The Faerie War (32 page)

Filigree moves his head again, and I feel something wet brush my skin. His nose, maybe. Or his tongue.

“I just wish I had more time to spend with Ryn. I know, I know, we’ve just spent a week in super close proximity, but somehow that makes me what to be around him even more. I know I’m
supposed
to like him, but now I think I actually really do. Like him. A lot. And it’s weird, because I haven’t exactly known him long—in this lifetime, I mean—but I feel like I kind of . . . connect with him. And he’s easy to talk to. I mean, we spent
hours and hours
talking when we were locked up in that prison, and it never got boring. Okay, there was that awkwardness in the beginning, but that doesn’t count.” I raise my head and find Filigree’s eyes closed. “And you’re not even listening to me.” I drop down again with a sigh. I’ve definitely spent too much time around Tilly because I wouldn’t normally say so many words out loud at once.

I stare at the ceiling for a while longer, going over combat moves and running through the list of weapons available to me in my guardian arsenal. I know my favorite is the bow and arrow, and I’ve used others, like knives, daggers and swords. But Ryn was the one who told me, from the other side of a prison wall, just how many different weapons we guardians have. I’m looking forward to trying out the whip. That should be fun. I should probably practice first, though.

Tomorrow. I’ll be doing a lot of practicing tomorrow.

I don’t know how long I daydream about weapons before my thoughts go back to Ryn. I close my eyes and let my mind wander to see if I can find him. The image comes to me almost immediately. As if I’m seeing through his eyes, I watch him pull his bedroom door shut, pause for a moment, then head down the corridor. The image vanishes, and the darkness behind my eyelids returns.

I bend my knee and raise my leg so I can take a look at the cut on my thigh. Surprisingly, I see little more than a pink line surrounded by healthy skin. I guess some of Uri’s stuff does actually work.

A loud knock at the door makes me jump, and I feel the automatic tingle in my hand that means I was just about to grab a weapon. Good to know my reflexes are still working.

“Um, just hang on,” I call as I jump up from the bed, kicking Filigree in the process. He lets out an unhappy yelp.

“Everything okay in there?” It’s Ryn. Crap. Must find clothes.

“Yeah, just give me a minute.” I rummage through my bag for the pair of loose-fitting pants Natesa gave me. My leg would probably appreciate not being smothered again until it’s fully healed. I tug the pants on, give the armchair a magical shove out of the way, and open the door.

Ryn lifts his gaze from the floor and smiles at me. It isn’t his cocky, self-assured smile. It’s almost a smile that’s trying too hard. And from the way he twists his hands together, then pushes them into his pockets, then pulls them out and holds them behind his back, I’d say he’s nervous. But my experience of Ryn tells me he doesn’t get nervous, so . . . I’m a little confused now.

“So, uh, I’ve been thinking,” he starts.

“Is that a good thing?” I try to give him a cute half-smile, to let him know I’m joking. I bet I look like a total idiot.

“Not always,” his nervous smile turns into the smile that makes legs feel like they just did a hundred leg presses. “But I’d like to believe it was the right thing to do this time.”

“So these thoughts led you to . . . my door?”

“Yup.” He hesitates, and the smile slips from his face as he becomes more serious. He looks at the floor again. “From the moment we wake up tomorrow morning, we’re going to be preparing for the biggest and most important fight of our lives. And the reality is . . . we might not survive it.” He reaches for one of my hands, and his voice has just the tiniest shake in it when he says, “So if tonight is the last night we ever have, I want to spend it with you.”

For one incredibly stupid moment, I think he means
here
, like, in my bed. Which makes my stomach hit the floor because that is
so
not happening. Then I remind myself that Ryn has been nothing but decent since I arrived here, so he can’t possibly mean he wants to spend the night with me like
that
.

He must have picked up on my moment of horror because he drops my hand and adds, “Unless you don’t want to, of course.”

“No! I mean—yes, I want to . . . spend the night with you.” Are my cheeks as hot as they feel? And why am I so shy all of a sudden? Wasn’t I just telling Filigree how easy it is to talk to Ryn?

“Okay.” He takes my hand again. “I’d like to show you something then.”

