Asylum (Touched by the Fae Book 1), page 13
I’m so used to ducking and hiding when I find myself suddenly in the cemetery. Especially now that I know I’m really here, I don’t want the grizzled old caretaker to find me sitting on a plot, hanging out with a fae who can shoot laser beams out of his palm.
That totally happened. It all happened. Escaping the asylum, visiting the Fae Queen’s gardens, finding Jason… confronting Rys. It all happened.
I wait for the panic to crash over me. It doesn’t. I think I’ve been pushed way past my limit at this point. Like, I’m so spent, I’m looking at the impossible series of events from tonight and just shrugging them off. I mean, it can’t get much worse, can it?
I’m glad I made it here. Just knowing that I’m hiding out in the Acorn Falls cemetery gives me a tiny bit of peace. Doesn’t matter how I got here. It’s night. Nine might be here, but Rys isn’t. The Fae Queen isn’t.
It’s something.
I lean against the nearest gravestone. Robin Maitland, 1912-1989. She had a good, long life. Treasured wife and mother. She sounded nice. I don’t think she’d mind me using her final resting place to take a breather.
The chill of the marble stone cuts right through the material of my hoodie.
Eh. It’s not so bad. It could be raining.
The grass rustles, the swish of Nine’s duster whispering in the wind as he gets to his feet. He moves so that he’s standing in front of me. Without a word, he offers his bare hand out.
“I know you’re kidding.” I sound tired. So very tired. These small catnaps aren’t doing enough for me to recharge. Slumping back on the grass, I lean against Robin Maitland’s headstone. It’s as much for support as it is to cover me from the caretaker’s lantern. “Get back down. You don’t want to get us caught.”
He doesn’t move. “I’m not worried about what a human can do to me.”
No. Of course not.
“Yeah. Well, maybe I’m worried about you’ll do to a human. It’s not the caretaker’s fault we crashed here.”
Nine blinks. His outstretched hand falls to slap the side of his thigh. “You’d want me to spare him? He’s obviously a threat to you.”
So I was right. Dark Fae or Light Fae, it doesn’t matter. Just like Rys killed Madelaine as almost an afterthought, Nine wouldn’t even think twice about offing the cemetery caretaker.
The fae might be beautiful, but they’re also terrible.
“He’s not a threat. He’s an old man who takes care of the graves at night. I don’t want any trouble.”
Even as I say the words, I know it’s pointless. Trouble? I’m already in it up to my ears.
“As you say, Shadow.”
Shadow. I wince, closing my eyes. Did he really have to go there?
“Don’t call me that.”
“It’s your name.”
“My name is Riley.”
“That’s what your first human family called you. That’s not your name.”
My stomach drops to my slippers.
That’s right. Not only has he hidden this prophecy thing from me but, holy shit, he actually knew my mother.
“So my mom named me Shadow?” I say warily. I wish I had more energy. I want to get up and pace, maybe even rant and scream and demand Nine tell me everything, but I’m too tired. I haven’t gotten more than an hour or two of sleep in almost two days. Plus, my panic attacks always take every inch of my strength. I push on, though, because I have to. “Or do you call me that because of that stupid prophecy the other monster mentioned?”
“He’s not a monster.”
“Po-ta-to, po-tah-to. He’s a killer.”
Nine smartly stays quiet.
I grab a handful of the grass that covers Robin Maitland’s grave. I won’t touch him, but I’m frustrated enough to throw the blades at Nine. They flutter in the wind, covering the tip of his shiny boot.
He frowns. “Was that necessary?”
Yes. “Tell me about the Shadow Prophecy.”
“What if the human finds you here?”
“You just said you’d spare him if I wanted you to. I want you to. It’ll be fine. Now, stop stalling. I went with you to that weirdo place. I left Black Pine. Now it’s your turn. What was he talking about? What’s this prophecy and what the hell does it have to do with me?”
Throwing his coat behind him, Nine crouches down so that he’s right beside me. His silver eyes beam in the darkness, brighter than the lantern the caretaker uses. He isn’t blinking, watching every tired line on my face as I wait for him to answer.
