by Box Set
“We’ll have to get to Creepy Hollow the old fashioned way: on foot.” He shuffles around a bit, then reaches for the backpack and places it under his head. “Bran said this assignment was local, so I’m hoping it’s close to where the human realm crosses over into the fae realm. We can check the map book in the morning.”
“Okay.” Fortunately, I know exactly where the human realm crosses over into the fae realm. That’s the way I was supposed to take Nate home after he followed me into the faerie paths. That all seems so long ago. Even Nate’s betrayal is starting to seem like it happened in another lifetime. It doesn’t hurt so much anymore. “I hope local means really local,” I say, “because if we don’t get back to the Guild by the cut-off time on Friday afternoon, I’m probably going to go into a serious depression. I cannot fail my final assignment.”
Ryn sighs. “I think you should prepare yourself for possible failure, V. We’re already going to lose points for not being able to bring back the necklace, and we know nothing about it other than its name. If we return late in addition to all that, we’ll definitely be failing this one.”
“We did get the necklace,” I tell him. “It’s hiding right here.” I hold up one of the silver balls around my neck, noticing that my burnt fingers don’t feel quite so sore anymore. “And we do know what it’s for. Didn’t you hear what Zell said while you were hiding in the faerie paths? He told his mother that she didn’t deserve to be immortal and that he’d never give her this necklace.”
“Immortal? I must have missed that.” Ryn rubs a hand across his jaw. “But earlier on he was going to give up the necklace in exchange for you.”
“Well, he obviously changed his mind and decided immortality was more important than having me find special faeries for him.”
Ryn rolls onto his side and looks at me. “So this necklace grants immortality. That’s pretty cool. I wonder how it works.”
“Maybe when you’re wearing it you can’t die,” I say, “even if you’re injured so badly that the magic in your body is unable to heal you. The magic in the necklace must be more powerful.”
“I wonder what would happen if your head were cut off? Do you think it would still work then?”
“That’s just gross, Ryn, and don’t even think about testing it out on me.”
A look of horror flashes across Ryn’s eyes before he shakes his head. “Do you honestly think I’d cut your head off, V? I thought we’d reached the friend stage by now.”
Yeah, and then we reached the stage where your naked chest suddenly seemed appealing, and I started applying words like ‘delicious’ to your lips and—
What. The. Freak? I slam a mental gate down on my thoughts, trying to force my brain back to neutral. I am not the kind of girl who thinks things like that, and Ryn is not the kind of guy I should be thinking them about. He’s the guy who threw my mother’s tokehari necklace away. The guy who made sure I had no friends at the Guild. I’ve seen his rudeness and condescension toward just about every Guild girl who’s ever had any interest in him, and I certainly don’t want to be on the receiving end of that.
“Uh, yes, the friend stage.” I nod. “I know you wouldn’t cut my head off.”
Ryn frowns as he watches me, as though trying to figure something out. Damn, am I blushing or something? Did I have a weird look on my face while trying to get my insane thoughts under control? I turn my head and stare at the sky, which is a lot safer than staring into Ryn’s eyes. It isn’t nearly as beautiful as a Creepy Hollow sky, but it calms me nonetheless. My gaze drifts slowly from one twinkling star to the next. “Remember when we used to draw star-to-star pictures in the air with our styluses?” I say.
“Yes, and then we’d try to guess each other’s drawings.”
“Remember that dragon Reed spent so long drawing one night?”
Ryn nods. “And you and I were both adamant that it looked like a weirdly shaped pegasus because the legs were too long for a dragon.”
I laugh. “He was so determined to make us see a dragon, but we were both laughing so hard we could barely follow what he was saying.”
Ryn’s laughter joins mine, and it feels so natural, so familiar and comforting, that by the time our chuckles subside into silence, something feels different between us. As though we’ve finally got back to that place we were at before Reed died.
“You should sleep, V,” he says quietly. “You need rest for your wounds to heal.”
