Riley cuts in. “I know why he was in jail.”
Of course she does. “Anyway, I don’t know if you have any idea what it’s like being in a cell—”
To my surprise, she bursts into laughter. I make a face, and she dials it back. “Sorry. Sorry. Not funny, I know. But I’m guessing Rys never told you that I spent six years in an asylum.”
I blink. “Uh. No. He didn’t.”
“It is what it is. You try telling the humans in the Iron that the fae are after you. It wasn’t a surprise when they threw me in a psych ward. Excuse me. Facility. It’s fine. I’m out now, and since it turns out the fae are totally real and they wanted me to kill their queen, looks like I wasn’t so crazy after all.”
“Um. Okay. But, like I was saying, we got to know each other pretty well while we were inside.” That’s an understatement. “After I gave him permission to touch me the first time, he told me he stole a touch once. Was that you?”
Her head bobs up and down. A nod. “And now you know why I got him in the face with a shovel. Still kinda sorry about that. It can’t be easy having a scar like that when all the fae are so scarily gorgeous.”
“I don’t know. I like it.”
“Like his scar? Or like him?”
“Who?” And then, purposely being obtuse, I say, “Jim?”
“You know I’m not asking about Jim. Actually, the whole time we’ve been talking, we’ve only been talking about one guy. So… what is this? How do you fit in with him? Are you his real mate?”
The answer slips out before I think better of it. “Not if you ask him.”
“I’m not asking him, though. Come on, Elle. Do you love him?”
“I… no.” Who knows? Maybe if I say it out loud, I can finally convince myself of that.
Riley shoves her hair out of her face. She’s frowning now. “Let me tell you something that I don’t often share. You know how the fae can’t tell a lie?” At my nod, she says, “I’m a halfling. I can lie because of my mom’s human side, but my dad’s side? It’s given me the ability to be... kinda like a human lie detector, if that makes sense.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh. So, uh, I don’t know what’s really going on between you and Jim and Rys, but you’re not fooling anyone when it comes to how you feel about the Light Fae.”
Great. And here I thought I was pulling it off before Jim caught a whiff of it and demanded that I choose.
“Hey, Elle. Can I say something else?”
Can I stop her? “Sure.”
“He calls you Leannán. Rys, I mean.”
“Yeah? So?”
“I’m not from here. Like I said, my dad’s fae. Light Fae like Rys. Because my mom’s human, the two of them decided to raise me in the Iron. Well, that was one of the reasons...” She hesitates. “Do you know about the Shadow Prophecy?”
What does that have to do with Rys’s nickname for me? “A little. Rys told me a little bit about it.”
“He would know. He was there at the beginning, when Melisandre ordered him to bring me and my mom to Faerie after her soldiers captured my dad. He only snagged my mom and left me behind in an empty gas station, which kinda sucked since it meant one-year-old Riley grew up in the system, but whatever.”
She says “whatever” but, despite her flippant tone, I can tell that being abandoned when she was an infant didn’t do her any favors. Especially if she was half-fae and had no clue.
“I’m sorry.”
She waves my apology away. “I deal. I’ve had to. And Rys… he’s a big part of the reason why.”
This is it. Riley’s given me a perfect opening and, yeah. I might as well accept that I’ve been dying to know.
“Because he was convinced that you were his mate?”