“Why?” I ask him. “What makes you so special?”
Nine’s eyes shutter. I’m pretty sure it’s the first time I see him blink. He closes his eyes, the lid closing over the glow for a heartbeat, before it comes back, like a flashlight flickering on and off.
“It could be that you’re the Shadow.”
Oof, Nine. Wrong answer.
The words explode out of me. “I’m not the Shadow!”
He nods. “Yes. You are.”
Okay. Fine. “Well, I don’t want to be the Shadow. That better?”
“There’s no escaping it. Whether you’re the child of the Shadow Prophecy or not, Melisandre believes you are. You became the Shadow the day she first sent her soldiers after you.”
I’ve spent days trying to pretend that I’m not even a blip on the powerful Fae Queen’s radar. I mean, really? Just because I can do some cool parlor tricks with shadows, that doesn’t mean that I’m gunning for her or anything. She’s got to know that.
Of course, then Nine has to go and mention freaking soldiers.
I scoff. I have to, because if I don’t, I might just puke. Soldiers? Hell, no.
“You told me when I was a kid to watch out for the fae because they’ll be coming for me one day. I think I would’ve noticed it if I had soldiers after me.”
Nine is silent. He’s quiet for so long, in fact, that I start to let myself think that maybe—just maybe—I found a hole in his logic. Maybe he was wrong. Apart from Nine and Rys, I’ve never encountered another fae. And, okay, Carolina seems to be all aboard the “Fae Queen is after Riley” train, but maybe she’s wrong, too, right?
And that’s when Nine hikes his pants up, then lowers himself so that we’re eye to eye. The tail end of his shadowy duster pools around him, wafting in the slight breeze from the partly open window.
“You were barely a year old,” he begins, his voice developing a rasp that I’ve never heard from Nine before. It’s still got that inherently fae-like enchanting quality, but more emotion than my Shadow Man has ever let slip into his tone. My breath catches in my throat as he continues. “She has spies everywhere, in the human world and in Faerie. After he mated his human, Aislinn left the Seelie Court. He forsook his people—and his queen—to live on the other side, despite what it did to his power and his strength. Melisandre kept watch over her favored guard, hoping to sway him back to her side. And then you were born.
“She discovered your ability to shade-walk. I don’t know how. Aislinn would’ve hidden it with everything he had, but she found out and she sent her soldiers after you. A dead halfling would be no threat to her reign… only the guard that eventually found you chose to spare you. Your mother wasn’t so fortunate.”
To hear him mention my mother’s death so callously freaking stings. I mean, she’s been gone for twenty years now, and it does something for me to know my parents’ last act was to sacrifice themselves for my safety, but it doesn’t seem to bother Nine at all.
He’s fae, I remind myself. No matter what, I can’t change that fact. He’s fae, just like Rys, and the death of some human is as inconsequential to him as me swatting a fly that’s pissing me off with its buzz.
Despite his cold facade, he obviously mourns my dad. My mom? She was just a human.
And I’m a halfling.
Why do I matter?
I want to ask him that. I don’t, though. I’m too afraid of what his answer will be.
Instead, I wave my hand, scattering the shadows that cling to me. The more upset I am, the thicker they become, which isn’t helping me in the denial department. I scowl. “I don’t want to talk about my mom, alright?”
Nine’s eyebrows wing up. He’s seeing the shadows respond to me, too, isn’t he? “Then we won’t discuss her.”
“Good.”
“That doesn’t change the situation, Riley. Now that you’re free from the asylum, you’ve lost the last of your protection. I can’t bring you to Faerie. We got lucky that Melisandre didn’t sense your presence that day in the garden, and since she left that statue out for you, I’m certain she’d been expecting you. Next time, it won’t be a frozen human. It’ll be one of her guards.”
“Good to know. So I’m not going to Faerie anytime soon. That’s fine.
Nine lets out a frustrated exhale. Running his pale hands through his long, dark hair, he shoves it out of his face, revealing a pointy ear that looks just like mine.
“For how long, though? There’s no wards. Barely any iron and almost no protection. Rys never should’ve forced my hand. We both agreed that the asylum would’ve been a safe place for you. Hiding you under Melisandre’s nose, as it were. He was supposed to wait until they released you before we found another place to keep you away from the queen.”
“I thought I imagined you telling me that,” I confess. “The peach made me so sick, I thought it was something I made up. No way did I think you’d ever work with Rys… are you—” I shake my head. This is too much. “So, let me get this straight. You really are the reason I was in Black Pine all that time?”