42. Niamh

Iwake up slumped against Caspian's shoulder, the infernal book still open on my lap. After Poppy cheerfully knocks on my door, I wash up, put on that pink, flowy dress, and head down to the shop.

The day proceeds normally, with the usual amount of customers. When Poppy returns at the end of lunchtime, she happily dances past. "I am going to a concert. A boy asked me to one. A pretty boy. But I am taking Daisy! Oh, you can come too if you want?" She beams at me, dreamily sighing at the thought of her concert.

"I can't," I say.

Because something is happening tonight. Something big is happening tonight. Something wrong.

The air in this place is all wrong. Stilted. Stifling.

Caspian. I don't like this air. I should take Caspian away. But where?

"Okay!" Poppy skips by into the main house. I hear a door open and slam with mindless, innocent noise. A chorus of shushes rises up.

"Poppy! Damn it, Poppy! Hush, Poppy."

I wish the noise would wake Caspian. Bring him back.

But it doesn't.

I am left in the storefront alone. I have to tend to the next customer alone.

A woman with sad gray eyes shuffles to the counter and whispers to me, "Order for A. Geem." A. Geem. I find a parcel with her name written on it under the counter. I hand it to her. Extend my palm.

"Payment please," I request politely.

She nods and drops a hairpin onto my hand. "Payment given. Good day."

Good day.

Bad day.

Long, boring day.

More customers arrive, but none wake up Caspian. None of them alone seem to have an answer to who or what I am. They barely look at me, fixated on their mysterious orders.

Payment.

Order.

Payment.

It goes like that until darkness descends, and the customers, one by one, trickle away. An hour passes without a new one coming. Another hour.

I should leave the shop and return to Caspian, but I can't. Only Altaris can give the order, and he isn't around. Only he can free me from this monotony, but he isn't around.

So, I sweep. I tidy the already neat piles of knick-knacks and books. I sweep the spotless floor. I wipe the windows with a dry rag, and I wait and wait.

No one comes. It's too late for any shopping now. So very late. I should find Altaris and ask for this shift to end. I start to. I've barely reached the small hall when the bells above the door chime.

Ding. Dong.

Someone comes in. A customer.

Not a customer. There are three of them, and they do not seem to desire whatever could be in one of Altaris' paper bags. Their eyes fixate on me. Greedy, dangerous eyes.

"Hello, beautiful," one of them says. "You're a ways from your home, ain't you?"

Ain't I? No. Because I have no home. Nowhere without Caspian. Except without Caspian. Unless he wakes up and changes. Unless he decides he no longer wants me.

I swallow hard. Try to remain polite. "Can I help you?"

"We came to buy something," a second man grumbles, his voice devious and rasping. It crawls over my skin like dry, scraping fingertips.

"Yeah," the third man laughs, looming tall above the other two. "Buy something."

Run! The voice comes from nowhere, whispered at the back of my mind. As if I were part of a vamryre collective, it comes. Commands.

Niamh, run!

I reach for the door.

The three men laugh in unison. They stalk toward me. Reach toward me.

I tug on the doorknob, but it doesn't turn. The door won't open. I bang on it, but it refuses to open.

"Altaris?" My voice rings out. Silence answers. "Altaris!"

I bang on the door.

The men descend.

One of them snatches my wrist and drags me back, lays me flat on top of the counter beneath three sets of peering eyes.

"A beauty, ain't she?" One of them hisses. "Bet she'll fetch a nice right price."

"She better," the first man replies, rummaging through his black coat. "But the bastard wanted us to check her first. Catalog her and what not. Stupid vampire prick. Thinks he has us on a leash or something." He finds what he's looking for and raises it. A knife, gleaming and wicked.

He raises it. Another man extends my wrists and raises it.

The knife descends and bites and tears.

"Jesus, Ace! Don't cut er' fucking hand off. We need her intact. At least somewhat. We need her holes intact, at least."

The man with the knife lowers it. Hisses in annoyance. "Didn't work. The sample must not be large enough or sumthin."

"What do you mean, it didn't work?" The second man snatches the blade. Lowers it.

Straight down into my chest.

I breathe blood. Bleed it out in torrents and drops—but beneath my skin. The knife in my chest keeps it all in.

Until the man rips the blade out and lowers it again. A noise sounds. Above my screaming, a noise sounds. Ding. Ding.

The door opening?

No. Something else. A device the men hold between them and eye with confused, frowning expressions.

"What the fuck does that mean?" One of them wonders.

"Don't care," another snaps. "Whatever she is, she's pretty and young and will fetch a nice price. Help me grab her."

Grab me. To take me away. From Caspian. From the mortal realm, perhaps.

They aim to take me away.

"No!" I kick out with flailing legs. Lash out with one whole arm and one gaping and bleeding. I shout. Scream. Fight. Bite a hand that comes to cover my mouth.

I won't go. They can't take me.

"Stupid bitch!" One of them howls, painfully bitten. He steps back, holding his hand to his chest. He steps back in fear of me. "She's a wild, little thing. Hold her still. A bit of happy medicine will send her right off."

Right off. Away.

I can't go away.

"No!" I kick. I scream. I bite. "No! No! Let go of me! LET GO OF ME!"

I scream. So loud that I drown them out. So loud that it doesn't matter if I am fae or not-fae or nothing at all. I scream so loud that those in the other realm could hear.

I scream and scream because I am not nothing. I exist. I can scream, and so I exist.

No one will take that from me.

No one will ever take me away.

Not from anyone. Not from Caspian. Especially not from Caspian.

Yes, I hear him whisper. In my head, I hear him whisper it. No one will ever take you away.

Because the men holding me down are gone. They've been ripped away by an unseen force and I am left panting and gaping at a garish, purple ceiling.

I am crying. My chest hurts. My arm hurts. But pain is not why I am crying.

Relief is.

Because I can hear him. His voice, in my skull and in my ear.

"I am here," he says. Angry. Bitter. Vengeful. "Stop crying. Stop crying! I am here."

Caspian. He is here, and he will never leave me again.

I will never let him leave me again.