Asylum (Touched by the Fae Book 1), page 11
Nine spits out a word. Another one of those foreign words.
I try to echo it. “Ash-lynn? What?”
“He agreed that this was the only option I had. The asylum. It might have kept you alive, but at what cost?”
So this Ash-lynn person is a guy. It’s not the golden fae—Nine called him Rys—which means there’s another one out there who knows about me.
Great. Just great.
“Who the hell is Ash-lynn?”
“I can’t explain. Not yet. Not now.” Nine shakes his head when I start to argue. “Later, Riley. I swear it. But not now. Now, we have to go.” He holds out his hand. “Come with me.”
And… we’re back to that again.
“I can’t leave the asylum. I’m not like you. I can’t just disappear.”
“That’s what you think.”
“Nine—”
“You can leave this place any time you want to,” he tells me.
And then he drops the bomb:
“How else are you visiting the cemetery?”
11
How does he know that? Nobody knows that. Apart from drawing her stone angel during art therapy, I never share my sister with anyone in here unless I’m forced to during sessions.
Hell, even I’ve spent the last few years believing that my nighttime visits to Madelaine’s graves are just really, really vivid dreams. Rain-soaked bangs? Sweat. Mud on my slipper? I must have stepped in something in the common room. I made excuses for it all because I had to. Anything else was impossible.
“How do you know that?” I demand.
Nine arches one midnight black eyebrow. It’s a dark slash in his pale face as he says, “Do you deny it?”
“They’re just dreams.”
“For some, perhaps. But not for a shade-walker.”
“A what?”
“It’s a gift. A fae blessing. A shade-walker has the power to travel through shadows,” Nine explains. “You can go wherever you want, whenever you want.”
“I’m not a shade-walker.”
“You are.”
He’s telling the truth. But this is… this is insane. And that’s saying something, coming from someone like me.
“Really? I’ve wanted out of here for close to six years now,” I scoff. “I’m still here.”
“Oh? That’s probably because you’ve never tried before.”
He’s got me there. I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a shadow and thought, Hey, I can travel through that.
Nine is serious. I can tell. He’s wearing the same expression he always used to wear whenever he told me stories about Faerie. Like he’s teaching me something that I need to know and—oh, shit, I’m not supposed to be buying into any of this.
“Shade-walking is easier to do when you’re sleeping. Your conscious mind will fight against what it deems impossible but, unconscious, there are no limitations to what you can do. Explains your graveside visits. With a little practice, you can control the shadows. It’s a Dark Fae gift. I can teach you how to use it.”
“Wait— wait. I’m not saying I believe any of this, but if I do? How do I have this gift?” A horrible suspicion hits me. “I’m… I’m not a Dark Fae or something, am I?”
Nine scowls at the same time as I realize that my horrified expression probably just insulted him. “No, you’re not. It’s a Dark Fae gift, but some are just born with it. In your case, you were—it’s what drew you to the Fae Queen’s attention. No changing it now. It’s time for you to use that. If anything happens to me, it might be the only thing that can save you.”
I ignore that part. The fae have been chasing me for more than twenty years according to Nine. They can wait five more minutes while I wrap my head around this whole shade-walking thing.
And it’s not like I want to believe him—I don’t—but there have been too many mornings where I woke up exhausted with dirty slippers and the smell of graveyard soil in my nose.
“Okay,” I admit. “Fine. So I visit the cemetery in my dreams. But I always wake up here. I’m not really going anywhere.”
“Yes, Riley, you are. You have to understand. You come back to this place because it was safe. This asylum took over as your protector while I kept you shielded. But that time is over with. I’m here to take my job back.” Nine extends his arm. “Come to me. Give me your hand.”
It’s the one thing I can’t do. Not even for Nine. Too many years being taught that I should never, ever willingly touch a fae makes me refuse. Now that I know he’s one of them, it’s not even a question.
“I can’t.”
“You can,” argues Nine with a frustrated sigh, “but you won’t.”
