Chapter 22

MERRY

H is eyes are hazel with flecks of gold, and his aroma is wildberries and sunshine. I jot it down. I don’t want to forget anything. But even as I neatly print the information in my journal, there’s a part of me that trembles with foreboding because it will happen.

It always happens.

The reset.

I can feel it at the back of my mind. An itch, a niggle. A memory attempting to surface, and as soon as it’s close to breaking, then I’ll forget all of this.

Reading it won’t be the same. It won’t feel the same.

Will I be the same?

It’s been weeks, and I’ve grown, but all that growth will be wiped out.

The pen feels suddenly too weighty.

I can’t go on like this much longer.

I need help, and maybe Crush can give that to me. Find a pureblood fae who can help heal me. I’ve got to hope that I can be whole again. I so desperately want it, and especially now that I’ve been accepted into the fae world.

What will Mother and Father think when I tell them about Midsommer Nights and Crush? Even as I think it, I know I’ll never tell them…well maybe not never but not now. Not for a while. They did their best to raise me, to make me feel normal, helping me find information about fae—books and stories and anything they could get their hands on. At the time I thought it was enough, but I know now that I was lying to myself.

The other night at Midsommer…what I felt in the company of Crush and his ogre blood friends…that was real. That was true, and I desperately want to feel it again.

I tuck my journal into my desk drawer and stretch. It’s late, and I should sleep, but the moon calls to me, and so like most nights, I pull open the drapes and stand in front of the window to bathe in its rays.

The grounds are silver and gray, the sky clear and pinpricked with starlight, and the moon hangs heavy in the bosom of night, gleaming beautifully rotund…well, almost. A cloud passes over it, obscuring its beauty, and movement below catches my eye.

A shadow darts across the grounds.

There’s someone on our grounds, veering toward the mansion.

What the?—

I turn and run for the door, sprinting down the passage.“There’s someone on the grounds! Padma! Edwin!”

I get to the top of the stairs and jolt when I see them run into the entranceway.

“What is it?” Edwin asks.

“There’s a man outside. I saw him run around the back of the house.”

Edwin makes a beeline for the front door, and Padma and I rush toward the back.

The intruder won’t get away.

We almost collide with Haiden coming the other way with a tea tray. He lets out a yelp and flattens himself to the wall as we rush past.

We shoot into the kitchen and out of the back door into the garden.

A shadow moves at the side of the chapel. “Hey!”

“Stop!” Padma runs at it.

Edwin sprints around the side of the house and straight toward Padma. “Padma, wait!”

“It’s me!” Holly cries. “Just me!”

The clouds part, the shadows retreat, and Holly stands with her hands up. “He’s gone. Whoever he is. I was too slow to catch him.”

Edwin doubles over, hands on hips. But Padma isn’t winded. “You idiot,” she says to Holly. “You could have been hurt. Why didn’t you call us?”

“I was out for a walk, and I saw him,” she says. “I went for it. I didn’t think.”

“Did you get a look at his face?” Padma asks.

“No.” She lowers her hands. “He was tall, though, at least six three. Scaled the fence easily.”

“Who the fuck…” Edwin says. “And why?”

“Best check the grounds in the morning, and all the locks on the windows and doors tonight,” Padma says.

“It’s a shame wards don’t work here,” Holly says as we turn back to the house.

Haiden meets us at the door. “It looks like no one can sleep tonight. How about I make some cocoa?”

“Great idea,” Holly says. “Should we check if Orina is awake?”

“She’s gone,” Edwin says.

“Where?” Holly asks before I can.

“Branwood.”

A thought occurs to me. “What if that man was a spy?”

“Linked to Ariella?” Edwin says.

“Ruby,” Padma corrects. “Her real name is Ruby, and it’s a strong possibility.”

“Do you think he saw Godor take her?” Edwin asks.

There is no way to know and no way to determine how it might affect Orina if he did.

“You got any marshmallows?” Holly asks Haiden. “I’m going to need a sugar fix.”

I follow the others back into the house, trying desperately to ignore the itch at the back of my mind.

I don’t have long before I reset, and I can’t help but wonder if I’m always this scared or if the awful foreboding in the pit of my belly is new, and if so, what it could mean.