I want to go to sleep, but I’m still shaken up from the scene with Rys. What if I do and he follows me into my dreams again? I can’t risk it. Not yet.
“Tell me about the prophecy, Nine. Please.”
Maybe it’s the please that gets to him. I’ll never know. After nodding a few times, Nine begins to explain.
“There’s an ancient prophecy in Faerie. Melisandre has been queen for almost two centuries and she has no plans on abdicating anytime soon. She’s ruthless, Riley, and she’s gone further than most to secure her crown. The lesser citizens call it the Reign of the Damned, though she takes tongues from those who say it.”
I swallow reflexively. She cuts out tongues? Oh, shit. “Okay, well, she sounds like a peach. But what does this queen have to do with me?”
“It’s the Shadow Prophecy. It’s been said that a shade-walker—the Shadow—will have the power to defeat the Fae Queen. With Melisandre’s death, the Reign of the Damned will come to an end. You can imagine that she’s desperate to keep her head.”
Tongues and heads. Good thing I still haven’t eaten—my stomach lurches at the images he’s sticking in my mind.
And that’s not even the worst of it.
It takes me a minute to process what he just told me. I don’t know what I was expecting him to say—but you can bet it wasn’t that. I’m not like Rys. I’m not a murderer. I don’t care what this stupid prophecy says. I’m not about to kill anyone—especially not the Fae Queen.
I’m just a broken human. How would someone like me go up against an all-powerful faerie queen in the first place?
“So what? I’m supposed to be this Shadow person because I can walk through shadows? You can do it, too. You said it was a Dark Fae gift.”
“It is. The Shadow has human blood, though. It can’t be a fae.”
Oh. Wonderful. “Is it true?” I demand. “Am I the Shadow?”
“She believes you are,” Nine mutters. “That’s all that matters. She’ll end your life before you get the chance to end hers. When you were a child, she wasn’t so concerned. But now that you’re coming of age…”
Coming of age. How much do I want to bet that, to the fae, that means twenty-one?
You’ve got to be kidding me. All of Nine’s mentions of a villainous she start to pop up in my memories. After the golden fae—after Rys—asked me to dance that first time and he killed Madelaine when I refused to leave the Everetts with him, I forgot all about the she who was after me. I had a real monster, a male monster, that I spent years obsessing over.
I never knew that it was the Fae Queen who was really after me.
Gulping, I ask him, “And there’s nothing I can do about it?”
“Not right now.”
That’s not a no. I know better than to push him, though. When I was a kid, Nine hated it when I asked him questions. He’d rather I sit and listen because, eventually, he would tell me everything he thought I needed to know. To have him answering my questions, treating me like an equal… I shouldn’t be so impressed, but I am. So the bar hasn’t been set all that high for me. I get it. He made me a promise because he wanted something I didn’t want to give him. Now that I’m out of the asylum, he could decide that that bargain has been met.
I have to get more answers out of him before he shuts the conversation down. He’ll do it. I’ve seen him.
Besides, there’s nothing I can do about the queen right now. So she thinks she has to kill me because I want to kill her? I’ll leave her alone if she doesn’t bother me. That seems fair.
So what if I “come of age” in two weeks? As far as I’m concerned, being twenty-one means two things: I’m out of Black Pine and I can finally buy booze legally.
Committing regicide? Yeah. I’m good.
At least now I know why my mom would’ve turned to another fae to protect me. I still don’t know how she is involved—how she knew Nine, or that the fae were real to begin with—but it makes sense. Nine is a cold bastard. If there was anyone I’d choose to be a protector, it would be him.
“You knew my mom.”
Nine’s expression goes blank. It wasn’t a question, but he treats it like one. “We’ve met.”
“That’s what he said. I didn’t want to believe him.”
“Who? Rys?”
I can’t bring myself to say his name. “Yeah. The Light Fae. He said she commanded you to watch over me. How? She’s a human.”
His eyes dim. “Do you believe him?”
That’s not an answer. Is my Dark Fae trying to be tricky?
