Sandy Williams - The Shadow Reader

“The sun is up,” she says, nodding uselessly toward my boarded-up window. Not even a crack of light peeks between the wooden planks. The banging that gave me such a headache last night was Lena going to town with a hammer and nails. I’d have better luck clawing my way through the wall than through the layer of wood covering the window.

“It’s time to get up.”

“Not back home, it isn’t.” I close my eyes, willing her to go away.

She huffs out a breath. “I have instructions to place you in Lena’s care if you’re uncooperative.”

Well, there’s nothing like a threat to get you going in the morning. I sit up . . . and barely manage to suppress a groan. Despite not sleeping well, I didn’t toss and turn much, and damn, my body’s stiff. I guess jumping fences and dangling off the sides of buildings will do that to you. I rub my neck, trying to massage out some of the pain.

“Aren said you might be sore.” The fae holds out her hand and uncurls her fingers to reveal two little white pills.

“What’s that?”

“Ibuprofen.”

My eyes narrow. “Fae don’t take human medications.”

“They’re not for me.”

Fae anatomies aren’t all that different from humans’, but they’re not supposed to have anything to do with our food or culture. Not that the medicine is directly hurting her. If it was, lightning would be circling the pills in her palm like writhing blue snakes, but nontech items from my world are gradually weakening the Realm’s magic. Of course, we’re not in the Realm right now so the only one hurting here is me.

After reminding myself that poisoning me doesn’t make sense, I pluck the two tablets from her hand. It takes a moment to work enough moisture into my mouth to swallow them. Unfortunately, it’ll take another twenty minutes or so before they kick in.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“I’m . . . Kelia.”

Interesting hesitation there. I’ve never met a fae who, on their first introduction, doesn’t tell me who they’re a son or daughter of. Are we hiding our ancestry, perhaps?

“Is that premthyste in your hair?” I’m sure I recognize the stone now. Only a few prominent bloodlines wear name-cords these days. She has to be a daughter of Cyneayen. If I remember Lord Raen, elder of Cyneayen, correctly, he’s notoriously antihuman. He doesn’t speak a word of English and every time I’ve run into him he’s scowled as if I’ve put a bad taste in his mouth. This girl—Kelia—has impeccable English. She’s perfected an American accent and could blend in with a crowd of humans so long as no one around her has the ability to see edarratae .

Her lips narrow into a thin line. “Aren wants me to teach you our language.”

I might have called her out for avoiding my question if her statement didn’t give me pause. Teach me to speak Fae? Why the hell would Aren want that? He speaks English. So do Sethan and Lena and anyone else who might need to work with humans. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the rebellion has mastered my language. Plus, won’t I be more of a liability if I can eavesdrop on their conversations? As it is now, they could detail their entire war strategy and I wouldn’t have a clue what they were saying.

“The king’s forbidden that.” It’s not that I don’t want to learn to speak Fae—I’d love to—but I’m used to not knowing it. I’m used to keeping our cultures as separate as possible.

“He’s also forbidden us from learning the languages of your world,” Kelia says without missing a beat. “That hasn’t stopped us. It shouldn’t stop you, not unless you’re afraid of the Court.”

Afraid of the . . . Oh, I see his angle now. “Aren starts big, doesn’t he?”

Kelia’s eyebrows rise. “What?”

“Never mind.” This is a devilishly clever move on his part. He’s making a statement with this offer: the Court might not trust me enough to learn their language, but he does, or so he wants me to believe. Nice try, but I’m not stupid. The only way I might— might —have believed his intentions were pure is if I learned their language, then he let me go. Unfortunately for him, he and Sethan both made it clear that’s not an option, not until this war’s over. I won’t fall for Aren’s manipulations.

But I will take advantage of them.

“Okay. I’m game,” I say, standing too quickly. My muscles protest the movement and my vision blackens around the edges.

She stares a moment. “After breakfast.” She starts to turn, then suddenly she grabs my hand.

I ball my other hand into a fist, ready to defend myself.

“Is that a watch?” she asks.

I hesitate. “Um, yeah.” It’s a cheap digital watch, $14.99 at Wal-Mart.

Kelia’s silver eyes widen. “Can I wear it?”

I pull my hand free from hers, rubbing it against my jeans to chase out the tingle of her edarratae . “It’s tech.”

“Small tech,” she says dismissively. “Please? I’ll give it back.”

What the hell is wrong with her? Kyol hates it when I wear my watch, and I’m honestly surprised Aren didn’t demand I take it off so he could send it to whatever tech graveyard my cell phone ended up in.

“Please?” she says again.

Well, it’s her magic. I unstrap the watch and hold it out. Chaos lusters spring up her arm when she takes it. Not bothered by their increased activity, she tries to fasten the band around her wrist. It’s obvious she’s never done this before—why would she have?—so I help her insert the metal hook into a hole in the rubber. Beneath the strap, her skin glows a faint blue.

She rotates her wrist, staring mesmerized at the digital face. The light coming in through the door wasn’t quite enough for me to make out the time, but she’s fae. She can probably see the numbers.

“Thank you,” she says without looking at me.

“There’s a . . . You see that little button on the right? If you press it, the face will light up.”

“Really?” She presses it and a trio of needle-thin edarratae rush up her finger and spread over the back of her hand like tiny blue spider veins. They disappear when she releases the button and then reappear when she presses it again. After lighting up the watch a dozen times, she finally drops her hands to her sides. The intrigue leaves her face when she realizes I’ve been studying her.

She clears her throat. “It’s time for breakfast.”

I close my eyes and press my palms into my temples. After three solid days of nothing but repeating everything Kelia says and naming everything she points to, I’ve reached my breaking point.

“Enough!” I yell.

“Na raumel e’Sidhe,” she responds calmly. In the language of the Fae.

“No. No more. I need a break.” Plus, I can’t remember the Fae word for “enough,” and I’m exhausted. The only times I’ve been left alone since Aren brought me here are when the rebels lock me inside my cell.

Okay. Room. And the rebels haven’t exactly been awful to me. They’ve made sure I have plenty to eat and drink, and no one’s outright threatened me since that first day, but they’re always around. They’re always watching, scowling, judging. They might as well have me shackled because I haven’t had a single chance to escape.

Kelia folds her arms and cocks her hip, waiting, but if she thinks she’s even half as stubborn as I am, she’s wrong. I’ve been the perfect student since we began these lessons. I’ve never in my life crammed so much information into my head in so short a period of time, not even the evening I returned from shadow-reading in the Realm and was forced to pull an all-nighter for an exam I should have spent days studying for.