Chapter fifteen
Light shattered my vision, and my eyes burned with the sunfire of red and gold.
We were standing.
Inside.
In a foyer?
My mind scrambled to make sense of the new surroundings.
I could barely hold my head up, but the shock of what had just happened had snatched me from the edge of an abyss.
We’d instantly arrived at a house. A grand house with carpets and oil paintings.
“Where are—”
“Celeste?” Kaed’s voice cut over mine as he moved through the house, shouting.
I tried to tell him to be quiet. My head hurt. And it was ringing with the hounding of his voice through it.
A female appeared with copper hair with bright strands of silvery white throughout and pinned neatly in a bun at her nape.
With a flurry of words I didn’t hear, Kaed carried me through the halls until I felt a hard table under my back.
I couldn’t smother the cry that ripped from me at the required readjustment to lie flat after being held.
Kaed had been binding me together with his arms, and I felt I might unravel as he let go.
“Why isn’t she healing?” I heard the female’s voice. Strained. Worried.
I wanted to tell her I couldn’t. I didn’t have magic. I wasn’t really fae; not like them. Not in the way that mattered now. I had nothing inside me.
I had never felt more human than in that moment. Something in me strained to feel a seed, a tiny grain of magic in me. But I reached and felt a cold wall of nothing.
I wanted to tell her. But my voice was lost deep inside of me.
Their words hung over me. My eyes fluttered open and closed, but I stayed in the room, floating through the shapes and sounds.
“She can’t,” Kaed ground out. He stood, arms folded right above me.
Gentle fingers caressed the shell and point of my ear. “How is that possible?” the kind voice of the female, Celeste, asked.
Lavender and pale pink light shimmered over me. A blanket of hyacinth and rose petals. It felt like powder. Light, minute particles of warmth and brightness.
As the hazy light settled onto my skin, peace rolled into my bones. Ease poured into my muscles, languid light penetrating each fibre. Magic filled my body, and my nerves tingled as the skin knit back together.
My breathing was hot and ragged as I absorbed the sensation of accelerated healing.
But it didn’t heal how exhausted I felt.
My hands fell limp at my sides as the bones that had been broken began to mend, their structures popping and snapping to strengthen again.
Dull, roaring pain grew in me like a wave that might engulf me.
But something kept me conscious enough to feel the tendons and sinews stitch back together.
Bloodied tentacles latched onto each other until they became one again.
My skin closed over like a spider closing the structure of its web.
It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. My eyes were heavy, but I listened as they spoke.
“Where is her magic, Kaedian?” The female voice was stern. Like she expected him to bow under it.
I scoffed as I cleared blood from my mouth. “If anyone knew, he’d be the last to tell you. I’m sure of it.” I tried sitting up, but a strong arm held me to the table.
I pushed against his hand, but even if I hadn’t just been stitched back together, I couldn’t have won against his fae strength.
My eyes finally focused around me, enough to glare at him.
We were in a small room with glass cabinets that sat on top of countertops.
Like a kitchen, only the shelves were stacked with colourful glass bottles of glistening liquids and salves.
Dried flowers were preserved in glass terrariums. Stacks of books and tomes lay across the space.
Each opened on various depictions of flowers and leaves.
“You brought me to an apothecary?” I said, dazed.
“I brought you to a healer,” Kaed said, his tone clipped. “I should have brought you to a cell.”
Celeste said nothing, but she scolded him with a look as I finally sat up against Kaed’s wishes.
I ignored the threat of the cell and instead turned to Celeste.
“You’re a healer?” I asked, looking at the female who appeared in her mid-sixties.
Her eyes were beautiful and clear, and her skin held wrinkles on her hands and around her eyes.
I’d never known fae aged. I thought fae were immortal?
My mind was too shattered from the events I’d just endured and the healing to wrap my mind around that question.
She was fae with signs of ageing, but she did it with such grace that it suited her.
Celeste nodded and took my hand; her grasp was firm. “Kaedian should have introduced you to me on better terms.” A cutting look landed on Kaed with her words.
He looked like he wanted to rage up like a tornado, but something about the way Celeste spoke to him had him quiet like I hadn’t seen before. Reverent. Respectful.
He shifted his weight on his hip, and his arms banded across his chest.
Celeste still had my hand, and she turned over my wrist to examine the scar. She traced her fingers over the cool, white mark. The crescent shape was raised slightly over my normal flesh. It didn’t hurt.
“Can your magic heal it?” I had never thought of being rid of it. But not having it would just be one less thing to think about.