I nod, maybe a little too quickly. “Um, just let me get something on my feet.”

“Oh, no, you can go barefoot.” He shuts my door for me and leads me along the corridor. We descend the main stairway, past the first level of bedrooms, where Ryn stays, and past the ground level where people are heading to the dining room for dinner. Down one more level, and then we’re heading left, past Uri’s laboratory. Ryn shifts his hand in my grasp and laces his fingers between mine. My heart starts thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings, and I seriously hope my hands aren’t sweating.

Ryn slows and gestures for me to go through a doorway on my left. I walk inside and take in the sight of a large hall with exercise mats and running rectangles and ropes and poles and weights and . . . a whole lot of other things that make me itch to get my muscles moving and my blood pumping.

“This is the Training Center,” Ryn says. “All Guilds have one. They’re pretty similar.”

“Okay. The Training Center is where I spent a gazillion more hours than anyone else who ever set foot in our Guild, right?” I wink at him.

He matches my grin and squeezes my hand. “That would be correct.”

“So did you bring me here for some last minute training?”

“As fun as it would be to show you I can still kick your ass—”

“Oh, I highly doubt
that
.”

“—no. We’re going over there.” He points across the hall to an enormous orb shimmering in the corner. “I don’t know what its real name is, but at our Guild we always called it the Fish Bowl. We use it to practice one-on-one combat in all kinds of settings because the inside can be made to look like anything you want it to look like.”

“One-on-one combat, huh?” I raise an eyebrow. “So you
did
bring me here so I can kick your ass.”

With a smile playing on his lips, he shakes his head. “Just wait and see.” We reach the edge of the orb, and he lets go of my hand. The orb’s substance is like smoke swirling inside glass, but when I touch it, my hand goes right through, vanishing into the eddying whiteness. “Go in,” Ryn says. “I’ll be right behind you.”

I step forward. Ghostly white tendrils curl around me as I pass through the orb’s outer ring. And when I get to the other side . . . my breath catches in the back of my throat. I’m in a forest scene at night. Not a dead, snow-covered forest like the ones out there in the real world, but a forest alive with magic, color, and light. Glow-bugs dot the trees and leaves, creating their own tiny orbs of gold light, and the river that travels past me seems to be full of floating golden glow-bugs. A small row boat rests in the water, nudging the bank. Sprites with glittering blue wings prance across one of the oars before fluttering into the trees.

“I like to think that special moments should happen in special places,” Ryn says quietly, “and since there isn’t anywhere special inside this base, I decided to make a special place.”

“It’s amazing,” I whisper, afraid of speaking too loudly in case I ruin something.

“I happen to know you’re a fan of glow-bugs. Or, more specifically, glow-bug butts. That’s what made you fall in love with me the first time.”

I laugh. “I don’t believe you.”

He shrugs. “One day you’ll remember, and then you’ll know if I’m telling the truth or not.”

“So . . . it doesn’t normally look like this in here?”

“No, it’s always different.”

“And you made this beautiful scene just for me?”

“Well, I had help. Em did some setting design back at her Guild, but she couldn’t get everything the way I wanted, so I had to go in search of someone more experienced. He wasn’t too pleased, what with it being the night before battle and all that, but he added the finishing touches anyway.”

I breathe in deeply. “It smells just like those blossoms at the bottom of Tilly’s tree on the island.”

He nods. “I know you like them.”

Of course he does. He probably felt me relax every time I breathed in that fresh, sweet scent.

He gestures to the boat. “Take a ride with me?”

I hesitate. The scene is amazing, and no one’s ever made me feel more special—well, not that I can remember—but what does he expect from me? Half the boat is filled with large, squishy cushions that look like they would be extremely comfortable for two people to snuggle on together. Is that what he expects will happen? Do I
want
that to happen?

As if he knows what I’m thinking, which I suppose he sort of does, he says, “No pressure. Just . . . a boat ride.”

I need to get something out of the way before I can get in that boat. I look down at the grass brushing my toes. “Has . . . anything ever happened between you and Em?”