I shrug. “Call it what you want. I’m not gonna let you anywhere near me. Sorry.”
“Very well. Then I’ll just have to do it myself.”
What? No. “You’re not allowed. You need my permission. You can’t—”
The creak of my doorknob turning cuts through the room, interrupting my frantic shouts. I clench my jaw shut, clamping my teeth together because, if I don’t, I’ll start screaming. I know I will. And the last thing I need is to be sedated again.
Frankie peeks his head inside of my room. The fluorescent light bulb continues to flicker, the light bouncing off of his oily hair. I only realize how loud the hum has gotten when Frankie glances up at it in confusion.
I use those two seconds to steal a look at the corner.
As sudden as he arrived, Nine is gone. Good. I don’t know what would have been worse: explaining Nine to Frankie if the big tech saw him, or dealing with reality when it turned out that Frankie couldn’t.
He points up at the dying bulb. “This just go out?”
I can’t speak yet. My heart is lodged in my throat, thumping away like mad. Okay. I was wrong. The absolute last thing I needed right now is to deal with one of the techs walking in on me while I’m having a full-blown freak-out at Nine.
Who cares that the Shadow Man is gone? It actually makes it worse.
Gulping, trying to force back the lump inside my throat, I simply nod.
“I was coming to tell you that it’s lights out. Gonna lock the doors in a few. You okay in here, Thorne?”
My mouth is dry. That was a direct question. I’m not so sure I can get away with nodding again. My voice is weak, a little shaky, as I try to come up with a reason why I look like I’m about to lose it. Frankie’s not dumb. I see the furrow in his brow as he peers closely at me. He knows something is up.
I point at the light. “Just trying to figure out how to get it to stop doing that. It’s kinda freaking me out, the way it keeps flickering like that. You don’t think it’s gonna blow, do you?”
He glances up at it in concern, as if the idea has occurred to him, too. “Better safe than sorry,” he decides. “I’ll go get maintenance.”
“Oh. Really? Thanks.”
“Hang tight. I’ll be right back.”
Frankie closes the door behind him when he leaves. There’s not much time. I immediately scramble out of my bed, tiptoeing toward the door. There’s a small, square window in the center. I peek out into the corridor.
Nurse Pritchard is standing near the nursing station, filing a chart. Kelsey is putting her coat on, ready to end her shift. Frankie is nowhere in sight.
“I don’t like the way he was looking at you. He watched you too long.”
At the sound of the lyrical voice with a harsh edge, I whirl around just as the fluorescent light finally gives out. It pops, the light dimming as the annoying humming whines to a stop. All I can hear now is my frightened breathing.
Nine moves like a cat. I mean it. I never see him come or go. He’s just there. Where did he disappear to?
Even worse, why do I insist on bringing him back?
Squinting in the sudden darkness, I pick him out from the rest of the shadows. “I thought you were gone.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you, especially now that I’m sure the asylum has been compromised. Someone has to protect you, Shadow. I gave my word. I must do this.”
There’s a threat in there that’s impossible for me to ignore. I back up against the closed door, prepared to bang on it if he even so much as looks at me funny. “Stay back. You can’t touch me. I won’t let you.”
“That’s fine,” Nine says solemnly. Then, for the first time tonight, he steps out of the pitch-dark shadows in the corner. The air shifts and I know—I just… I just know—that Nine is actually here with me. Not in the same room, not tucked in the shadows, but within touching reach. He’s really, really here. And then he tells me, “I don’t have to have your permission for this.”
“For what? I don’t understand— ”
“There’s no time. He’ll be back.”
“Nine, what are you— no!”
He grabs my arm in a grip so tight that I can already imagine the bruise that will be there in the morning. I try to jerk out of his grip, but it’s impossible. He yanks my arm and, suddenly, the room starts spinning like I’ve gotten tossed inside of a tornado.
