Page 43 of The Court the Fae Forgot
“You’ve been eating human food your whole life. It wears on the fae body, deprives it of the glamour that is our lifeblood,” Finch explained further. “Or, it did. Not really sure how everything works now.”
“How everything worksnow?”
“Stop stalling,” Shiel commands, holding up the vial in front of me. “I can’t stand to see you like this a moment longer. The sooner you’re healed, the sooner you sleep, and the sooner we move again.” He glanced once more toward the forest, and I followed his gaze. As always, the darkness pulled on me. It was always there, always just out of reach. Always waiting.
A slight shiver ran up my spine, and I nodded in agreement.
I didn’t know what to believe of this world yet, but until I’d learned what truly made these fae at something with so much uncertainty—dare I sayfear—I decided to err on the side of caution.
I glared at Finch but stopped trying to pull away from his touch. Shiel held the vial over my hands and allowed a few drops of the blue liquid to fall. As soon as it touched my hands, there was a hissing sound and with it, a wash of blinding pain. I arched my back, trying to pull away this time, but Finch held me still. A gasp escaped me and I bit down hard on my lip.
“Just a little longer and then the pain will subside,” Finch whispered, his hands squeezing me tighter. He was trying to reassure me, I knew, but all I felt was more pain.
Just as Finch promised, however, the burning in my hands diminished until they felt as cool as if I had put them in a river of ice. That was the feeling that lingered, not the pain. Shiel began binding my hands, winding the fabric gently around them.
“Does that feel alright?”
I nodded my head, still struggling for breath as Finch now began undoing the top laces of the gown at the back of my neck. I knew what was coming next, once the gown was open and Finch’s careful fingers were peeling back my mother’s stolen shift.
His breath hitched and his fingers stilled, but I didn’t ask why.
I didn’t need to ask why.
It took all three of them, Zev, Finch, and Shiel to hold me down and pour the contents of the vial across the wounds of my back.
In the silence that followed my cries of pain, once the river of fire down my back had turned again to ice, I looked back up to Shiel between my tears.
“How did you know?” I asked. “I mean, really? How did you know I was fae?”
“The glamour struck you down when it returned,” Shiel said, coolly, even though his rigid posture revealed he was anything but. “As it did me. The humans around us were untouched.”
“Oh, I remember that,” I said, biting the edge of my tongue as I looked over Shiel’s form. “I remember you accusing me in front of everyone.”
Shiel looked sharply at me, then. “I thought it was you. What else was I supposed to think?”
“Maybe that a human girl wasn’t responsible for … for what did you say it was?”
I was growing heated, my temper flaring as the exhaustion finally settled back into my bones. Maybe it was the energy required to heal my hands, or maybe it was the fact that the fae who’d nearly ruined my life with his accusation—who may still have, I hadn’t yet decided—seemed completely oblivious to that fact.
“The glamour returning,” Shiel said, a deep growl rumbling in his voice.
“Returned?” It was all I could do to keep pace with him while still speaking, my breath barely able to keep up with the speed of his steps. “I thought you always had glamour. That’s your magic, right?”
“Our magic,” Finch said, stepping up to stand on my other side. “And in a way, yes.”
“Our magic in this court is complicated,” Shiel cut in, the tone of his voice clearly meant to end the conversation before it began. “You’ll learn with time.”
I should have been too exhausted to argue, but I was too angry not to.
“I’d learn faster if you told me now,” I snapped back. I tried to get to my feet, but both Finch and Zev caught me, gently pushing me back down onto the log before I could. It was meant as a friendly gesture, to keep me healing, but Shiel was already walking away from the three of us now, his scowl darkening the forest even as the sun rose higher, stealing our blessed shadows with every passing minute. “You don’t get to just waltz into my life, ruin it, blamemefor it, and then refuse to apologize when you’re confronted.”
These words, finally, caused him to stop.
He faced away from the three of us, his body completely frozen for a moment.
Even Zev and Finch didn’t dare move, aside from sharing a brief, frantic glance between the two of them. Something in the look made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, as if I’ve done something wrong—though what that might be, I had no idea.
“That’s because fae like me don’t apologize,” Shiel said, at long last. “Not even to fae like you.”
