Chapter 28 #2
I wish we had the time, the privacy, and the security to talk as long as we needed. The comfort of our own room and our own beds. Instead, Liv’s being thrown into the care of strangers, forced to trust her lying best friend and three ‘people’ with pointy ears and magic powers.
When we reach Newberry, Rime orders us inside. “I need you two to be quick. Get the dirt off you, grab whatever you need for a few nights, and get back out. I’ll guard the door.”
I know by the pointed look he shoots me that it’s our room door he intends to guard, not the one in front of us. I nudge Liv around and urge her into the building first, slipping behind her and holding the door for a now invisible Rime.
A few minutes later, when Liv and I leave our room for the bathroom, he’s there, leaning against the wall opposite our door. He nods as we pass, and I offer him a slight smile in return.
Numb and silent, Liv showers in the stall next to mine, then packs her bag while I cram another change of clothes into the tote I packed this afternoon. The only words she says to me are, “I don’t really want to talk to you right now,” although they’re surprisingly free of anger.
As I lock our door, Rime kicks off the wall. “You ready?”
“I think so.” I wave Liv ahead of me, but she’s gone rigid, eyes huge and frightened.
Fuck.
In a strangled whisper, she asks, “Where is he?”
Behind her, Rime sweeps a hand in front of his face. “Right here.”
“B-but—”
“It’s a glamour,” he explains. “Just a trick of the eye.”
Shell-shocked, she nods. “Okay.”
It’s not okay. None of it is okay. She stares, zombie-like, into the distance as she walks with us across campus and into town.
We arrive at Avery’s before the others, and she welcomes us in, paying special attention to Liv, offering her a seat on the couch and handing her a mug of tea. “Chamomile,” she says. “It’s relaxing.”
I sit beside Liv, grateful she doesn’t recoil, while Rime politely remains in the entryway until he can shower.
Avery looks up from her phone. “I’m ordering pizza. Mushrooms, yea or nay?”
Rime and I both say yea. Liv sips her tea.
On the coffee table in front of me sits Browne’s journal. Aaron must’ve passed it into Avery’s safe keeping. Hesitantly, I reach for it.
“Careful, witchling,” Avery warns. “That thing’s a wild card. When I touched it at the library, it didn’t show me anything, but when I was setting it there on the table, I saw a pillar of fire fifty yards high.”
I withdraw my hand and scoot as far back on the couch as I can. “What kind of alchemy was Browne doing in that forge?”
“The occult kind,” she says simply, like he’d been playing Parcheesi in there, not trying to blow up the world.
She taps her lips with a finger as she scans the living room, probably wondering how seven grown adults are going to fit in this tiny apartment. “Shit.” She chews a black-painted nail. “I should’ve told the others to bring pillows and blankets.”
On cue, the door swings open, and in spill the rest of our crew, Aaron and Topaz carrying blankets and pillows under their arms.
“Oh, thank god.” Avery rushes to unburden them, throwing everything, for the time being, into her bedroom.
Leo tosses Rime a bag.
“Thank the gods,” he says, echoing Avery.
She points him to the bathroom. “Be quick. Dinner will be here soon.”
As we wait, we speculate on what happened to Brier’s team.
Leo and Topaz think they made themselves invisible and either slipped out the service entrance or hid somewhere in the basement until morning.
They both agree it’s unlikely they freed themselves fast enough to follow us and discover the forge.
While Avery runs to the door to fetch the pizzas, Aaron checks the police blotter on his phone. No mention of the library. At least not yet.
Rime emerges from the shower, wet hair neatly combed behind his pointed ears. He grabs a slice of pizza and sits on the floor next to Liv’s feet.
Meanwhile, her piece of pizza remains untouched, its grease slowly staining the paper plate.
“You okay?” I ask her. The stupidest of all questions.
“No.” She’s on the verge of tears.
I set down my plate. “Let’s go to Avery’s room and talk.”
“No.” She shakes her head, rapidly blinking. “I want to talk to them.”
“Them?” I repeat before I realize what she means. The fae.
Rime gently asks her, “You mean us? Leo, Topaz and me?”
“Yes.” She gulps, and a tear spills down her cheek.
What have I done to my best friend?
Leo pulls me close and whispers, “What do you want us to tell her?”
“The truth,” I say, dabbing my wet eyes with my sleeve. “All of it.”
So that’s what they do. They tell her what they are, where they’re from, and why they’re here.
Silent and dazed, she nods as they explain.
It’s a lot to absorb, but there’s little room for denial considering she’s seen all their magic in action.
Her crash course introduction to the fae was even faster than mine.
As they describe weaving, she finally snaps out of her trance. Recognition dawns on her face. “That’s where the snakes came from? And the roots?”
“Yeah, and they give us gifts in return,” Topaz says, unapologetically showing off her fangs.
Liv’s jaw drops in shock. And when Rime unleashes his orange-red eyes, her pupils dilate in fascination. But it’s not until she hears about Leo’s gift that she finally speaks, “You healed me, didn’t you? Before I had to climb up that chute.”
Smiling softly, he replies, “I calmed you, yes.”
“Thank you.” She smiles back, gazing at him with fresh eyes.
“Anytime.”
I reach over the couch’s armrest and squeeze his hand, grateful beyond words.
Topaz narrows her eyes at him and sets her fists on her hips. “How did you do that, by the way?”
“Healing?”
“No, not healing,” she snorts. “The roots. How did you get them through that wall? And how in Lugh’s name did you make that tunnel? It was extraordinary.”
My face grows weirdly hot. Was the tunnel not something Leo could normally do?
He clears his throat, eyes on his glass of iced tea. “I dunno. Maybe I get a power-boost in a crisis?”
“How?” she demands. “Betts is the one who feeds on emotions, not you.”
Leo shrugs. Whatever he did to make that tunnel, he doesn’t want anyone to know.
Liv turns to stare at me. “What does she mean, you feed on emotions?”
“It’s just… you know, the whole empath thing.”
Leo spills the truth, albeit gently, “Betts is psychic. So are Avery and Aaron.”
“Psychic?” Liv’s expression holds more curiosity than disbelief. “Like you can tell the future and stuff?”
“No. Not like that, exactly.” Together, Leo and I explain clairsentience.
Well, he does mostly. He’s a lot better at being detached and academic about it.
I remind Liv about Jason’s overdose, how I felt it before I knew it happened.
And about sensing the fight she had with her parents on Parent’s Weekend, all the way down the hall.
When Leo and I tell her about the mill-workers, her jaw goes slack.
“It was that bad?” she whispers.
I nod.
“And it felt like you were one of them?”
I nod again, tears blurring my vision. “I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t figure out how.”
She rises and tugs me up with her. “Come on.”
Alone in Avery’s room, the door closed but everyone most likely eavesdropping, I apologize a thousand times over for all my lies. “I was scared you’d think I’d lost my mind.”
“I already thought you lost it! I mean, for god’s sake, I was so worried I snuck and followed you to the library.”
“And I almost got you killed!” I unleash a fresh burst of tears. “It’s my fault you went through all that. If I’d just told you—”
She cuts me off, “If you’d just told me, I wouldn’t have believed you.” With a sigh, she shoves aside a green duffle bag to make room for us on the bed. “I would’ve thought you were making up some dumb story because you didn’t want to hang out with me anymore.”