He steps away, nearly dancing on his toes as he moves. I… didn’t even realize that I’d gotten so close to him. Hang on— I don’t even remember getting up. I was sitting on the floor when Rys entered the cell, but I’m definitely on my feet now, only a couple of steps out of his reach.
Okay. That was weird.
I cross to the other side of the cell, watching as he gives me his back. He does something with his hands, almost like he’s drawing a portal in the air. I’ve seen a Seelie do that before. Four lines and some magic and there’s a pathway to somewhere else.
Not in here, though. Within the iron bars of our cell, it should be impossible for him to access any of his power. No glamour, no charms, nothing.
I don’t know what he does, but when he turns back around, his hands aren’t empty any longer. I glance behind him. No portal, but he definitely pulled something out of thin air.
It’s not iron—it can’t be—but the… lantern? It looks like a lantern… the lantern is definitely made of some kind of metal. It’s about six inches tall, three inches wide, and there’s a spark of fire floating inside of it. The fireball could probably nestle inside of my palm if I was dumb enough to try to hold it without its cage.
“How did you do that?” I breathe out. “Where did it come from?”
“Do you want it?”
He’s not going to answer me, is he?
I look at the strange metal box he’s holding out toward me.
“What is it?”
“Faerie fire. It’s a Seelie power.”
Oh. I know about that. It’s just like the curtain of flames that the Seelie guards use to hide behind when they visit Posey. Only I could feel the heat coming off of those flames. Sure, this fire is much smaller, but I’m right here. There’s not even a sizzle.
“Touch it.”
Can Rys read my mind? The thought of palming the fire was one of those fleeting what-if’s, like when you’re up against the edge of a railing and you wonder what if I jump? You’re never going to do it, but you contemplate it anyway.
I had to have heard him wrong.
“Excuse me?”
“The fire. It’s okay. Touch the fire.”
The flame’s not hot, but I’m also not a complete idiot. “Yeah… I don’t think I should do that.”
I can’t explain it, but it happens again. I can’t explain what’s going on, only that I dare a peek up at Rys and I just lose myself in his eyes. They’re like two suns blazing out of his determined face, pushing me to do something as reckless as stick my finger in a flame.
I learned a long time ago that fire’s hot. I’ll only burn if I listen to him. Something tells me, though, that I’m burning up anyway.
“What are you doing to me?”
“What I must. It won’t hurt you. I won’t let it. Touch it. You’ll see. Nothing will happen.”
He… he can be charming, I realize. Maybe he used to be, before his scar and before his imprisonment.
And I thought he was dangerous before. That’s nothing compared to now.
“Are you sure?”
“Trust me.”
I nod. Okay. I can do this.
Don’t know why I’m going to, but… I can do this.
Taking a deep breath, I fold my hand into a fist before extending my pointer finger. And then I hesitate.
“Do it, Elle.”
I exhale and, in a burst of nervous energy, I shove my whole damn finger in the flame.
I expect it to hurt. It should hurt. It’s fucking fire!
But it doesn’t. It actually tickles a bit, licking at the side of my finger.
After a few seconds, I draw my finger back, marveling at it. No burn. No pain. No heat. Just my regular, everyday, ordinary finger.
“I can’t believe I just did that.”
“You did.” He grins. “I knew you could.”
It’s the smile that does it. Before I know it, I’m slammed with an attraction I don’t understand—that I definitely shouldn’t be feeling—and I can’t keep from staring at Rys.
Now, I always thought he was pretty. Every single fae male in this place is absolutely gorgeous. It’s kind of in the job description, you know? Be cruel, be cold, be heartless, be gorgeous.
I just… I don’t think I realized how enticing this particular male is until this exact moment.
It’s Rys who breaks the stare. With a frown, he lifts his own finger, reaching up as if to trace the jagged line down his cheek.
Shit. He totally thinks I’m staring at his scar, doesn’t he?
I’ve gotten used to it. It’s there, but it’s just part of him. I actually kind of like it, if only because—as crazy as it sounds—it makes him seem a little bit human. Not that he would agree with me. The way his whole face closes off is a big, honking clue that his scar is a touchy subject.
So what do I do?
Ask him about it, of course.
“How did you get it?”
“The fire will respond to you now,” he says, purposely avoiding my question. His voice goes gruff, the cajoling lilt vanishing now that he doesn’t need to talk me into doing something as crazy as touching fire. “Hide it. You don’t want the guards to catch you with it. I might not always be there to protect you.”
“Protect me? What do you mean—”
“Shh.”
I blink. “Did you just shh me?”
“Yes. Hush.”
“Rys—”
He shrugs and, after pointedly turning away from me, he crosses the cell. “Hush,” he tells me. “I’m using the facilities. Don’t forget what I said.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
Rys stops, one tanned hand bracing against the door to the shower box. Facilities, Rys called it.
I like my name better.
Without even turning to glance behind him, he murmurs, “Someone has to,” before opening the door and disappearing inside of the box.
I let out a frustrated huff.
Ugh. How did I ever think he was attractive?
Well, easy. Because he is.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want to smack him for being an arrogant jerk.
