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When his gaze turned to her, something in his midnight eyes softened. I would have laughed if it wouldn’t have tugged at my fresh wound.How did she manage to win everyone and everything over?
“That’s very kind,” I said, honestly. Clearly if he wanted to hurt us, he would have.
“What did those men want from us?” Lina’s voice was strained.
Ucafre laughed, but the sound was without humor.
“Women, you mean,” he added, with a shake of his head. “They are Wraiths, and they are female, and they likely wanted to eat you.”
Lina gulped, her rapidly changing skin color pulsating and glowing in the dark cave. Her hedgehog snuggled next to her, to either offer comfort or take it.
“Do you have any advice for evading the wraiths going forward?” I asked.
He fixed me with another long stare, unblinking and eerily expressionless, before he answered.
“They cannot cross the water,” he said, gesturing toward the river just beyond the waterfall.
Relief flooded me, but he wasn’t finished.
“However, they are hardly the most dangerous thing in this forest.”
“Of course not.” Lina practically sparkled up at him. “You’re more dangerous than they are.”
He shook his head at her, but not unkindly.
“No, little wingless fairy.” He said it almost affectionately. “I happened upon them when they were weak—tired. They usually hunt at night, so whatever circumstance brought them to you during the day worked in your favor, but don’t be fooled. Things here are not as they are in your part of the world, and anything that can afford to stand out in this forest is deadly.”
I swallowed a little at his sobering words, but Lina only seemed to hear one thing.
“Fairy? Does that mean they’re real? You’ve seen people like me?”
He nodded, reluctantly. “More or less,” he said.
“But they have wings. And I don’t.” Her shoulders sagged, her color turning blue. “So I really am alone.” She whispered the last bit more to herself than to either of us.
Her words sliced at something inside me for reasons I couldn’t quite explain. Before I could process that, she squared her shoulders, her skin reverting back to rose-gold.
“No, I can’t believe that. Even if I’m not a real fairy, if I’m not from here, surely they’ll still know more about me than I do.”
I was unreasonably envious of the way she managed to face everything with that relentless spirit of hers. I had always assumed it was the kind of false confidence you developed when you led a life as sheltered as hers had been, but her mother had died, and her best friend had abandoned her, and she was still going strong.
Lately, I was not so sure I had ever really known her at all.I’ve never even realized how unhappy she’s been all these years.
“Here.” The man placed a wooden bowl in front of me, pulling me from those thoughts. “This is abloodshroom.”
I had certainly survived on worse than the slimy red mushrooms he presented me, but that didn’t make them much more appealing. At my hesitation, he spoke up again.
“No, they aren’t toxic, and they contain no actual blood, if that’s what you’re wondering. They are simply fortified with iron, and will help you regain what you’ve lost.”
For an unreasonable moment, I thought he was talking about something else entirely.What I’ve lost.My gaze slid to Lina before I chastised myself internally. She was right here. I hadn’t lost her.
Not yet, anyway.
Belatedly, I put the two things he had said together, though, and realized he was talking about my physical blood loss.
Sweet fairy hell, I needed to get some sleep.
19
