Spindle Fire (Spindle Fire #1)(12)

“Impressions?”

“Impressions, yes, have you never heard of them?” he asks, frowning as he leans against the doorframe, blocking any potential escape. “Deceptive creatures. They find the lost and lead them in circles. Right over the edge of cliffs, if you’re unlucky enough. You really don’t know about Impressions?”

She shakes her head.

He glances to the side for a moment. Then, in a lower voice, he goes on. “Impressions will drive you mad, like the queen. They have no past, no memory, and no future. They don’t feel—or at least, they can’t feel anything new. Their emotions—like their words, and their bodies, and their desires—never alter. That’s why I kept asking you how you ended up here. An Impression can only respond in one way, over and over.”

She doesn’t tell him that her life up until now was worse than what he has described. She couldn’t respond at all to people’s questions before today. She shudders, thinking of the talking bird that taunted her . . . the one bearing Malfleur’s crest.

“The Borderlands are full of them. However you got here, you’ve wandered into the deadliest part of Sommeil. Deadlier than Belcoeur.”

Aurora shakes her head. Belcoeur is dead, she thinks. Slain by her sister.

She shivers, even though the room is warm. For years, she and Isbe would play at being Malfleur and Belcoeur, taking turns at the ultimate battle between faerie sisters. If only Isbe was here now.

“Are you sure you’re not an Impression?” he says, pulling her back toward him, so close that their foreheads are almost touching. His not-square jaw is lined in stubble. Surely the princes of Aubin’s faces are freshly groomed, she thinks. Were.

He pushes her long hair over one shoulder and moves the collar of her cloak away, then leans in, almost as if to kiss her neck. She’s so surprised she freezes in place, his fingertips tickling her just below the ear. She shivers uncontrollably. She has never known what it was like to be tickled—she has no words, and no context, for the shock of it. His lips almost touch her skin, and then . . . he sniffs.

“What are you doing?” she blurts out.

“You smell real,” he answers.

Heat rises up her neck from where his breath lingers, until her cheeks feel hot.

“Aha.” He runs his hand through his messy hair and looks at her, holding her gaze. Then he grins slightly. “That’s good too. That’s a relief. Now I know you’re not an Impression.”

“What? Why?”

“Because,” he says smugly. “Impressions don’t blush.”

Her face burns hotter. “Who—who are you?”

“I’m Heath. And I’m here to save your life. Now let’s get out of here.”

She glances around at what is clearly a children’s room. How can this place be dangerous? But she doesn’t have time to wonder, as he has already begun to head down the stairs.

“But . . . my sister,” she protests as they descend. Then she stops talking and grabs on to his arm with both her hands, overcome by the alarming sensation that the stairs are disappearing beneath her feet, as though made of clouds she might sink through at any moment. Like in a dream.

She’s relieved when they make it into the front room. It must have just been another moment of light-headedness. Then she realizes her hands are still clutching his sturdy arm. She lets go quickly, the burn of contact simmering through her.

In the daylight she can see that the cottage’s furnishings are sparse, but there’s a small chair in the corner, curiously turned so it’s facing the wall. It gives her an odd, unsettled feeling. Something is not right about this place.

Turning around, she spots another doorway. She cocks her head, confused. The door is at the side of the room, which, if she’s correct, should lead directly into the staircase on the other side of the wall. But the open doorway leads to another room. The cottage seems to have no internal logic.

“We must hurry,” Heath says, turning back toward her.

But she’s drawn to the unexpected doorway. She peers inside the next room—a smaller sitting room, this one with a table. On it, by another window—which, by her calculations, has no right to be there, as this ought to have been an interior wall—sit a teacup and a sugar bowl. As she gets closer, she can see that the sugar bowl is heaped high. Beside it, there is an inch or two of tea in the teacup. She dips her pinkie finger in, and yanks it out with a yelp. The tea is scalding. Automatically, she sucks on her finger to try and soothe it—something she has seen others do. The pain of her finger throbs inside the warmth of her mouth.

She stares at the tea set. Someone else has been here recently.

“Aurora, please do not mistake me,” Heath says behind her. “If we don’t leave now, we may never get out of here. The cottage has a way of, well, disappearing.”

“How can it . . . disappear?” The last word ghosts off her tongue almost without effort, despite the fact that her mind is reeling over all of this:

Belcoeur—the Night Faerie—is not dead but alive and mad, ruling over a place called Sommeil.

A royal forest that shifts and sways.

And her voice, her sense of touch. She’s never known a faerie tithe to come undone before.

“I’ve come upon this cottage many times,” Heath explains, “but it’s never in the same place twice. I might not have found it today had it not been for your screams.”