6
There’s only one bed in our cell.
It doesn’t really occur to me that that’s a thing until the fairy lights start to dim. It’s close to light’s out. The torches will ignite shortly, throwing shadows in our cell, signaling that it’s nighttime.
And you think I would’ve picked up on that before. When Rys was in the box, showering or washing up or doing whatever it was I refused to even think about, I took the metal lantern with the faerie fire in it and tucked it all the way beneath the cot. The narrow frame is stuck to the floor—like it’s bolted, but with magic—so I can’t move it. But it’s high up enough that I can shimmy underneath it and hide the fire behind one of its posts.
It’s my only option. Unless I want to open the shower box and hide it inside of there, this is the only hiding spot that the cell offers.
I can’t do that, but Lord help me, the idea of popping open that door and peeking inside is more tempting than it should be.
Naked Rys… mm. All that tanned skin, and the gorgeous hair rippling down his back as he rinses off—
Whoa.
I shake my head. Maybe it’s due to my time hanging around Posey’s cell but, from the moment I came back to Rys’s, I can’t help but notice him. And it’s not like I didn’t already think he was fucking gorgeous. All the fae are, and something about his scar interested me even when I knew it shouldn’t. Maybe it’s the way Jim’s nose is charmingly crooked from a childhood fistfight, but strong features in a man have always attracted me way more than a pretty face.
Sure, his arrogance and the way he hushed me ticked me off, but I was over it by the time he finally left the shower box again. And maybe he feels magnanimous when he’s clean because he’s in a much better mood after he’s done.
We eat together. Because I’ve lost the stash of faerie food that I kept in bo
th of my old cells, I save half of a pomegranate and hide it under the cot, right next to the lantern. Then, because I have this irrational phobia that something’s going to happen with an unwatched flame, I keep dropping to my knees and double-checking it.
I’m doing it for about the tenth time when Rys finally says something.
“You don’t have to keep looking at it. It’s fine where it is.”
I’m halfway under the cot, my feet sticking out as I shimmy on my elbows toward the lantern. Now that it’s growing darker in the cell, the shadows tricked me into believing that the fire was blowing in a different direction. Just in case, I had to check for myself.
“I don’t want to burn the place down or anything.”
My voice comes out strained as I turn the bottom of the lantern with the tips of three fingers, assuring myself it’s still locked tight.
“Did you close the latch?”
Did I?
I turn the lantern toward me one more time to triple-check. “Yup.”
“Then you’re fine.”
“Won’t it go out?”
“It’s faerie fire,” Rys says. He makes it sound like all the explanation I need just by reminding me what it’s called. He doesn’t add idiot to the end of his sentence, but I hear it all the same.
“And?”
“It’s enchanted. It won’t go out, and it won’t leave the confines of its cage until you set it free.”
“Hang on—” I shimmy out from under the cot, rising up on my knees. A stray lock of teal hair falls free of my messy braid. I shove it back. “What do you mean, me?”
Is it my imagination or did his unblinking stare watch as I fiddled with my hair?
Rys shrugs, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s yours now, isn’t it? I gave it to you. The fire will listen to you. You control it until it’s free.”
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
Another shrug. “Hopefully you’ll never have to use it. It’s… a last resort. Understand?”
Maybe?
The fairy lights wink out. In the next breath, the torch lights burst into flame.
Bedtime. And I still have the whole one bed problem to work out.
I remember from the few days where I shared a wing with Rys that he’s an early to bed, early to rise type of guy. I guess it has something to do with him being a Light Fae. He’s the strongest during the day and he usually goes to sleep as soon as it’s dark. Even in Faerie, the shadows tend to weaken him; it’s for the same reason that, at night, the Unseelie rule the prison, though both types of fae work around the clock. Being behind iron bars affects the prisoners more, though. In his case, light’s out really means light’s out.
I’m not surprised when he immediately turns toward the cot. However, when he takes the sheet from it, leaving me the blanket on top, I have to admit I’m not so sure what he’s doing.
Then he lays it on the floor before telling me that the bed is mine.
Holy shit. My scarred, gruff Seelie cellmate is a gentleman.
No matter how I try to convince him otherwise—and, I admit, I don’t try too hard—Rys refuses to take the cot. He says something about how he’s used to sleeping on the ground.
Okay, then.
I wait until he’s made himself a small nest on the stone floor. He has the sheet and I insist that he take the pillow, too. I have the mattress and the blanket. I can spare the pillow.
He fluffs it then places it near the top of the sheet. It doesn’t escape my notice that he’s stretched the sheet out so that his body is directly between me and the cell bars.
I expect him to go straight to sleep. When he doesn’t, I muster up the nerve to say, “Hey. Can I ask you something?”
Rys is laying on his back, hands folded behind his head, his tawny hair splayed out until it covers the entire pillow.
After a moment he asks, “Does it have anything to do with my imprisonment?”
It… might’ve been if he didn’t say that.
The more I learn about Rys, the more I realize I don’t know anything about him at all—and I kind of want to. I can’t explain why, but something about him just intrigues me. He looks and sounds so regal until he reveals his scar and something puts his back on edge. He’s a former guard who worked in Siúcra and for the Fae Queen, but who also is bloodthirsty enough to have wanted to be there to witness her assassination.
