Monsters.
I glance up at Rys. Though Nine and Riley are staring at the way he came, waiting for the guard to appear, Rys is watching me closely.
“Is there anything we can do to fix him?”
“Ah, my darling. Don’t ask me that.”
That’s not a no.
“Please?” The word comes out shaky. When Jim closes his eyes again, turning his head toward me as he breathes heavily, I blink back tears. “There’s got to be something.”
“I can touch him. He won’t feel the pain if he gives me permission to flood him with pleasure instead. Or he could take a bite from this. It’ll certainly heal him.”
Rys has done the same parlor trick before. Reaching under his cloak, pulling out one of the pretty, pink apples he grows on the crystalline tree in front of his manor.
Only, this time, he’s not providing me with a meal.
/> He’s offering me a chance to heal Jim—and also doom him.
“Will he recover without the faerie food? From what those bastards did to him?”
“Yes.”
I exhale in relief. Rys is fae. If he wanted to bullshit me, he could use all the pretty, twisted language in the world to make me feel better. But that simple yes? You can’t get any more definite than that.
“Then I can’t let him eat that. Even if it’ll take his pain away. I won’t make that decision for him.”
Rys doesn’t say anything. He just makes the apple disappear again before addressing Riley and Nine. “I don’t doubt that the guard will be coming for me. Riley’s right. You can get away from here. Make sure to take Elle with you. I’ll stay behind.” He reaches beneath his cloak again, but he’s not holding an apple when he pulls his hand back out. Instead, he’s clutching the same dagger he used to cut his arm and summon the Wild Hunt. “He won’t get past me.”
I don’t know what’s worse: how adamant he is that he’s about to fight one of the Unseelie guards, or that he thinks I’m going to haul ass out of here with the others and leave him on his own.
I check that Jim is still breathing—it’s slowed enough that I’m pretty sure he’s passed out now—before looking up at Rys. “I’m staying.”
“No.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Not even for him?”
Choose.
The word echoes in my mind.
Choose.
There’s only one choice I can make.
“Riley can take him. Or Nine. But I’m staying with you.”
Before Rys can argue again, Nine reacts. He sucks in a deep breath, his cheeks hollowing, his silver gaze flaring brightly, a beacon in the dark shadows. And I know what’s he’s going to tell us an instant before he says harshly, “Someone’s coming.”
The guard?
It’s gotta be.
“Riley. Can you make a shadow portal?”
“Depends on how much time I have,” she answers Rys. “Shadows are one thing. But a portal to take three people… I don’t know.”