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Chapter14
Time passed slowly.
Even when it seemed it shouldn’t. Even when it seemed it wasn’t not. No windows lined my cell. No light in the hallway existed save the flickering of dim torches.
Who the hell lived like this when they had magic? Torches, really?
I’d been dozing on and off for what could have been an eternity. Maybe not an eternity. I wasn’t at the point of starvation, I didn’t think. Unless perhaps I was delirious enough to not realize I was hungry.
No, I’d been starving at other times in my life. This wasn’t a time like that. I leaned my head against the stone. I was so cold now, even the chill of the stone seemed warmer than my skin.
I rolled my head back and forth until the swaying played a beat in my head. I smiled, surely looking like a crazy person beaten up and sitting alone listening to music only I could hear.
My smile grew, and with the swaying came a song. It’d been a while since I’d last sung, and though my chest hurt, I belted out the words any way. Thinking about starvation reminded me of the last time I actually sang. On a street corner a few blocks away from the Smithsonian back home. I panhandled the shit out of the tourists that day, entertaining them so that I could throw together five dollars for greasy hot dogs and pretzels.
I hadn’t eaten in days, Darryl had been on a binge and hadn’t come home. There was zero food in the house, and I had no money. So singing to strangers it was. And it had been a solid day. I even had enough to snag a few cans of SpaghettiOs from the supermarket before heading home that night.
I smiled again thinking of how I’d saved myself then. I had to save myself now. Somehow.
I swayed again, closing my eyes and moving my head slowly back and forth on the stone.
I stilled when I thought I heard a noise but shrugged it off.
Then it was louder. Like running. Something running. Toward me. I scurried back in my cell, trying to hide in the shadows in case it was a guard. How could I ready myself?
The cell doors crashed open.
“Cora?”
“Noah!” I cried out.
Before I could finish saying his name, he was on me, wrapping me in a hug.
I flinched, shaking, and let out a muffled cry as I hugged him back, burying my head in his neck. It was the closest I’d been to him and part of me thought that perhaps he was in my imagination.
He pulled back and brushed my hair from my face. “I’ve only been granted a few moments.” He reached down and I put my hand in his wincing, since I hadn’t stood up and moved as much as I should have. “Are you hurt?”
“Mmm, I’m fine,” I lied.
The tsk from Noah indicated he knew I wasn’t being honest.
I didn’t want him to worry, but maybe he should know something closer to the truth. “The guards may have gotten too rough with me. I am human after all, and while I can take a few hits, a beating when I’m outnumbered by fae does a bit of damage.”
“Trust me, they’ll pay.” His threat sputtered out through clenched teeth.
Noah wrapped his arm around my waist as he led me to a hard cot, one I hadn’t actually noticed on the other side of the cell, and sat down.
“Right now, I need you to be honest with me, Cora,” he said, looking at me as I sat. He knelt in front of me and his face was so close to mine I almost forgot to breathe. “Are you a spy?”
“No!” I cried out, offended he’d even ask. “No, I’m not a spy.”
Noah’s shoulders sagged forward and he looked toward the open cell doors and back. “There are two guards in the hall waiting for me. They’ll make sure I stick to my time, so we must be quick. I need you to tell me everything about yourself. Who you are. Where you’re from. And why you’re here. In your words.”
I rubbed my face as Noah rested his hand on my knee.
“My name is Coraline Fray. I’m a nobody, Noah. An orphan. I was born and raised in Washington, DC, it’s the capital of the United States, my country, where I’m from. I’ve been in the foster system her whole life—”
“What is a foster system?” Noah asked, his head tilting as he was trying to take in what I was saying.
