A kind female voice spoke in Fae as gentle hands cleaned my face with a wet cloth. She said something else, but I couldn’t understand it.
I didn’t have the energy to open my eyes as a second pair of hands lifted me to a sitting position. The two unfamiliar people stripped off my pants and top and ran a warm cloth over my damp skin before they dressed me in a soft, loose shirt. Someone put a glass to my mouth, and I drank deeply, letting the cold water soothe my parched throat.
The next thing I knew, I was lying in a bed with a blanket pulled up to my chest. My whole body hurt, especially my chest and stomach, but I was no longer racked with agonizing pain.
Lukas spoke in Fae from what sounded like the other room, and I shivered at the anger in his voice. No, not anger. He sounded enraged.
Someone answered him. It was the same female voice that had spoken to me. Whatever she said must not have been good because the next person to speak was Faolin, and it sounded like he was trying to calm Lukas down.
What is going on? I wondered, but my head was too muddled to think about it. Sleep pulled at me. Lukas said something else, but it came from a long way off as I let the warm darkness take me.
I dreamed of storms that ripped the sky apart and left towns burning. I watched it all from above, safe from the destruction but unable to help those on the ground. The scene changed, and I was watching my parents in our apartment, holding Finch and Aisla between them as a storm bore down on the building. “Mom! Dad!” I screamed, but my words were lost in the roar of the storm.
“Shhh, Jesse. You’re safe. Your parents are safe,” said Lukas’s soothing voice.
I flailed against the arms wrapped around me, but they were too strong. Didn’t he see that my family needed me? I had to go to them.
Conlan spoke in Fae. Then Faris. They sounded worried. Were the storms coming for them too? Suddenly, I was back on the ferry on the Hudson, watching people fall into the river. Only this time it was Lukas, Conlan, Faris, and the others. I tried to reach for Lukas and screamed his name as he disappeared beneath the roiling water.
I was vaguely aware of being lifted and held against a warm chest. “I’m here, Jesse. I’m not leaving you.”
A new dream enveloped me.
I stood on my balcony, watching storms rage through the valley. Rain and wind battered me, but I was frozen, paralyzed with fear and helplessness.
“Come, Jesse,” said a female voice.
I turned my head to see a tall, beautiful woman with long silver hair. Her face was young, but she radiated the power and wisdom of countless lifetimes. Her kind eyes met mine as she placed a hand on my shoulder. The moment she touched me, the storm muted, and I was able to breathe again.
“Do I know you?” I asked as she took my hand and led me from the balcony to the bedroom I recognized as the one in my new quarters at court.
“Yes.” She helped me into the bed and smiled down at me. “We will talk very soon. For now, you must rest.”
“But the storms… I need to stop them.”
“You will.” She laid a cool hand on my forehead, and warm lethargy stole over me. “Now sleep, my child.”
* * *
I opened my eyes and stared in confusion at the high stone ceiling. It took a minute to clear the cobwebs from my brain and to realize I was in my bed at the Unseelie court. I frowned. Why didn’t I remember going to bed?
I moved my legs – or tried to – but couldn’t because of a heavy weight across them. Lifting my head, I looked at Kaia sprawled across my lower legs. The lamal opened her eyes and gave me a disgruntled look before she went back to sleep.
The murmur of voices drifted to me from the other room, too low for me to make out what they were saying. In this world, faeries had normal hearing and couldn’t hear through doors like in the human world. Thank God for that. I couldn’t imagine living in a place where there was no privacy for anyone.
Sitting up, I freed my legs from beneath the annoyed lamal and got out of bed. I was a little shaky, like I’d been one time after a particularly bad bout of flu, and I suddenly remembered the attack of cramps and nausea and lying on the floor. My hand went to my stomach, but aside from feeling empty, it was fine.
I spotted a stack of folded clothes on a chair and went to check them out. They weren’t the ones I’d brought with me, and I was relieved when the pants fit. I didn’t see my old clothes, and I could only imagine the state they’d been in covered in vomit.
After checking my appearance in the bathroom mirror and grimacing at my pasty complexion, I walked out of the bedroom. Lukas and the others all stopped talking when I entered the living area, and Lukas came to meet me halfway. His eyes were full of concern, and I had a memory of him telling me he wouldn’t leave me. Was that real or one of the strange dreams I kept having flashes of?
“I’m okay,” I said before he could ask.
His eyes searched my face. “You’re pale.”
“Thanks for reminding me.” I gave him a wry look. “It’s nothing a hot shower won’t fix. You do have showers here, right?”
Conlan laughed. “I think she’s feeling better.”
“Yes, there is a shower.” Lukas smiled and led me over to where he’d been sitting. He went to the other side of the room and returned with a tray of food.
My stomach growled, but the memory of what had happened the last time I’d eaten made me push the tray away. “I can’t.”
“It’s safe,” Faolin said from his seat directly across from me. “You won’t get sick from the food again.”
“How do you know? Maybe I’m not ready to eat all Fae foods.” I eyed the plate warily. It looked delicious, but so had yesterday’s lunch.
Lukas’s jaw hardened. “You got sick because you ate some acca berries. They are toxic to us and cause stomach upset.”
“I only ate what was on my lunch tray, and none of it tasted bad.” I tried to recall the assortment of berries that had come with my meal.
“Acca berries are sweet and taste like any other berry,” Faolin said. “Young children sometimes ingest them by mistake, but adults know not to eat them.”
My mouth turned down. “I wish I’d known that.”
“Whoever put them on your tray had to be counting on the fact that you wouldn’t know what they were.” Lukas’s knuckles whitened where they gripped the tray. “They meant to give you an unpleasant stomachache, but the berries had a stronger effect on you because you’re a new faerie.”
I took the tray from him before he accidentally cracked it in two. “So, they didn’t intend to kill me. That’s good, I guess.”
“When we find the one who did this, their punishment will be the same regardless of their intentions,” he said in a hard voice. “And we will find them.”
I looked at Faolin, who had a fierce gleam in his eyes, the same one he’d had on our first few encounters. I felt a moment of pity for whomever had played the prank on me – until I remembered writhing in pain in a pool of my own vomit.
Lukas let out a harsh breath. “This should not have happened to you. I promised you’d be safe here, and I didn’t keep my word.”
“That goes for all of us,” Conlan said without his usual grin.