The Faerie Prince

Chapter Thirteen

PART II

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I battle my way through pain and tangled dreams for what feels like days before restful sleep finally takes me. When I eventually open my eyes and find a world that isn't spinning dizzily, my first thought is that I've been here before, in this moment. Waking from a long, injury-healing sleep. Lying on Ryn's couch with him kneeling beside me. The memory is so strong that when I turn my head to the side, I expect to see him.

It isn't Ryn sitting in a chair beside my bed, though. It's Tora. And this is the bedroom that used to be mine when I lived with her.

"Hey," she says, looking up from a collection of papers in her hand. She places them on the bedside table and leans forward in her chair. "Ready to face the world again?"

I look down and see a narrow scar encircling my wrist where the metal band was. My gaze shifts to the top of my arm; the skin is perfectly healed. "I think so. Did Flint take the band off?"

"Yes. I couldn't find anyone else who knows how to, although there must be others at the Guild who've come across this metal before."

I sit up and attempt to run my hands through my hair, but the dried mud matting the strands together makes it difficult. At least I'm not longer wearing the torn, skimpy cocktail dress. The clothes I'm dressed in look like Tora's.

"Sorry, I thought it would be a little difficult to wash your hair while you were unconscious," Tora says. "You'll have to take care of that yourself."

"Sure. How long have I been asleep?"

"About a day."

"Oh. It felt a lot longer than that." I swallow as I prepare to ask the question that plagued most of my nightmares before I eventually fell into a dreamless sleep. "Did Ryn and I get back before the assignment cut-off time?"

Tora smiles and says, "Yes."

I close my eyes and let out a relieved sigh.

"Ryn did the verbal report with Bran and me yesterday after Flint got the bands off both of you," Tora continues. "Technically, you should have been there too, but you weren't exactly in a state to be talking. Or standing."

I groan, feeling heat rise in my cheeks as I remember just how pathetic my arrival at the Guild was. "Sorry about the passing out thing. So embarrassing. It won't happen again." I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stretch my arms.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Tora's eyes are wide with concern.

"Yes, I'm more than okay. I feel completely fine. I knew Ryn was overreacting when we got to the Guild yesterday."

"Overreacting?"

"Yeah, he said something to Basil about me dying."

"Well, I hesitate to tell you this because I know how you feel about Ryn being right—" she gives me a knowing look, and I pretend to have no idea what she's talking about "—but he wasn't overreacting. There was an infection in your wound that was spreading quickly through your blood. If you'd been out there on your own, I don't think you would have made it back to the Guild in time."

"Oh." Great, so I owe Ryn my life again?

"And I was expecting you to be back days ago—I mean, it wasn't exactly a complicated assignment—so I was very worried when we got to Friday afternoon and you still hadn't shown up. I know I wasn't supposed to contact you, but I was getting ready to break that rule. And then to hear that you were battling the Unseelie Queen herself—"