My wounds. I’d almost forgotten the pain, but now that he’s mentioned it, I become aware once more of the aching throughout my body. “Yeah, I guess.”
He turns onto his side, facing away from me. His not-so-white-anymore shirt pulls tight over his back, but I don’t imagine the taut muscles just below it because Ryn is my friend, and it isn’t right to think thoughts like that about a friend.
“You don’t want the blanket?” I murmur sleepily, realizing after a few minutes that he has nothing to cover himself with.
“No, I’m fine, thanks. If I get cold in the night I’ll just pinch it from you.”
Eleven
In my dream I’m in a park fighting a goblin. It’s the same assignment I went on a few weeks ago, but the weather is different. Lightning splits the sky into jagged pieces, and deafening thunder causes the ground to shudder. Wind whips strands of hair across my face as I slash at the goblin with my sword. A trail of sparks follows the blade. I know I’m supposed to kill him with the sword—I remember that happening—but for some reason, I decide to do something different now.
I let go of the sword, and it vanishes. Flames begin to dance and flicker across my open palms. They shouldn’t burn me, because they’re my flames, but they do. I run at the goblin, screaming both in anger and because of the pain in my hands. I wrap my burning fingers around the goblin’s neck. He’s strong and should be able to fight me off, but dreams don’t work the way reality does, and instead I find him struggling beneath my grip. I manage to force him to the ground, my hands never leaving his neck until he becomes still.
I stand back, the flames still burning in my palms, and suddenly the goblin is no longer a goblin. Now it’s Nate lying at my feet, his lifeless eyes staring blankly at the stormy sky. But it isn’t a stormy sky any longer. It’s a tunnel. The tunnel I killed Nate in. No, not Nate. I killed the shapeshifter who took on Nate’s form. So who is lying at my feet now? Did I just kill the real Nate?
No no no! What have I done? I tug at my hair in anguish. The flames are all over me now, burning brighter and brighter, and hurting so much I can barely—
I wake with a start, my hands burning just as much in reality as they were in my dream.
“Hey, are you okay?” Ryn crawls over to me and takes my arm. His fingers are cool against my skin.
“Just a dream …” I say, sitting up and staring at my hands. The grey light of dawn reveals an absence of flames, but the burning is definitely real. “My hands. I can feel them burning. Look at how red the skin is—”
“Calm down,” Ryn says, but he hurries to open the backpack and pull out the first aid kit. “Now which one did I use last night?”
“Man, this lack of magical healing thing is really not cool.”
“Here.” Ryn takes one of my hands and quickly squeezes gel onto it. The relief I feel is immediate. “Better?” he asks.
“I can still feel some pain, but it’s definitely a whole lot better.”
“See? The human stuff does work on you.” He spreads a thick layer of gel over my hands and wrists while I blink a few times in an attempt to wake up my fuzzy head. I’m not used to feeling this tired; the magic inside me usually replenishes my energy pretty quickly. Ryn moves to my other hand. “Do you see them in your dreams?” he asks quietly.
“Them?” I echo.
“The ones you’ve killed. From your past assignments.”
Oh. Them. I don’t want to answer him. I’ve never enjoyed talking about the creatures I’ve had to kill, despite the fact that Tora forces a counse
ling session on me each time it happens. I prefer to pack all my feelings away into the Stuff I Don’t Think About box in my head and leave them there.
“I do,” Ryn says. “Not always, just every now and then.”
After a moment, I say, “So do I.” He’s making an effort to be honest with me about something, so I suppose I should reciprocate. “I try not to think about them at all, but they often show up in my dreams.”
He nods. “It sucks.” He twists the cap back onto the tube. “I hope your hands begin to heal soon because there isn’t much of this stuff left.”
It seems our conversation about killing things is over. Thank goodness.
