Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
“Stop trying to help. I won’t be able to find anything.”
My lashes fluttered open at the man’s low, silky tone muffled through a curtain.
Gazing around, I found myself in a bedroom, covered in blankets and fur, instead of on the table in the main room.
A tiny window let in early evening light, allowing me to see the small chamber.
The bed was a feather mattress on the floor piled with blankets and pillows, making you want to burrow into them and stay until next spring.
Two areas across from each other were sectioned off with shelves stacked with clothes and household items. More ledges were stuffed with books, plants, and personal items.
“I don’t know how you find anything now.” Opie’s small but clear voice flittered in.
“I thought you said you didn’t clean,” Ash huffed.
“I’m not cleaning . . . I’m consciously uncluttering.”
A smile grew over my face, and I slowly pushed myself up. I still felt like crap, my body throbbing, but good enough to head to the bathroom and go on the hunt for food. The last thing I ate was a little stew at the Resistance base.
My heart instantly tugged at the thought of my new friends. I wondered how Andris, Ling, Birdie, Maddox, Wesley, and especially Scorpion were. Shutting my eyes, I thought of Scorpion, trying to grasp the link between us.
I could sense him, a thread, but I couldn’t seem to reach him. Either he was sleeping, or I just didn’t have enough energy yet, but I knew in my gut he wasn’t dead, which eased me some. It still didn’t make me any less worried about him and the others.
How strange I had become so quickly bonded to a group of people I barely knew, while I had attacked others I had known almost all my life.
With a strangled exhale, I pulled myself onto my feet, pressing my hand to my wounds. My fingers rubbed a man’s soft dark green T-shirt, which I now wore, the bottom scarcely hitting the tops of my thighs.
Taking a few steps toward the bathroom, I chomped down on my lip. Beads of perspiration from the pain dampened my lower back, but I finally shuffled into the water closet like an old woman.
Built almost entirely out of wood, it was small but beautiful.
As if built into a tree, the back wall was an enormous tree trunk.
A spout emerged from the wall, like a showerhead, and stone covered the floor.
The sink was stone with wood cabinetry for storage and a sitting bench with a hole in it, similar to an outhouse.
Ferns and plants filled the room, making it feel as though I’d stepped into a forest, not the latrine.
After peeing, I washed my hands, shocked at my reflection gaping back at me.
I flinched at the mess staring in the glass.
I had forgotten I’d been in a fight with Joska before I was shot.
The cuts were healing, but my face was still swollen and black and blue.
I brushed crusty and tangled strands of knotted, dirty hair off my face, gummy with dried blood.
Everything on me was sweaty, grimy, sticky, and disgusting.
This seemed to be my new normal.
Wanting a shower but not sure if my wounds could get wet, I ambled out to the main room, the fire crackling in the hearth, the room quiet and calm.
Without even looking, I knew Warwick wasn’t there.
His presence filled the air when he was around, and when he was gone, he seemed to leave something missing.
Ash sat at the table I had been on earlier, hunched over a slew of old books, a strange energy coming off them. Opie was quietly organizing his jars, while Bitzy was passed out in the backpack on his shoulders, mouth wide open.
“Fishy!” Opie waved, sensing me first.
“Hey, you’re awake.” Ash looked up, curving toward me. His smile expanded over his face, making my insides giggle. His energy was intense, tingling around my thighs.
“Yeah.” I nodded, running my fingers through my tresses. “Thanks for letting me sleep in your bed.”
“Of course. Though I was going to move you myself, Warwick was the one who carried you there the moment your eyes shut.”
“Oh.” I shifted on my toes. “Where is he?”
Ash shrugged. “Took off after he got you settled and hasn’t been back. That was,” Ash peered up at a clock ticking softly on the wall, “seven hours ago?”
“I slept for seven hours?”
“You needed it.” He pushed off the bench. “You hungry? Thirsty? We’ll start you off with something small and bland first.”
“Sure.”
He headed to the kitchen, and I went to the bench he deserted, easing myself down. Magic hummed down my arm, and I was drawn to the books laid out on the table. A strange buzz, like a whisper on the wind, drew me to touch it.
My hand lifted, my finger itching to run over the pages.
“Oh, be careful with that one,” Ash spoke over his shoulder as he poured me a cup of tea. “It’s very, very old, kind of cranky, and needs a lot of coercion to get it to open up to you.”
“What?”