He acts like I’m not here half the time, but he saved a pear for me specifically and conjured faerie fire in case I needed it.
Rys is a contradiction wrapped up in a package so pretty, I almost forgive myself for being so drawn to him.
He’s in here with me. A guard turned prisoner. A traitor. Of course he’d expect that I’d want to ask him about the reasons why he’s locked up.
Too bad I can’t now.
“No.” It’s not a lie. Not really. It might have been my first choice, but I’ve got a ton of other questions I could ask him if he’ll give me a chance. “Something else.”
“Very well. Though I might choose not to answer you.”
Fair enough.
One question. Something tells me that this is the only chance I’ll get. If I fuck this up, Rys will go back to being the guarded prisoner from before.
I’ve got to make it count.
“Why are you willing to help me?”
I… definitely caught his attention with that one.
Rys rolls, propping himself up on his elbow so that he can glare right at me. “Excuse me?”
“It’s just…” Okay, Helen. You opened your trap. Might as well run with it. “I’ve heard some of the guards call you a human lover more than once. Is… is that why you’re okay with looking out for me?”
He’s quiet for so long that I regret opening my mouth. Why should it matter what his reasons are for watching my back? Unlike most of the fae males I’ve met so far, he doesn’t seem interested in playing grabby hands or anything.
“I thought I had a mate once. She was human.”
Jealousy slams into me so hard that I actually let out a soft, “Oof.” And that’s crazy. I have Jim waiting for me back home—no matter how we left things—and there’s no reason why Rys having a mate should bother me.
But it does.
“What happened to her?” I ask. It slips out. I don’t really want to know, and I’m probably pushing my luck by asking him another question, but there’s something in the flat way he says that that tells me there’s way more to the story.
“I killed her sister.”
What?
Rys waits for me to say something. When I don’t, he lets out a dark chuckle that has me wishing we were in separate cells again.
“Are you done with your questions, Leannán?”
“Um. Yeah.”
He lowers his body back to the floor. This time, he doesn’t go to his back. He rolls on his side, hiding his face from me.
“Goodnight, Rys.”
His voice is so icy cold when he answers me, I shiver beneath my blanket.
“Sweet dreams.”
Someone’s talking.
At first, I think I’ve got to be dreaming. Since I’ve been in Faerie, I haven’t had a single dream, but to hear two voices having a casual conversation somewhere to my right is so out of the ordinary here, I feel like it has to be a dream.
I’m lying on my back. I’m usually a side-sleeper and that’s another thing that throws me. I start to shift, then roll away so that I can fall asleep when someone starts talking again.
“This isn’t what I had in mind when I insisted she be returned to me.”
I know that first voice. It belongs to Rys.
I immediately freeze. Through slits in my eyes while I stay on my back, I can see the silhouettes of two people. A quick glance toward the floor reveals that Rys is gone. He’s got to be the long, lean shape on this side of the bars.
There’s a twin on the other side. Another male.
“Would you rather the human be lef
t across prison, so far from your reach?” It’s a lower voice, still soft, still clear, but it’s notably deeper than Rys’s. I wish I could recognize it, but I don’t. “Posey entertains the guards. How long before one of them decides to visit your human?”
“They can’t,” argues Rys.
“The captain is gone. If the human agrees, there’s nothing to stop them.”
“Them.” A soft snort. “You know exactly who is trying to claim her. He’s taunting me with it.”
“Dusk is a coward,” replies the unfamiliar male. It’s a guard. It has to be. I don’t know who it can be, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s a guard and not, like, a visitor or a prisoner. “He taunts everyone trapped within Siúcra because he knows that no one can retaliate.”
“He pushes too far. I might not always stand back and take it.”
“You have your ffrindau to protect—”
“She isn’t.” A moment’s pause, then the lyrical voice develops a gruff edge. “She can’t be.”
“The prophecy, Rysdan—”
“Don’t use that name.”
Rys’s retort has such venom in it, I have to look. I have to know who the hell is brave enough to make him that mad.
There’s not enough light in the hall. Either that, or the guard is purposely keeping to the shadows. Without turning my head all of the way, the most I can tell is that it’s a Seelie guard. The pale golden glow coming off his skin is a big clue, but it’s my only one.
He moves closer to the bars, almost as if he’s trying to calm Rys’s anger. “You have to see what I do. Surrounded by sunshine and sky… she has hair of gold woven with blue that surrounds her face. It fits.”
“I thought the same with Zella, her blonde hair and her blue eyes. I was wrong then just like you’re wrong now.”
“You want me to be wrong. You don’t want to admit there’s a chance—”
“Focus on finding your ffrindau,” Rys snaps. It spooks me so much that I close my eyes tightly. I can only imagine how pissed he’d be if he found out I was listening to his private conversation. Nope. “Leave me to forget all about searching for mine.”
“Stubborn fool. You don’t have to stay inside. Oberon has returned. You can pledge your loyalty to the Summer King and make your sacrifice to Siúcra. You can be free.”
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