“We, as fae, don’t scar easily,” Celeste said, turning my wrists over, looking for other marks. Even though she knew I didn’t have magic, she included me in that “we.”
My eyes landed on Kaed, and I strained to look away from the sharp red line that speared down his face.
Fae don’t scar easily. Curiosity swam in my mind like shimmering waters until I looked away when he caught my stare.
“I’ve had it since I can remember. My fam—” I stopped abruptly. Wondering why I was telling this stranger anything about myself.
Celeste’s eyes were kind as she searched mine for the words I hadn’t said.
I felt like I could trust her. There was something deep-rooted and caring in her. Stern. But caring. “My family—the people who raised me—never said how I got it. Just that it happened when I was very young.”
“They didn’t tell you?” Celeste looked at me, but I just shook my head.
The wave of shame that came over me at the unconventional upbringing I had was irrational. But I couldn’t help it.
“And your magic?” Celeste asked as her eyes fell back to my wrist.
The shake of my head was heavier, slower this time.
Behind me, Kaed’s magic thrummed. It was itching to break through for some reason. Was he angry that I was speaking to Celeste and not him? Or still seething over my walk around the city?
“I’ve never had magic,” I said quietly.
Celeste didn’t stop her inspection of me. Now checking me for other cuts or wounds. Her fingers trailed over my skin, and in their wake, a delicate shimmer, and the cuts healed with a warm hum.
Arms folded, Kaed was stone-faced. No indication that he cared about our conversion.
“You must take better care of her, Kaedian.” Celeste glanced up from her work to pin Kaed with daggers in her eyes and then went back to tending to my wounds.
For a moment, I swore Kaed’s face paled. But it vanished when Celeste looked back at her work.
“I don’t want his help.” My lips were locked tight, and my eyes were hard as flint, ready to ignite.
A flash of something flickered in his eyes, but it was gone when he blinked. “What you need and want are two entirely different things, peach.” He grinned without humour.
“What you need is to stop acting like I’m yours!” I shot, almost forgetting Celeste was in the room.
Kaed seethed before me, and I knew he believed I was his prisoner. At some point, I was going to have to get out of this city, whether Kaed approved of it or not, but if tonight taught me anything, it was that I was going to have to be smarter.
“We’re leaving,” he said without warning. “Celeste. I am in your debt.”
He came to the side of the table and went to pick me up again. I swatted his hands away and swung my feet over the table. With a wobble, I lost my balance, but Kaed’s arms gripped me before I could crash to the floor.
“I don’t need or want your help,” I said, pushing off of him.
The anger I felt towards him for bringing me to this city in the first place was now twining with a gratitude I didn’t want to feel. I would never have needed healing if he hadn’t taken me.
No. You’d be dead in a ditch somewhere if Kaed hadn’t stopped Gold Teeth, a cruel voice in my head reminded me.
“Clearly,” he bit out as he righted me to stand with steadier feet.
We said nothing as his gaze held mine.
I almost forgot there was blood all over me, that Kaed was painted in mine, until I heard someone call out from the foyer as a door opened.
“Mother?” The searching voice echoed through the house, and Kaed stiffened beside me.
“We will speak again.” Celeste smiled at both of us as she ushered us towards the door.
We were cut off by the frame of a male with stocky shoulders and hair that shifted between brown and copper. Taking in the unexpected sight before him, the male halted abruptly.
Gore, ripped clothing, Kaed drenched in my blood.
“Mother! What happened?” His voice was higher pitched than I thought even I could manage.
“Huxley. Wait for me in the parlour.” Celeste’s words were stone. Unwavering. No warmth at all in them.
It wasn’t a pleasant request from his mother.
And then his eyes changed entirely from shock to something far more dangerous.
There was hunger in them.
“And who might you be?” His words drawled as they languished over me. There was a perverse laziness in them as his eyes raked over my loose hair, tangled and chaotic, that made me itch to back away.
I think he was attempting flattery. But it came out all wrong; slick with oil and off colour.
“I …” Did I tell him the truth? Something in me went sour at the thought of telling him anything. But standing in someone’s home, bloodied and dishevelled, I supposed he deserved some explanation.
“I’m—” I tried extending my hand.
“Mine,” Kaed snarled, cutting me off. He snatched my arm before the male could accept my outstretched hand.
Indignation heated my skin, but whatever curse I thought Kaed deserved lodged in my throat as I felt the male’s eyes tilt towards me, devouring the scene before him.
“We’re leaving,” Kaed said again, and gripped my elbow, tugging me from the room, past Celeste’s son.