It was that last word I actually heard. Adjustments? The instant I repeated it in my head, I noticed there was something foreign resting against me. I rushed to lift the blankets, breathing shallowly. When I saw the small plastic bag strapped to my leg, I said nothing. I couldn’t. Belanor’s healer had put a urinary catheter inside me? The feeling of invasion was so strong that, for a moment, I was back at the crossroads. Being touched when I didn’t want to be touched. My dignity stripped away.
Oblivious to how I was seething, the object of my fury turned and strolled toward the bed, talking all the while. His words were a meaningless hum. I bided my time like a spider on its web. Just as I’d hoped he would, Belanor underestimated the range I’d been given with the chains.
The instant he came within reach, I lunged.
It was so abrupt that Belanor moved a beat too late, and I seized a fistful of the prince’s hair as he tried to leap back. Some of it ripped off his scalp, and Belanor released the most girlish shriek I’d ever heard, his pale hands flying up to his head. He spun around. His attention zeroed in on my fingers, where I still clutched several silvery strands. When his gaze rose back to mine, I bared my teeth in an imitation of a smile, knowing that my eyes gleamed with triumph.
Belanor swung toward the open doorway, where two Guardians now stood, probably drawn by the noise. “Where is Vulen?” he hissed, spittle accompanying every word.
Their expressions were almost identical in how carefully impassive they seemed. “We haven’t been able to reach him, Your Highness,” the male on the right answered.
Belanor faced me again, and the expression on his face caused a stirring of real fear inside me. There were two spots of red in his cheeks. His eyes were open so wide the whites seemed to swallow everything else. As our eyes locked in a hostile stare, it felt like we were seeing each other for the first time, without the masks of civility or pretense. Opponents across a battlefield.
Tearing his gaze from mine, Belanor spun to the boy and snapped his fingers. At some point, Claude had scurried off to the farthest corner of the room.
“Try again,” Belanor ordered. Behind him, the Guardians interpreted this as a dismissal, and they exited the room walking backward.
“Should I say the same things? About the old woman?” Claude asked in a small voice.
The doors closed with a gentle sound and a slight squeak. Belanor kept his gaze on Claude, a line between his brows. After another moment, he shook his head. “The Whisperer tells me she loves the Unseelie King. Perhaps he will be the key.”
Pouting again, the boy turned toward me. He edged closer, his soft body stiff with reluctance. Needs physical proximity to use his abilities, I noted.
As far as power limitations went, it was a big one—even when Claude was standing near the foot of the bed, he wasn’t close enough. The youth took one more step toward me. Then, another. His chin trembled in fear. It didn’t have a flavor, though, and the absence of something that I’d experienced all my life only fueled the fire of agitation burning inside me. I shifted away, knowing as I did that it was futile. The chains rattled.
Then Claude started talking, and all the thoughts in my head faded.
“You’re remembering the first time you met…” The young faerie hesitated. His eyes darted to Belanor in an anxious, wordless question. I stared at Claude with rapt focus.
“Collith,” the prince supplied with obvious exasperation, fussing with his hair.
“You’re talking to Collith,” Claude said quickly.
I watched his mouth form the words, and before they’d fully left his mouth, his face morphed into someone else’s. “How refreshing. A slave with spirit left in her,” a familiar voice said.
There was a blinding flash of sunlight. It came out of nowhere, and I raised my hand against it, squinting.
After a moment, the light eased enough that it seemed safe to look again. I lowered my hand and waited for my vision to adjust.
I was… in a clearing. It was a fall morning, the grass and trees not quite bare, but wearing gowns of yellow, red, and brown. Everywhere I looked, there was movement and sound. Tables and open-facing tents had been erected in haphazard rows. Cardboard signs with black marker displayed wares I’d only heard about during my parents’ lectures and lessons. A creature that wore the glamour of a young woman offered a wide array of spells. There was a family of shapeshifters, all of them wearing colorful clothing, selling a variety of meats that included human. One stall appeared to only sell teeth. Most were in jars resting atop shelves, but others were displayed like jewelry. They were even in a long case, resting on a bed of velvet. As if they were something to be admired. Coveted.
It took me much too long to notice the male.
He stood a safe distance away, his hair curling against his neck and his kind eyes peering at me through the bars of a cage. Wait. A cage? I blinked rapidly, as if that would make the iron walls around me disappear. They didn’t. I gripped the rusted bars with fingers that didn’t feel like mine, and the air thrummed with urgency now.
“I can’t find the key,” the male said. “If you don’t escape, you’ll be sold to the highest bidder. You’re a Nightmare, aren’t you? Can’t you use that?”
I’m not a Nightmare anymore. The words rose to my lips, startling me. Confusion swirled up and down my veins like small cyclones as I realized it was the truth. Now that I was aware, I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t noticed immediately. That sense of… otherness was gone. Of something more. For as long as I’d been alive, there had been a prickle in the air. Magic. Not just the use of glamours, but within the very oxygen.
That prickle had gone still.
Shock made everything feel slower. I blinked, becoming conscious of the fact I was staring at the stranger without speaking. Before I could ask him any questions, a new voice sliced through the crisp autumn breeze.
“Ten thousand dollar bid! Do I hear fifteen thousand? Now fifteen thousand, will you give me twenty thousand?”
There was an auction happening at the end of the row, appearing where there had been nothing but empty grass a moment ago. Two small podiums had been placed in front of a large projection screen. Facts were displayed on that screen. Gender. Species. Age. Behind this, beyond the tree line, I saw the sky had changed, too. As if I’d traveled through time. The horizon was the color of a bruise, the sun slipping away like the skirt of a gown over a smooth floor.
My gaze returned to the projection screen. It swayed lightly in a breeze, easily readable in the dusk. It was obvious that the list of facts were about the small figure that stood on one of the podiums, her wrists bound in ropes that had been soaked in holy water, no doubt.
She couldn’t have been older than ten.
My mouth was dry with horror. I almost didn’t notice when two goblins broke away from the crowd. But I did notice, and when they started walking toward my cage, I gasped at a rush of memory. Those goblins were the ones who’d taken me here. Snatched me right off the mountain while I was grieving my brother and held me captive in their rank cabin for three days.
Oh, they are so dead. Nightmare or not, I’d make sure their endings were long and—
I made the mistake of blinking again, and suddenly I was on one of the platforms.
The auctioneer called out numbers to my right, and the handsome stranger now stood at the front of the crowd. His hazel eyes were fixed on my face again, but this time, they gleamed with fear. If we were anywhere else, I would’ve wondered who he was.