Ash picked up the mug and a slice of homemade bread, walking back over to me.
“Right. I forget you humans don’t know much about fae books.” He sat beside me, placing the food in front of me. “A lot of them died out when the wall fell. The abundance of magic wiped some of them clean.”
“What do you mean died out? Like got lost?”
“No.” Ash shook his head. “Our books in the Otherworld, the fae realm, are alive, so to speak.”
“Alive?” I took a sip of the warm tea, the taste of calendula coating my tongue. It was a potent healing herb.
“They hold information the same as any other book, but if you treat them well, they will show you, tell you stories not written in their pages. This one holds a history of the past back to when there were fae god kings and witches. This old book was powerful enough to survive the merging of our worlds. But time has also made it crotchety. Not a fan of the new ways.”
I stared at Ash, and my mouth parted. This was information I had never learned or heard about, something that got lost in the human side of history in this new world.
“Does it work on humans?” I swallowed nervously. “Can they feel it?”
Please say yes. Please say yes . . . I’m not a freak.
“Do you feel it?” He eyed me as I tried to swallow some bread.
“Don’t worry.” Ash smiled. “Humans could probably sense the magic coming off it, but the book wouldn’t talk to them.
They wouldn’t be able to read it no matter how hard they tried.
Fae books can sense if you have even a drop of fae blood in your veins.
Though it is particular to whom it fully opens to.
Some fae would only be able to read the surface level of this book, while others would never find the end. ”
“And where do you fall?” I whispered.
His eyes met mine. The gaze felt intense. Intimate. “I have yet to find the end. But it took years for it to fully let me in.”
“What were you looking for?” I forgot all about the tea and bread, my attention drawn to both Ash and the book.
Even Opie bobbing around, noisily investigating the jars he organized, didn’t detract my focus.
I had a strange feeling I already knew the answer without really knowing how—a flutter of voices talking, a fire, Warwick . . .
“You.” Ash held my gaze.
I gulped. That was what I thought. “What about me?”
“You and Warwick.” His head wagged. “The connection you have shouldn’t be possible.”
“Why assume it’s me? It could be him.” Trepidation stumbled out of my airwaves.
“He’s definitely part of it, but I think it is you.” Ash’s voice dropped lower, sending a shiver through my body, tears building under my lids.
“How do you know?”
“Because I feel it too.” He licked at his lower lip, rubbing at his brow, his intensity cranking up. “The pull toward you.”
“What?” The word barely made it out of my throat.
“Tree fairies are good at healing and creating potions because we are connected to the earth, like the roots of a tree. We understand things you can’t put into words—we feel everything. Life and death.”
A nerve along my neck twitched, my breathing becoming more erratic.
“I can’t see auras like Druids do, but I feel them and can sense energy in every living being.” He leaned in closer. “And you, Brexley, are both life and death. Nothing and everything.”
A sharp inhale sucked through my nose, my form going still. “What do you mean?”
Ash tucked his wavy hair behind his ear. “You already know, don’t you?”
Just because Andris said I brought a cat back to life didn’t mean it was true.
Or Aron, Mo, Rodriguez, the woman dying in the cage . . . and Elek, yesterday.
Fighting back the terror and tears, I gulped, “What does it mean? What am I?”
“I don’t know.” His forehead wrinkled sympathetically.
“From what Warwick has told me so far, I know of nothing that can create what exists between you two. It’s unnatural, even in the fae world.
I can feel the energy coursing between you two, but I don’t understand it.
It’s like a language I don’t recognize. I’m also not sure it’s something that can be broken as much as you and Warwick might want it to be. ”
His statement slammed fevered memories from the night before. Warwick demanding Ash to find a way to break the connection. “I’m not capable of that. She deserves somebody better. Someone who wants her.”
“Are you sure?”
“I can keep looking . . .” He trailed off, nipping his bottom lip.
“What?”
“I want to try something.”
“Try what?”
Ash stared at me. Reaching over, his fingers wrapped around mine, slowly moving them toward the book.
Trepidation hammered at my pulse, and my mouth went dry as our fingers hovered a breath away from the pages. Magic pumped off it, tickling my skin. I trembled with both the fear of finding an answer, but also of not discovering anything.
“Breathe, Brex.” Ash’s voice was soothing and calm. “Close your eyes. Relax. It will resist if you come up defensive and guarded. Take another breath.”
“What’s going to happen?”