Fire and Bone (Otherborn #1)(23)

She’s a bitch, but she’s got a point. And there goes that excuse to covertly check on Faelan. I smile at her and rack my brain for a replacement. “Cool. I’m, just, you know . . . it’s all very strange here, but you’re being so nice and all”—I clear my throat—“and I’m new, possibly a bit dense, so—can I, uh, go see it? In case it doesn’t meet my expectations.” I look in the mirror and play with my hair, topping the act off with a duck face. Just in case she thinks I can’t be shallow.

“Oh, totally,” she says, not looking suspicious. “Go take a peek, but be back for dinner in an hour. Daddy doesn’t like having to wait.”

The sound of this girl—who’s stunningly beautiful, almost unreal—calling the man I remember from last night Daddy . . . I have to force myself not to wince.

Instead I run my tongue over my teeth, like I’m checking for lipstick. “Totes.” And then I make my escape, slipping out from under her guardianship. As I work my way back through the massive house, I find myself thanking the universe for my horrible hopscotch journey through the foster system. Because if it did anything, it taught me how to become a chameleon and blend in with my surroundings—a gift that, I can tell, will be very handy in my current predicament.





ELEVEN

SAGE

I knock on Faelan’s door, but only silence echoes back. Unconscious people tend not to answer doors.

When I glance across the walkway to my cottage, I don’t see any sign of a fire. The air smells a bit tangy still, but the smoke damage on the outer wall is gone. I’m guessing Aelia is right, and the repairs have already been completed. Do they just move real speedy, like the Flash? Or does time just sorta stand still whenever they need to get stuff done quickly?

I knock on Faelan’s door again. Still no answer.

After standing on the welcome mat for a few seconds and absently watching a blue jay hop around on a nearby branch, I decide that things are way too wacky in this place to give a crap about decorum. So I try the knob, and when it won’t give, I pull one of the bobby pins from my hair that Aelia used to make it look like I had a stylist instead of a pocketknife. I bend the thin metal and wriggle it into the keyhole. The lock’s got pretty old guts so it clicks almost immediately and creaks open a little.

I slip inside and softly shut the door behind me. When I look up, my breath clogs in my throat.

It’s a forest. I’m in a forest—or at least it feels that way. Green drips from the ceiling and the curling arms of ferns crowd around my legs. Tree trunks act like natural pillars, the bowers creating a canopy above, the roots nubby under my feet. The air smells like damp green things. Like rain.

“Faelan?” I whisper, searching the thick shadows. My pulse picks up speed at the strangeness.

I step deeper into the room, hearing nothing but the slight shifting of plants around me as I move. But then I push aside some drooping vines, and the leaves above my head rustle loudly. I look up, hoping it’s just a bird or something. In the house. Or the forest. I don’t know what to call this place. I don’t see anything, so I keep going farther. As I move aside a branch blocking my view, it gets even weirder.

A circular structure made of sticks appears in front of me. It’s a foot taller than me and rimmed in chunks of brown grass at the top. Dead grass. Moss and mushrooms coat the woven white birch branches, dark earth crumbling out of the crevices along the base.

I stare in confusion for a minute, and then I walk around it, looking for rhyme or reason to the thing.

A soft sigh fills the air, and I freeze, looking up. “Faelan?” But the noise sounds too feminine to have come from the burly Faelan.

No answer comes. I should probably just walk away, leave whatever this is alone. Poking around in the unknown is usually a horrible idea—I’ve seen enough curious ditzes die in horror movies to know that. But, apparently, I’ve become a curious ditz.

I slip off Aelia’s ridiculous purple heels and prop my foot on one of the branches woven into the body of the structure. I grab a chunk of dead grass along the top and pull myself up to peek over the edge.

My nails dig into the bristly roots, and my breath catches in my throat.

Faelan’s head is beside my fingers. He’s lying on a bed of browning grass—asleep or dead, I can’t tell. But I know where the sigh came from. Aelia’s friend, Niamh, is wrapped around him, her delicate fingers splayed on his bare stomach. The two are coated in a thin silver-white substance that looks like it’s made of spiderwebs.

I can’t stop staring. The girl’s head is tucked into the dip of Faelan’s shoulder muscle, her long blond hair covering her obviously naked body. His arm is wrapped around her waist to hold her close, and his breath is rustling the hair at her brow. They’re like something out of a faerie story, lovers frozen in time, so beautiful it almost hurts to look at them.

And the skin on Faelan’s face isn’t twisted and charred anymore. Just like when Ben drank Faelan’s blood, the burns are completely healed, and only a tinge of pink is left behind on his cheek and neck. There’s a little smudge of soot there, on his temple—

His eyes fly open and instantly lock on mine. They’re glowing green.

I gasp and jerk back. My fingers slip through the dead grass roots with the sudden movement, and I fall, landing on a fern with an oomph.