Ryn pulls out the map book and locates the road we’re on. Good thing one of us was paying attention to the names of the streets instead of just throwing up on them. I let go of my control freak tendencies and let Ryn figure out the way home while I rest my head on my knees. It’s a new feeling, trusting someone else to do something that directly affects me, but right now I kind of like it.
“Okay, it looks like it should take us about two days to reach the point where this realm meets the fae realm,” Ryn says after examining a few pages.
“So, it’s Wednesday morning,” I say, “which means we should get there by tomorrow night. That’s before the cut-off time.”
“And then we’ll have to get through the forest to the Guild.”
“Okay, but we should still reach the Guild before the end of Friday afternoon, right?”
“If you don’t hold us up,” Ryn says with a grin. He packs away the blanket and first aid kit while I stand around uselessly with sticky, gel-covered hands. “Next thing I’ll have to feed you because you can’t hold your own energy bar,” he says.
“Not happening. I’d rather stay hungry until this gel stuff has dried.”
* * *
We walk. Along the streets, through the parks, and past the shopping centers. I feel horribly vulnerable, not only because I’m barefoot and wearing little more than a torn dress, but because without my magic I have no glamour to conceal myself from the human world. I wonder what people must think of us as they drive by in their cars. They probably take one look at the blood smeared across Ryn’s shirt and step on their accelerators.
We eat energy bars for breakfast and lunch—the one with the dark chocolate around the outside is definitely my favorite—and continue walking after dark to make up for my slow pace. I want to push myself to keep walking all night, but when we reach a quiet neighborhood, Ryn decides we should stop. After having an altercation with a dog in the first garden we try to creep into, we find a pet-free property.
“How are you feeling?” Ryn asks as we sit down behind a small tool shed.
“Tired, sore, hungry, and really mad at the person who improved these magic-blocking bands. The last time I had one on I managed to force some magic out. It was incredibly painful, but it worked. Now that isn’t possible anymore.”
“Oh, I didn’t think to try that.” Ryn sits up straighter. “Maybe—”
“No.” I shake my weary head. “When we were in his dungeon, Zell told me he improved the bands so they now block magic completely.”
“And you believed him?” Ryn looks down at his arm, his expression becoming intense. The skin around his metal band grows red and inflamed, and I swear I can hear sizzling.
“Stop!” I grab his arm with my still very tender but no longer burning hands. “Don’t be an idiot, you’re just hurting yourself.”
“Flip, that was rather painful,” Ryn says, sounding a little out of breath. “Why didn’t you stop me sooner?”
I close my eyes and shake my head before leaning back. “I don’t have energy to argue with you.”
“In that case, you need another energy bar.” Seeming to forget his pain, Ryn reaches for the backpack and unzips it. “Then you’ll be ready to argue all night long.”
I groan. “Another energy bar? Is that the only food item you managed to find in that kitchen?”
“There was a box of them on the counter. I just grabbed as many as I could. If you’d prefer to eat nothing, though, that could definitely be arranged.”
I stick my tongue out at him. Yes, my tongue. Because that’s how much I care about being mature right now.
Ryn pulls two bars out of the bag. “Okay, do you want the nut one or the chocolate one?”
Despite the fact that I obviously want the chocolate one, I say, “I don’t mind. Whichever.”
“Just pick, V.”
“No, I don’t mind. Really. I like them both.”
“Here. I know you want that one.” He hands me the chocolate one with a grin.
“You don’t know that.” But I take the bar from his outstretched hand.
“Yes, I do. I know you a lot better than you think, V.”
“Whatever.” I tuck my legs beneath me. “You just missed out on eight years of my life and now you want to tell me you know me?”
Ryn pulls his knees up and rests his elbows on them. “I know when your birthday is. I know that you let Filigree sleep in your bed when you’re cold. I know that you hate being given purple gifts, and I know that you have a weird habit of twisting your hair around your finger when you’re nervous.”
“Hey, how is that a weird habit?”
He shrugs. “Maybe because it’s not something I could ever imagine doing myself.”