“Violet Fairdale.” He brushes my check, leaving a tingling so real I wonder if he trailed actual sparks across my skin. “Since the moment I figured out that you were the one I wanted by my side for the rest of my life, I’ve never thought of anyone else.”

I bite my lip. “So that’s a no?”

“A very definite no.”

“Okay.” I pad across the grass toward the boat. Ryn holds his hand out to help me in, and I take it even though I’m pretty sure I could navigate a small row boat on my own. He climbs in after me, rocking the boat a lot more than I did when I got in.

“The cushions are for you,” he says, gesturing for me to sit down. He sits opposite me on a simple piece of wood that stretches across the boat. He reaches for the oars. “I’m the one doing the hard work.”

“Hard work, my butt,” I say with a laugh. “There’s barely a current for you to pull against.”

“We’re actually going to be moving with the current. The oars are just for show. You know, to impress you.” He gives me his gorgeous grin.

“Right, as if you needed anything else to impress me after this.” I wave my hand around to indicate the magical wonderland surrounding us.

Ryn uses an oar to lift a rope looped around a tree stump keeping the boat from drifting away. The gentle current takes us, aided every now and then by a dip and pull of the oars.

I lean against the side of the boat and drape my arm over the edge. I let my fingers trail through the water. “Thank you,” I say to him. “I don’t deserve this, but thank you.”

He frowns at me. “Why not?”

I watch the glow-bugs float past and don’t answer. He knows why, even if he pretends he doesn’t. I’m responsible for the state our world is in. I’m the selfish girl who couldn’t handle the things she’d done so she chose to run away from it all with one gulp of a potion. That girl doesn’t deserve a beautiful gift like this.

“Ryn?” I say after a while. “Do you think . . . do you think you could ever love the new me as much as you loved the old me?”

With a bemused expression, he secures the oars so they won’t slip into the water, then leans forward and says, “There’s no ‘new’ you or ‘old’ you, V. There’s just you. And nothing can change the way I feel about you, regardless of what you remember.”

I shake my head. “You say I’m just me, but . . . I feel like a different person. When you tell me about my life and the things I did and the way I was, it sounds like all I cared about was being the best. At everything. I did and said horrible things to you, and it was all just so . . . petty. I’m not even sure why you loved the old me.”

“Don’t forget that I was horrible to you too. If you’re going to be harsh on yourself, you should be harsh on me too.”

I smile at him and shake my head once more. I can’t imagine him being a terrible person. He’s always worrying about other people, asking me how I am, throwing himself in front of lightning to try and save me.

“You can’t compare who you were then with who you are now,” he says. “You’re looking at the world through the lens of The Destruction now. Everything seems petty in comparison to that, even things that
were
important back then. You’re not a different person, V. You’re just . . . maybe a wiser, more mature version of yourself.”

“So you think I’m still the same person?”

“Still the same stubborn, intelligent, ass-kicking, beautiful you.”

“So . . .” I lift my hand from the water and start twisting it with my other hand. “When Uri gave me that potion earlier and it didn’t work, why were you upset? Wasn’t that because you’d rather have the old me back?”

“V, of course I want you to get your memories back, but not because it would make me love you any more. I want you to remember everything because it’s
your
life and
your
experiences and you deserve to have that in your head, not a black hole of fuzzy confusion. I was upset for you, not for me.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Really?”

He rolls his eyes. “Okay, there’s obviously
some
part of me that would like you to remember how much you love me. But you know what?” He lifts his shoulders and takes a deep breath. “It’s okay if you don’t. I’ve accepted that.”

“But what if I . . . do. I mean, not
remember
, but . . . feel . . . what I felt before. But new.”

Freak, that made
absolutely
no sense. What the crap am I trying to say? I groan and cover my burning face with my hands. I don’t know how to put this into words. All I know is that right here in this boat with Ryn is the only place I want to be. If I had to choose one person to spend my last night with, it would be him. And if I were forced into prison again, I’d gladly endure it if he were the one on the other side of the wall. He makes me feel like I belong somewhere, like I’m not alone anymore. I realize all these things, and a glow far brighter than that of the glow-bugs explodes inside me, sending warmth shooting all over my body.