I tucked my head against my cousin’s shoulder. Maybe he was right. Maybe for just a minute I could let the weight of my own loss settle suffocatingly on my chest. Maybe I could take a moment and gasp and sob.
I gazed ahead, my eyes dead like my mother, tears leaking down my face and onto Zabriel’s jerkin.
“What’s it like to only have one parent?” I stammered, my emotions inhibiting my speech. “I want to know before I wake tomorrow.”
“The rest of the world doesn’t change. Only your world. And you wonder why this happened to you and not to somebody else. For a while, people will treat you like you’re a puzzle with a missing piece, until they realize the piece missing was just part of the background, not part of the actual picture.” He rested his chin atop my auburn hair, and I waited, hoping he would say more. “You don’t need that background piece to be what you’re supposed to be, Anya, even though it looked nice and everything. You’re still whole. Even though it doesn’t feel like it.”
Struck by a realization, I sat up and gazed into his face.
“Then you don’t feel whole, either?”
He was silent for a long time, his thoughts unreadable.
“No, I don’t. My father shouldn’t have died. If he loved me so much, he shouldn’t have risked his life by trying to cross the Bloody Road. He should have known I would need him, and taken better care of himself. He should have known that without him, I’d be alone here in the Faerie Realm, singled out as the only person with human blood. But you, Anya, you’re not alone. You’ll never be alone.”
I clung to him and believed his words because I needed to, not caring whether or not they were realistic.
And now I’d become one of those people who, like Zabriel’s father, should have known better. But that insight had arrived too late, leaving me at the age of sixteen trapped outside my home, wingless, broken, and very, very alone.
* * *
I was calm when next I broke through the fog of my misery and came to full wakefulness; perhaps my subconscious mind remembered the pain that movement had caused me earlier. I glanced around the room, still lying on my stomach, again taking in the simple, almost meager furnishings. Hand-knitted throws and pillow covers were the only bursts of color, and the blankets that warmed me were threadbare in places.
It took me a moment to notice the young woman sitting in the rocking chair near the foot of the bed. She looked to be about my age, her dark brown hair tied into a ponytail with a ribbon of navy blue to match her tunic. One leg was tucked up beside her, and she was holding a book, its cover obscured by a paper wrap. I wondered what she was reading—and from whom she was hiding the title.
“What are you going to do with me?” I rasped. I didn’t know how long I’d been slipping in and out of awareness, but the dryness in my throat and mouth suggested I hadn’t had a good drink in days.
My visitor startled and looked up.
“Nothing, unless you have something to suggest?” With a wry smile, she stood from the rocker and approached, nestling her book in the crook of one arm. “How do you feel?”
“Like you’re lying.”
I couldn’t afford to be civil. The human world was a notorious place, and for all I knew, she could be the woman who’d stroked my hair, condescending to offer me comfort after my wings had been taken.
“My father found you when he was hunting,” she patiently explained.
“Is that the story he told you?”
My eyes darted toward the door. It was evening, and faint light drifted through the cracks between it and the frame. This young woman’s father might be waiting for me in the next room with his halberd. I tensed, yearning for the Anlace, for the power I felt when I held it. But my body was so weak I doubted it would have provided me with a viable defense.
She laughed. “It’s not just a story. My father hunts deer and rabbits. For food.” Noting my glare, she sobered. “Sorry. I shouldn’t make fun.”
She was looking at my back, though the blankets and the light fabric of a nightgown hid my skin. The humans must have removed my jerkin and shirt to cleanse my wounds. Where were they now? Where were the Anlace and my satchel?
“I’ll get you some water.” The young woman turned to the bedside table and filled a glass from a pitcher, and I gingerly propped myself up, though water wasn’t the drink I desired. What I needed was Sale. “You must be hungry, too.”
I didn’t have much of an appetite, taut as my nerves were, but I let her think what she wanted. I downed the water, however, which felt like sand as it made its way through my constricted throat.
“May I have a look?” she asked, taking the glass from me. She meant at my back, where my wings had been, and she was hesitant about her question.
“Why? Curious?”
“No. My mother and I have been caring for you since my father dragged you home.”
She was curt, and I lay down again, feeling rebuked. After setting her book on the table, she peeled back my coverlet, lifted the nightgown and removed a bandage moist with blood, pus, and, from the smell of it, alcohol.
“It’s not as bad as it could be,” she announced, not a hint of revulsion in her voice, slightly increasing my confidence in her skills as a healer. “Let me get a new bandage.”
She left the room, but I hoped she would return and light the lamp on the bedside table. The sun was setting and would soon leave me in darkness, something I didn’t want to face, not with my heart and body feeling so unwieldy. I clenched my jaw as apprehension filled me, bubbling toward panic at my circumstances, and I sat up, not wanting to suffer the pain but needing something upon which to fixate. While the hot flare that shot through my body was enough to make me gasp, I was thankful to discover that this time it did not bring me close to tears. My caretakers knew what they were doing. Grasping the blanket, I held it in front of me to cover my breasts, and consciously slowed my breathing.
The moments ticked past, and I glanced at the bedside table and the book with the paper wrapping. I picked it up, lifted the paper cover and glanced at the title: Crime and Punishment in the Warckum Territory. Not what I’d been expecting, and probably “borrowed” from the man of the house. For some reason, humans tended to view women as less capable than men, while Nature—and by extension Fae—made few such distinctions. Hearing the creak of the floorboards as someone approached the room, I replaced the cover and returned the book to its former position.
When the young woman entered with a basket of medical supplies, she was not alone. A girl, perhaps eight or nine years old, carried an armful of wood, which she stacked next to the hearth. She wore a constrictive dress that was not conducive to such work, reaffirming my previous thoughts on human conventions.
“My name is Shea,” the older of the two girls said to me. Their matching brown hair and brown eyes left no doubt they were sisters. “And this little helper is Marissa.”
Marissa smiled at me as she stirred the flames back to life...flames that Davic could have summoned to his palm in an instant, that would have glowed before his sharp features; added hints of gold to the silvery color of his eyes; created a halo around his head of black hair. Hair through which I loved to run my fingers. Hair that I might never touch again.
“If you’re feeling well enough,” Shea resumed, oblivious to the deep sense of loss that was coursing through me, “we can wrap these bandages around your chest and you can join us for dinner. What do you say, um...?”
“Anya.”
“Anya. What do you say?”
I needed to eat before I withered away. With the depletion of my magic, my body felt heavier, more cumbersome, and even this short period of alertness had sapped my energy. But I shook my head, huddling against the wall.