“Because you’re a guy. That would be weird. And how do you know I still let Filigree sleep in my bed?”
“Do you?” he asks.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Fine. Well, I know that you’ve never dated any girl at the Guild because you think you’re too good for them, and I know that you have a ‘weird habit—’” I make air quotes “—of occasionally pressing your hand against your chest like you have indigestion or something.”
He looks startled for a moment, then turns his face away from me so I can no longer see his expression.
“What? Did I say something wrong? Is it supposed to be a secret that you think you’re too good for any trainee?”
He returns his gaze to me as though nothing weird just happened. “Not at all.”
“So it’s true? You really think you’re too good for those girls?”
His eyes don’t move from mine. “Not exactly. It’s more like I’ve been trying to avoid the mess.”
“The mess?”
“Yeah.” He unwraps his energy bar. “Do you have any idea what girls are like? Far too emotional, far too much of the time.”
“Uh, I am actually a girl, Ryn. And no, I hadn’t really noticed that.”
He finishes chewing and says, “Well, that’s because you’re not like other girls.”
Not like other girls? An awkward silence grows between us. “Wow, thanks, Ryn. Next thing you’ll be telling me I’m like one of the guys.”
He sighs. “I didn’t mean it like—”
“Whatever.” I hold a hand up. “I’m not offended, trust me. I’ve heard a lot worse from you in the past.”
“You see what I mean? You don’t do the whole overreacting thing. In fact, you probably are more like a guy than a—”
“Okay, you should stop talking now before you really put your foot in it.”
He finishes his energy bar, then says, “It’s not like I’ve had zero relationships, though. Undergrounders are pretty cool. I’ve got to know some of them quite well. Believe it or not, they’re not all out to kill us.”
“Undergrounders? Like … the non-faeries who hang out in the super dangerous part of Creepy Hollow known as Underground?”
“The very same place. There was this one really hot girl—well, woman, really—who had beautiful green scales all over her arms and a serpent’s tongue. Man, that tongue was amaz—”
“OKAY,” I interrupt loudly. “I don’t know if you’re making that up to freak me out or if you really did get together with some snake woman, but either way, I don’t need to know the details.”
With a smile I can�
�t decipher, Ryn lies back on the grass. “Since we’re on the subject of relationships …”
Oh no. Please don’t make this conversation about me.
“Halfling boy is the only boyfriend you’ve ever had, right?”
Nate.
It’s the first time I’ve thought of him all day. That must be a record. “Yeah, why?”
“You’ve never dated a faerie?”
“No.” I start to feel uncomfortable. “So what?”
“You’ve never kissed a faerie?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business, Oryn.”
He raises his head and looks at me. His eyes sparkle with mirth. “Like I said before, you’re missing out.”
Before? What is he talking about? He doesn’t volunteer any explanation, and I’m not about to ask him; I’d prefer it if this conversation ended right now.
“Maybe you should give it another chance.”
Or maybe I should have changed the subject when I had the chance.
“There’s got to be some faerie out there who’ll appreciate your unique combination of guardian hotness, competitive nature, and stubborn attitude.”
“Even if there is, it’s not happening.”
“Come on, you’ll never know what you’re missing if you don’t dip your toe back in the dating pond.”
The dating pond? Trust Ryn to come up with a dumbass analogy like that. “I tried, remember? After years of steering clear of the ‘pond,’ I dipped my toe in and almost got my whole leg chomped off by an attractive fish that turned out to be a sea serpent in disguise.”
Ryn chuckles. “I’m sure some guy will come along who’ll manage to impress you.”
“Well, it’ll have to be one seriously impressive stunt to convince me he’s worth it.”
“Like what?”
I shrug. When I don’t continue, Ryn looks at me with raised eyebrows, as if waiting for an answer. “Jeez, I don’t know, Ryn. Like a gazillion glow-bugs lighting up the night sky with their tiny glowing butts or something.”