“Hey, if you can interpret that any other way, be my damn guest. But I think that he was being pretty clear with what he said. No double meanings that I can figure out.”
Nine turns away from me. His strong profile beneath the moonlight has me wondering why I’m trying to pick a fight with him. He sighs and, for a moment, when the cloud cover passes right over the moon, I think he’s fading back into the shadows.
Then the clouds roll swiftly by and Nine is still there, avoiding my earnest gaze.
“Fine,” he admits. “When you were very young, I struck a bargain with a human woman to repay an old debt of mine. Your mother. I gave her my word that I would watch over you if anything ever happened to her. I have only done what I promised to do.”
It’s a good thing I’m sitting on the ground. I feel like I’ve been sucker-punched. A sense of betrayal weighs my gut down like rocks. I’m suddenly aware that I never pushed for the reasons why he constantly visited me when I was little. I took it for granted that he wanted to—not that he was forced to.
Or that, all along, he only acted on orders from a mother who wanted to keep me protected.
“And you never thought that you should tell me that?”
Nine has the nerve to look surprised, like he doesn’t quite understand why I’m so upset. “Why would I?”
“She was my mother!” I explode. “You let me spend my whole life thinking she didn’t want me!”
“Yes,” he says softly. His calm tone just makes me angrier. “But what would knowing that have done? It won’t bring Callie back.”
That’s it. That’s the last straw. You can only take too much until you crack and, deep down, I’ve been a fragile mess for most of my life. I’ve got this tough facade, hardened over the years, but it’s only that—a facade. I’ve been splintering for a while now.
Of everything he’s said, the casual way he uses her name is it. It’s enough to make me shatter.
I push up off of the ground. Pure fury burns through my fatigue. My cheeks feel like they’re on fire. My hands, too. I want to push him. To shove him. To hit him and hit him and hit him until Nine knows what it feels like to hurt the way that I’m hurting now.
His betrayal cuts like a knife. Tears spring to my eyes, almost like blood on the floor.
I don’t want him to see. Wiping angrily at my face, the leather burning against my skin, I storm away from him.
“Riley… Riley! Stop. Where do you think you’re going?”
Without turning around, I snap back. Let the caretaker hear me. I don’t give a shit.
“Me? I’m going as far away from you as I can. Look.” The moon’s shining high over my head. It leaves a sliver on the dirt path, shadows wafting on the borders. “Shadows. Maybe I can jump in one and I’ll be back at Black Pine.” I leap, landing unsteadily, one of my slippers slipping out from under me. I angrily jam my foot back inside. “Oh, well. Guess not.”
Nine takes two purposeful steps closer. His entire form is tensed. He’s ready to come after me if I don’t listen to him.
Yeah. Let him try.
I stomp off again.
His voice follows me. “Riley. You must stay with me. Rys has his own motives, but the queen could send any of my kind after you while it’s still dark.”
Wow, Nine. That was absolutely the worst thing to say to me right now.
I whirl on him, shoving my hair over my shoulder so that I can focus all of my unadulterated rage on him. “And?” I shoot back. “Maybe I should stick it out and wait for him. The Light Fae told me more about what’s going on in my life tonight than you did in fifteen years.”
“Don’t say that. You don’t know what he’s capable of. He killed your friend just to get to you.”
That’s a slap in the face. I recoil from his harsh words.
As if I had forgotten that.
It takes a second for me to recover enough to retort. “Oh, yeah. Thanks for that, by the way. I know you left me behind, but at least you could’ve warned me about him before he snapped my sister’s neck.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
I clap. The leather muffles the sound. “You did an amazing job. Six years in the asylum, haphephobia, and the ugliest hands you’ll ever see. Plus, Madelaine’s dead. She was my sister. Why couldn’t someone protect her?”
“There’s more to it than that.” Nine gentles his voice. He’s trying to placate me, to keep me from flipping out entirely, saying or doing something I’ll regret. It’s like pouring gasoline on the raging fire of my emotions. “If you would just calm down and let me explain—”
I shake my head. No. No. It’s too little, too late. I don’t want to hear anything else he has to say. No more worthless ‘explanations’. Humming out loud, I cover my ears in a bid to drown his sensible voice out. I don’t care if I look crazy. After all this time, I’ve gotten used to it.
