Touch (Touched by the Fae 3)

“Exactly,” Nine agrees. “And that’s why it’s so important for me to go back to Faerie. Especially now. We need Oberon.”

That’s a leap.

“Why do you think he’s in Faerie?” I ask. “Maybe your instincts were right. Maybe he’s here.”

“I have to hope he isn’t.”

What?

“Why?”

“Because, when he broke free of Brinkburn, lore says that he escaped into the Iron more than two hundred years ago instead of returning to Faerie to take back his throne. He would’ve had to suffer through the industrial revolution when iron and steel ruled. It would’ve been too big a shock to one with that much Faerie blood. None of our kind could’ve survived that. Not even a king.”

Oh, great. For a second there, I actually thought I might have a little bit of hope.

Damn it.

So, in the end, I win—if I can consider Nine begrudgingly sticking around because I begged him to a victory.

Since I’d do anything—even put up with his cold behavior—to keep him from going to Faerie when I can’t risk it, I kinda do.

It’s weird, though. I thought it was bad enough when I had to share the apartment with my newfound parents. Once we throw Nine into the mix, it’s… I don’t even know how to describe it. Weird is probably the best way to put it.

Callie keeps trying to come up with ways to leave me and Nine alone together. Ash, on the other hand, might begrudgingly co-exist with Nine, but there’s still a ton of unresolved issues there. My dad still can’t get past the idea that Nine is taking advantage of me, especially now that I know the truth of his prophecy, but it’s not like that changes my feelings for him.

It… might change his feelings for me, though.

Ever since I broke the spell on him, Nine’s been keeping his distance.

At first, I barely notice. The stress of everything that’s been happening to me finally rears its ugly head. It breaks me. I mean it. The next morning, I wake up from my fitful sleep on the couch. I’m screaming. My brain throws me back to being trapped in Gillespie’s white room and it takes until I can actually focus on my surroundings—the apartment—and see that I’m safe to stop.

I’m home.

The screaming catches everyone’s attention, but I pointblank refuse to discuss what I went through to get the Brinkburn. I don’t regret it, though I can’t stop myself from thinking that Nine does. He stays, because I want him to, but I don’t think anyone’s happy about that.

Though my parents try to make up for my obvious distress by clearing out the nursery so that I have a proper place to sleep, I purposely choose to sleep on the couch. It’s where I’ve spent mo

st nights since we cleaned the place up, though that had more to do with being close to the frozen Nine than my deep-seated discomfort when it came to sleeping in the old nursery.

Now that he’s back, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. Especially since Nine… he doesn’t sleep. Not really.

When I suggest it has something to do with his being a statue for long, he doesn’t deny it, though he tries to explain that, as a Dark Fae, he’s more nocturnal than not. The small amount of magic he can draw toward him is only there at night. The sunlight makes him weak so, if he starts to falter, he drifts toward a patch of shadow and nods off during the day.

At night, he watches me sleep.

The first time I catch him—the second night when I purposely asked him to sit with me because I could hardly believe he was back and, uh, I didn’t want to take up screaming alone again—he doesn’t deny it. It seems like such a natural thing for him to be doing that I wonder if this isn’t the first time he’s done it.

How many times did he watch over me while I was a child? I thought I was awake for every one of his visits before I was put into the asylum. Was I wrong?

I don’t ask.

It makes me feel a little better to think that maybe he still cares. Nine’s always been better with actions than words, and as the days crawl pass, I see him watching me even when we’re all awake.

A few days into our new reality, Ash tells me to check out the nursery. My dad is trying so hard not to take his obvious frustrations out on Nine, but I have to admit that he’s gotten so much better at not making decrees or issuing commands—he even calls me Riley now—so, when he opens the door, I peek.

It’s… not a nursery anymore.

I don’t know where they got any of this stuff from. And it’s not just Callie and Ash who’d been disappearing into that room the last few days. On my return trips from the outside—part looking for that homeless man who might have some answers, part finding an escape from my family upstairs—I see him slipping out of that room more than a couple of times.