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“No wonder you look like that. I need soap. And some antibacterial ointment. You could be infected.” She started to get up, but I pulled her back down.
“It’s okay. They’re not infected.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Let’s just work on getting out of here. Then you can clean them with as much soap as you’d like.” I raised an eyebrow and grinned at her.
She swatted at me with the damp rag. I dodged it, kicking the bowl in the process. Water sloshed up the sides but didn’t spill. “Enough messing around,” she said, dipping the rag drop back into the water and wringing it out. “We may not have much time.”
“All right.” I took the bowl and the rag from her. “Let me finish this. You go see what they left us for clothes. Maybe it will give us an idea about what’s in store for us tonight.”
She kissed my forehead and stood. I knew how much danger we were in. If Edric knew Evelyn and I were somehow connected, he could use that against us. And I wasn’t entirely sure that being Edric’s “honored guest” was a good thing. I hoped Sorcha had escaped with the others, as promised. We needed to figure out a way to stay alive and stall him, in the hope that help was already on the way.
I watched her walk to the bars of the cell and bend to retrieve the clothes. She was beautiful. If Edric forced me to reveal myself in front of her, I’d lose her forever. Our laws were clear about what happened to humans who discovered us. Fiona would kill her to protect our kind, and I would be powerless to stop her.
“Looks like they left a gown for me and some pants and a shirt for you.”
I splashed the water onto my face to clear my head, then rinsed the blood from my hair. She held the folded bundle of clothes out to me. I took them from her and handed her the bowl.
“Party clothes,” I said.
“Why is he doing this?” She turned her back to me and faced the wall as she pulled the white gown over her head and stepped into the emerald-green one they’d left for her to wear. She pulled the straps up over her shoulders but left the back open.
“Remember I told you that he thinks my family has something that he wants?” She held her hair up, and I reached for the zipper on her dress. I let my knuckles run over her spine as I pulled the zipper closed. I leaned down and kissed her bare neck.
“He thinks you have Godda?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“But Godda disappeared. That’s what the legends say.”
I nodded and stripped out of my jeans. “Precisely. She went missing. She never returned. But he’s convinced she’s not dead. Probably because, as he told you, he can’t find her spirit.”
“But how could she still be alive? She’d be close to a thousand years old by now.” She wasn’t wrong, but that was well within the possible life span for Fae, even for those who chose to reproduce. Not that I could explain that to her.
“She’s not.” Or at least, we were all fairly certain that she wasn’t. She really had just disappeared. Of course, all this happened long before I was born. I pulled on the clean wool trousers and slipped the black shirt over my shoulders.
“Why would your family know anything about Godda, anyway?”
“We’re related.”
“You’re related to Godda?”
I nodded.
“So I was right. She was just a woman and not a Faerie Queen. Did you tell my uncle this?”
That wasn’t the conclusion I’d expected her to come to, but it was better than the reality. “No. We didn’t really discuss it.” At least it was easy to tell the truth to answer her question.
“Is that why you’re working for him?”
“Partly. I became interested in history because of my family. And it’s my interest in history, especially my family’s history, that earned me the job with your uncle.” No lies, but definitely not the entire truth.
“So, this spirit of Edric thinks you’re going to be able to tell him where Godda is because you’re related?” She reached for the front of my shirt and began buttoning it.
“Yes.” I watched her hands work and wished we were safe, back at the professor’s house.
She paused, clamping one hand over her bare wrist. “That’s why you said I shouldn’t wear the bracelet, isn’t it? Do you think that’s why they captured me? Because of the bracelet?”
