at my waist thicken, then start to waft higher and higher, providing me with a thin shield—and some cover—as the fae moves into my sight.
The air shifts. It grows heavy, with an electrical charge that seems to carry on the currents. The little hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention as I grit my teeth, fighting against a shiver.
He’s so beautiful, I want to shake loose my shadowy cocoon and throw myself right into his arms.
Whoa.
Down, girl.
Between the way his skin has an unearthly pale glow and his bright silver eyes shimmer and shine, I see everything through the thin gauze of my shadows. The impatience, the flash of fear, the worry.
