21. Caspian

The healer is a mortal. She smells like one, anyway. She resembles one, thin and frail, her blond curls coiled tightly at the nape of her neck. She's pretty. Not pretty enough for Cassius, but pretty all the same. Not furtive and shaking and so damn bold, she makes a vamryre bend to her whim.

I'd kill her if I could. Wouldn't even drink. I'd rip her to shreds.

But only in her hands does the fae stand a chance of surviving. When she crouches near the bed and touches her with doctorly prodding fingers, I can tell. Mortal or not, she can save her.

So why isn't she?

"Heal her!"

"I'm thinking," the woman snaps. She's young, very young. As young as my fae. It's easy to tell from smell alone. The youth have a secret fragrance, a certain tint that Cassius learned to discern as one would fine wine. He liked them aged. Not too young. Not too old.

Thirty was a ripe, perfect age. The best age.

She must be twenty, at least. Too young for his tastes.

Too old for mine. I don't like screaming, flailing youths. I like them at an age that transcends some stupid number of years. A mental age. Old and young alike can fit my criteria.

I like them innocent and hopeful. Young at heart, not in body—children are off limits, even in Cassius' eyes—with naive, wide, innocent eyes. Seventy-years. Twenty. Thirty. Fifty.

Their mental age is all that matters to me. Youthful and young in the soul.

This mortal is too damn old. Her mind reeks, older than other mortals at fifty. A hundred. She has decades of knowledge in her skull, and it's made her weary. Vengeful. She is no innocent.

She sees the world at a glance for what it is: cold and hopeless. She is too old for me.

Too much like me.

"I can't work with you staring at me," she snaps, setting something down at her feet: a slim leather case. She opens it and pulls an array of tools out. Cutting tools. Probing tools.

Tools for healing or killing.

I won't let her out of my sight until I know which.

"If you kill her, I will kill you," I insist. Remind.

She scoffs. "Go do something useful rather than sulk and stare. She needs clothing. Did you forget? We don't wear your fancy robes out here. Get her something clean to wear. You can do that much, can't you?"

Do that much. Because out here in their realm, the mortals have their own particular clothing tastes. Tastes that have changed and waned within the decades. Fashions have fallen out of favor and come back again.

They aren't stagnant like the robes of the other realm are. We are color-coded there by race, given an array of fabric to help us remember our place. Green for fae. Red for vamryre. Blue for lunaria.

Gray for her alone, the meaningless fae.

In the Citadel, her color is meant to be ignored and overlooked. Here, she will draw too much attention. If she lives, she needs to fit in, long enough to outlast Cassius and his ploys. Long enough for me to fulfill my last and final promise to her.

I start to leave. Then I remember.

"If you let her die?—"

"I won't," the mortal insists. "Now go!"

Go. I'll go. I'll get her clothing to keep her safe. I'll make sure no agents of the other realm are near.

But I will return. I better find her breathing.

Or…

I will turn this realm upside down in a way Cassius could only dream.

I will raise hell.