I open my mouth to scream but the sound gets lost in the rush of air. My hair starts whipping around me, the white-blonde strands mingling with Nine’s raven-colored waves. Dark mixed with light. Black and white.
Ha. As if it was that simple.
Everything blurs. Wind whooshes through me, an angry breeze that slaps me with the ends of my hair, my cheeks rippling at the force of it. It’s a chilly burst of air that freezes the tips of my ears. They’ve always been super sensitive and it’s been so damn long since I felt the wind on my skin like that.
It doesn’t last long and by the time my teeth are chattering from the chill, a suppressing heat slams into me. I choke, then gag. That’s probably not because of the temperature change. The spinning is making my already queasy stomach violent.
I used to get car sick when I was a kid. This is ten times worse.
I clamp my eyes shut, screwing my jaw shut so that I don’t throw up my beef stew all over Nine’s shadowy coat. He might deserve it for what he’s doing right now, but I’d only regret it in the end.
My whole body jerks, like when you’re riding on a train and it stops short. If Nine wasn’t gripping my arm so tight, I would’ve gone flying when the world seems to just… stop.
Once I’m standing still, once I’m sure the world has stopped spinning, I crack my eyelids open—and immediately wish that I didn’t.
My first thought is that I probably should’ve paid closer attention to what the nurse stuck in my dixie cup because one of those pills has got to be wrong. I’m tripping pretty hard on something. That’s the only way I can explain what I’m seeing.
The sky is this freaky pink. Not a soft pale color, either, but a dark magenta mixed with large swirls of a deep, burnished gold. I don’t see any sun or stars or even clouds. Just a purply-pink sky.
The trees are even worse. I mean, they’re beautiful—but they look like they’re made of crystals. If it wasn’t for the heat here, or the fact that it’s still June, I’d think they were bare trees with a silver bark, empty branches dripping with icicles. I don’t know how else to explain their sparkle and shine.
The air is thin here, or maybe I’ve forgotten how to breathe. I bend over with my gloves on my knees and look at what should be the grass. It looks like spun sugar or dental floss or, well, anything but grass. Because in the real world? Grass isn’t this shade of a pretty light blue.
Hunched over, torn between running my fingers through the weirdo grass and flipping out because it’s starting to hit me that I’m not in the real world anymore, I finally notice that Nine isn’t holding onto my arm.
For one horrible second, I think that I lost him in the whipping wind, but then I turn around and he’s looming behind me. From the look on his gorgeous face, I’m betting he didn’t expect to be in this strange place anymore than I do.
He catches my eye. Without a word, he puts one long, pale finger to his lips. There’s a shiny patch of raw skin along the side of his finger and most of his hand.
I’ve seen marks like those before. Nine has a freshly healed burn.
“Where are we?” I whisper. And then, because indignation can only protect me so much and I’m two seconds away from shaking in my slippers, I hiss, “So I know I haven’t been on the outside in a while, but I think I would’ve remembered if the sky was pink.”
Nine ignores my question. “Just stay close to me. We went a few portals too far. We shouldn’t be here. I’ll give you a couple of seconds to recover, then we’ll try again.”
Is that a threat? Now that I’m standing straight again, freaking out has won out and I’m way too busy to notice much of anything else. I force myself to pay attention to Nine. He’s a fae, right? A Dark Fae who just proved we can both walk through shadows together. He knows what he’s doing, right?
A couple of seconds, then we’re getting the hell out of here. Okay. That calms me a little.
I still don’t know exactly what this place is. I start turning in circles, marveling at its strange, undeniable beauty when, suddenly, I glimpse someone in the distance, halfway hidden behind one of the trees. I jump back. From his whisper, it’s obvious Nine doesn’t want anyone else to know we’ve popped in. Crap. That’s definitely a person over there.
I blink. Wait a second. That’s… that’s a person. Not a fae. His skin is a light brown shade—not bronzed, not moonlight pale—and, even from where I am, I can tell that he’s shorter than Nine. He’s still tall, though. And there’s something about him that’s… that’s familiar. Squinting, I look closer.