And then Nine does something that I’m not expecting. Moving so fast, as if he teleported from his spot to right in front of mine, he lashes his hand out, wrapping his deceptively strong fingers around my wrist.
My sleeve rides up enough for his fingertips to find a patch of my skin. It sends a shock through my entire system, making me let out one hell of a primal scream. Nine tears one hand from my ear before he yanks his arm back.
As soon as he lets go of me, I clamp my mouth shut. I throw myself backward, ducking to the grass when I see the lights in the caretaker office come blazing to life.
The door creaks open, followed by a shout.
“Who’s out there? The cemetery’s closed. Don’t make me call the cops!”
My pulse thuds. Huddled in the grass, I shove my sleeve up, rubbing his aggressive touch from my skin. I can still feel it lingering there. I wipe at the patch, trying to erase it. Not because it’s Nine or because he’s a fae, but because that wasn’t my choice.
The caretaker stands on the porch for a few seconds that seem like a lifetime. I can’t tell if Nine slipped into the shadows and disappeared or not. I don’t see him, but I’m also super focused on the open door. I shouldn’t have screamed. I didn’t want to involve the old man. And, sure, the cops might be able to help me—but not if I get busted for trespassing.
As soon as the caretaker decides he scared some no-good screamer off his property and heads back inside, Nine is suddenly there again.
He’s cradling his right hand. Unless I’m seeing things—and my night vision is actually kinda amazing—there are these faint wisps of pale grey smoke coming from his palm. He flexes his fingers, careful to keep his hand turned toward his chest.
I’m immediately distracted from my anger. What’s up with that?
I jerk my chin at him. “Aren’t you going to give me a hand up?”
Nine holds out his left hand to me.
Yeah, that didn’t work the way I wanted it to.
I shake my head. I definitely don’t take his hand. “Forget it. What’s up with the other hand, Nine?” An eerily familiar scent drifts on the breeze. My stomach turns. I know it too well—it took months before I got it out of my nose after the fire. “Why does it smell like burning flesh?”
He doesn’t say anything. Instead, his lips pulled into a thin line, Nine shows me his hand. Each finger is burned raw, red blisters on every inch of his palm.
I stare in horror.
His pale skin is utterly destroyed.
14
“What the hell—”
Nine blinks, stretching his fingers as if he’s trying to slough off the ruined skin. I want to tell him to stop. His face is completely stoic. Except for the constant stretch, he doesn’t give any indication that his hand’s gotta be killing him.
“And now you see why I must have your permission.”
Because he touched me. Without my permission, he can’t leech any power from a touch. I didn’t know that it burned the shit out of him, though.
I think back to the recently healed skin I saw on his hand earlier. It was when we landed in Faerie, right after he grabbed me without permission in my room. I know fae have crazy fast healing abilities—it’s part of their magic—but I never put two and two together before. He must’ve been burned then, too.
So why did he do it? Why was it so important to him that I leave the asylum? Or listen to him try to explain? He had to have known what would happen if he grabbed me when I wouldn’t let him.
I’m grateful when he tucks his burnt palm back into his chest. It reminds me too much of what my hands looked like after I reached through the enchanted flames to get to Madelaine. I didn’t know she was dead. I had hope, and I would’ve walked through fire to save my sister. She was my best friend—except for Nine—and she was normal. Even better, she treated me like I was normal. She didn’t deserve to die.
Rys dared me to save her. I tried. I really did. I managed to push my hands through the fire that circled Madelaine’s body. It was so hot. So fucking hot. It burned the skin right off my hands, the white-hot agony making it impossible for me to go any further.
I blocked out a lot of what happened next. Dealing with my grief following Madelaine’s death was almost as difficult as what I went through to save my hands. The burns were so bad that I needed multiple surgeries just to get to the point where I could finally have an autograft done. Seeing Nine’s injury now, my fingers start to throb in sympathy pain.
