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The apartment has two bedrooms.
I’ve already seen the living room, since that’s where we landed, and if you turn around, you see the hallway that cuts right into the kitchen. The foyer is on my left until I turn, and the hall leads to three doorways. The bathroom is behind one, Ash and Callie’s bedroom is behind another, and then there’s the last door.
It takes a while before I work up the nerve to go back inside instead of hiding out near the elevator. Ash is waiting for us just inside the foyer when I finally do, Callie guiding the way. The shadowed look on his pale bronze face tells me he heard every word, just like I thought. To my surprise, though, he doesn’t say anything other than to offer me some of the cold food I brought back.
The power and the gas are on. Don’t ask me how, since fae magic and electricity don’t get along at the best of times, and it’s not like someone’s been paying the bills the last twenty years, but I’ve learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth. The microwave is old-fashioned and it takes Callie to operate it, but we nuke up the burgers and stand in the kitchen eating them together.
This has probably been one of the longest days of my life. Traumatic as hell, too. Aside from losing Nine and gaining my parents, it’s barely been thirty-six hours since I returned to the Wilkes House and discovered Carolina the way I did.
I need sleep.
I wait until “dinner”’s done and the sun’s gone down before I tell them that I’m about to crash. As soon as the light fades, I notice that Ash loses the little color he earned earlier when the sunlight hit his skin. The dark goes to work on him almost immediately. Callie sees it, too. When I mention I’m dying for some sleep, she agrees and the way she clasps Ash’s hand to pull him toward their old bedroom is a major clue that she’s pushing past her own apprehension and uncertainty by pouring all of her energy into looking out for him.
Good defense mechanism.
Me? I make sure the whole apartment is locked down.
Pointless, I know. If the place is condemned—and I didn’t see any signs of a single squatter—it’s not like anyone is going to try and break in. And if they do? I’m only worried about the fae, and they’ll find a way in, locks or no locks. It makes me feel better, though, and as Callie and Ash retreat to the master, I take deep breath and head for the last room.
I open the door, but I can’t bring myself to walk inside.
It’s… it’s a nursery.
I don’t know why I’m so surprised. I am, though. It’s so fucking creepy. This is their home—and it was mine once, too. Twenty years ago, I would’ve needed a nursery.
This is it.
I can’t sleep in there. Except for the crib turned on its side, the tatters of a baby blanket that looks like it was hacked to pieces with a sword just like the couch in the living room, the nursery is in pristine condition. I almost expect a tired mama to come snuffling in, cooing a lullaby to their dozing infant.
Only the baby that lived here once upon a time is twenty-one, wary, and not about to step foot inside this room.
Nope.
Pulling the door closed with a gentle snick, I move softly down the hall, tiptoeing past my parents’ master bedroom, and head back toward the living room.
Know what? I’ve slept in a cemetery. A sewer. An abandoned house.
Next to all that, even this place is like the Waldorf Astoria.
I shuffle some of the strewn debris away from the corner. I’m glad there isn’t any glass, that on closer inspection the broken shards are hunks of plastic instead; it makes it easier to clear a spot for me. If we stay here—and, for the moment at least, I don’t see what other choice we have—we’re going to have to fix this place up to make it more livable.
Especially since the mess has gotta be a constant reminder to Callie and Ash what happened here—and what I’m desperate to avoid happening again.
Tomorrow, though. That’s something to worry about tomorrow.
Tonight, I curl up in a ball, resting next to Nine’s boot. I snagged a pillow from the destroyed couch. Once I’m settled, I call shadows toward me, sighing in relief when they come easily.
They’re as warm as they are comforting, and they make one hell of a blanket.
For the first time in a long time, I close my eyes and don’t worry about what’s going to happen while I sleep.
It takes a couple of days before Ash is back at full-strength—or as much as he can hope to be, considering that, as one of his latest decrees, we’re staying put in the human world.
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The Light Fae, I’m learning, has a crapton of decrees. Just like he’s learning that I’m not the best when it comes to being told what to do.
He’s my dad. I get it. And it’s obvious that he blames himself for everything that’s happened. Then there’s the whole me being claimed by Nine thing and I feel bad for Callie who is forced to act like a peacekeeper between the two of us.
