Sandy Williams - The Shadow Reader

I push away the hand he left resting on my stomach. “We’re going inside?”

“Yes,” he says, rising. He helps me to my feet, holds me steady while the world settles. “We’ll talk, then you can clean up.”

Aren’s tone is sober. Too sober. He said he was sorry, that he didn’t like hurting me, but where does that leave us? When I thought he was going to kill me, I didn’t read the shadows for him. He knows I’ll never help him.

When he starts to walk toward the house, I stay where I am. He doesn’t pull me along. He turns to face me.

“You win, McKenzie,” he says. “We’re sending you back to the Court. We’re trading you for Lena.”

“Lena?” I can’t possibly have heard him right. Naito’s the one who’s been captured.

“She was taken in Lyechaban,” Aren says. He tenses with his words, as if he needs to guard himself against my reaction. Does he expect me to celebrate? To rub it in? I should—this is a victory for the Court—but I recognize Aren’s mood now. I’ve heard this tone, seen this weight on a fae’s shoulders before. He feels responsible for what happened to Lena.

“It’s not—” I stop myself just short of telling him it’s not his fault. I might not be willing to gloat, but I won’t offer sympathy either. This is good for me. I finally get to go home.

I get to see Kyol.

My stomach flip-flops. Most of what I’m feeling is anticipation, but there’s some nervousness twisting through me as well. I need to see Kyol. I need him to reassure me I’m working for the good guys, Atroth is the rightful king, and the rebels’ claims about the number of provinces, the gate taxes, and the Court’s transgressions are all lies.

“When?” I ask Aren.

“Tomorrow.” He must notice my surprise because he raises an eyebrow and adds, “Too soon?”

“No. Not soon enough,” I say, not wanting him to know how uncomfortable I am with . . . Well, with everything.

He looks away briefly, then says, “Your friend Paige. Her wedding is tomorrow night.”

I feel my eyebrows go up, surprised he remembers that part of our conversation in the forest. He was hurt and bleeding at the time, and I was just talking to fill the silence. “It’s her sister’s wedding, yes. Why?”

“Taltrayn and I will meet there unarmed and visible. It’s a public place. People will know you.”

“There will be tech there,” I warn. “Electricity. Lights. Music.”

“It’ll handicap Taltrayn the same as it handicaps me.” He places his hand at the small of my back, guiding me forward. “Come inside. I won’t give you back to Taltrayn looking like this. You can clean up and rest.”

My first steps are wobbly. I cling to Aren, waiting for my fingertips and lips to stop tingling.

“You okay?” he asks.

As soon as the dizziness passes, I focus on him. “You do realize you’re going to have to wear a suit, right?”

He tilts his head to the side. “What’s a suit?”

IT’S MAY IN Texas. The night isn’t cold, but it’s not quite warm enough to chase away the lingering chill of the In-Between. I’m not sure that’s why I have goose bumps, though. Maybe they’ve sprouted across my arms because of the lightning-covered fae sitting on a tombstone to my left. I told Lorn it was rude to sit there, but he didn’t believe me when I said humans bury the dead under the ground.

I guess this cemetery is as good a place as any to wait for Aren. A thick hedge separates it from the road behind us and from the palatial building lit up by landscaping lights at the top of the hill ahead. There’s a twenty-acre garden between the cemetery and the mansion’s side entrance. That’s where we’re supposed to meet Kyol and Lena. I just wish Aren would hurry up and get here already.

“Eager to return to your little scandal?”

I don’t give any indication I hear Lorn’s words.

He chuckles. “Don’t worry, McKenzie. I’m a master at keeping secrets. Why, you could give me the location of the Sidhe Tol and I wouldn’t tell a soul.”

I give a short laugh and finally turn his way. “I was wondering why you were here.”

He puts a hand to his chest and looks wounded. “What? I just wanted to contribute to the cause.”

“Forget it,” I say. “You lost your chance in Lyechaban. I don’t need anything from you anymore.”

“Everybody needs something from me. You just have to decide—”

A new set of goose bumps spreads across my skin. Lorn mutters something under his breath about timing as the cemetery is lit by a flash of light. Aren steps out of a fissure, and my stomach does a little flip. He looks good. More than good, actually. He’s wearing an expensive suit, probably stolen from Neiman Marcus or some other high-end store. The pants hug his butt and his jacket all but begs for hands to slide underneath it, over his firm chest and up to his muscled shoulders.

He’s staring at me. At first, I think he’s watching my reaction to him. Then his silver gaze lowers to my chest, to my silk-wrapped stomach and hips, then finally to my bare legs and peep-toed heels. I shift. I rarely ever wear dresses—I never know when Court fae will pop into my life and ask me to read the shadows—and I feel vulnerable and exposed.

Aren’s eyes snap back to mine. He blinks once, clears his throat, then holds up a shimmery blue tie. It doesn’t quite match the color of the chaos lusters striking across his hands and face, but it comes close. “What do I do with this?”

“I believe it goes around your neck.”

Aren whips around to face Lorn. “What are you doing here?”

He rises from the tombstone. “Just keeping the nalkinshom company.”

Aren turns back to me. His gaze travels over me again. This time, it’s almost as if he expects to find an open wound. “You’re okay?”

“Yeah,” I answer, frowning. Lorn met me at a gate a few miles north of the tor’um ’s home. A rebel named Kian escorted me there, then handed me an anchor-stone. He left me with Lorn. I assumed that was because he was supposed to fissure me here. Maybe I was wrong?

“He didn’t hurt you?” Aren asks.

A snippet of conversation comes back to me, Aren saying it would hurt if Lorn had to pull the location of the Sidhe Tol from my mind. Lorn’s reaction was strange back in Lyechaban. I assumed that was because he hadn’t touched a human before, but his touch also felt odd. It felt odd again, penetrating, when he took my hand at the gate.

I twist around to face him. “You invaded my—”

“It didn’t work,” he says with a sigh. “Apparently, humans are immune to my magic.”

Aren gently squeezes my arm. “You’re sure you didn’t feel any pain?”

A chaos luster, hot and enticing, travels to my shoulder, so I pull free of his grip. “No. It didn’t hurt.”

“Don’t overstress yourself, Jorreb,” Lorn says. “If it worked, I would have had the Sidhe Tol from her in Lyechaban. I came only to make sure it wasn’t a flute.”

“Fluke,” I mutter. I don’t know if I believe him.

“We’ll talk later,” Aren says, his tone firm. Lorn shrugs in response.

“This goes around my neck?” Aren asks me, holding up the tie. “Like a noose?”

“Yeah, well.” I turn my back on Lorn and take the tie. I’ve never in my life put one on a man. “It’s suppose to go around like this”—God, he smells delicious—“and hang like this. But I’m not sure what to do with the knot. And these need to be fastened.”

The top two buttons of his shirt are undone. My fingers brush his skin when I button the bottom one. I start on the top.