No fucking way.
Nine is hanging back. The Shadow Man’s gotta be proud of himself. He got what he wanted. I’m here, wherever here is, and I’m not screaming my head off.
Yeah. That’s about to change.
Before he can stop me, I bolt. I have to be sure that I’m right. I don’t know how it’s possible, but I have this absolutely awful suspicion about the guy tucked behind that weirdo tree over there. Who knows? Maybe I’m deflecting. I don’t want to deal with Nine so why not run off into this unknown place?
“Riley,” he hisses after me. “No!”
I ignore Nine. He’s bigger than me, and probably faster, but I want it more. I pull up to the tree seconds before I sense Nine closing in on me from behind. That’s more than enough time for me to prove that I wasn’t seeing things.
It’s Jason. And he isn’t moving.
Still as a statue, his big, black eyes wide but unseeing, he has one hand held out in front of him as if he was begging before he was frozen in place. The wispy, floaty candy floss that’s supposed to be grass is creeping up his legs, wrapping around his knees. He’s trapped.
I’ve got to get the hell out of here before that happens to me next.
I back into Nine, hitting his chest with my shoulder in a frantic attempt to escape the terrible truth in front of me. I bounce off of him, my hoodie and his jacket protecting me from another touch. He reaches for me. I dodge him easily, my gloved fingers trembling as I press them to my lips.
Jason. The goofy, smiling, optimistic guy from Black Pine. He always seemed nice, and he spent countless sessions detailing the big plans he had for what his life was going to be like when they finally let him back out.
He’s been gone from the asylum the last few days. I remember missing him at breakfast… what day was that? Sunday. Pancakes. He wasn’t there. He was missing.
No.
Not missing.
He’s in Faerie. With a certainty that I can’t explain, I know that’s where he is.
And, now, so I am.
12
“What happened to him?” The words slip out through the gaps between my fingers. I’m shaking. “What happened to Jason?”
Nine makes a rough sound in the back of his throat. Not a scoff, or a huff. It’s frustration mixed with fury and, despite my shock at seeing Jason like that, I can tell Nine’s not mad at me.
But hell if he isn’t angry.
“You know that human?” he asks.
I nod.
“Then he’s a warning to you.”
What? “I don’t—what? What do you mean, a warning?”
“The Fae Queen. These are her gardens. She would’ve left him here for you to find him if you came to Faerie before she had you brought to her.” Nine’s silver eyes don’t seem so out of place in this otherworld. They shine in his face, a perfect match to the bark on the tree that shadows Jason. “He was in the asylum.”
It’s not a question. I nod anyway.
“How long?”
I swallow roughly. “I don’t know. A year maybe? Two. I didn’t really pay attention. He was nice, though. He doesn’t deserve this.”
“If he’s here, then you can be sure the human deserves a fate far worse than this,” Nine says coldly.
The iciness in his voice stings me. I flinch, then step away from him, balling my hand into a fist and dropping it at my side. “How can you be so heartless?”
“I’m not. My loyalty is to only one who has human blood.” Me. He’s talking about me. “Besides, he was as good as dead the first time he let Melisandre touch his soul. He belonged to the queen. To leave him in her garden as a statue is a kindness compared to what I would have done to the mortal if I discovered he was working against you.”
“Jason?” I turn to look at the statue again, trembling noticeably when it’s pretty damn obvious that he really is a statue. He hasn’t moved an inch. “He wasn’t working against me. I barely knew the guy. He was just another patient inside—”
“No. He wasn’t.” Nine glides easily around me, blocking Jason from my sight. “Don’t you understand? I needed you safe. I needed to put you somewhere protected before the Fae Queen sent her soldiers after you. But she did anyway. Not fae—you would’ve sensed them in your domain the second they crossed into the human world. But another human? You’d never guess they were on the side of the queen.”
“I don’t get it. Why would he work for her?”
