Page 289 of Sorrow & Strangers

I hesitate a moment before I do. Usually I am asking her to close her eyes, not the other way around. It definitely gives me a new respect for the kind of trust it takes to comply. She is infinitely braver than I am. I hear her rummaging through her drawers, and she comes back to stand between my legs.

Carefully, she lifts one of my hands and puts what feels like a small box onto my palm. “Open your eyes.”

My eyes snap open, and I freeze, frowning down at the small green sprig encased in a glass box. It’s barely longer than my small finger, with tiny flowers blooming on it. It pulses softly, power radiating from it.

“You need to go!” a voice screams, and it’s not one I recognize. “This is the Fall!” The ground beneath me is coming apart at the seams, leaving nothing but an empty abyss.

“This is . . .” I whisper hoarsely.

“It is the only thing I had with me when I was found,” she says, taking the box from my hands, unknowingly releasing me from a memory that wrapped its way around my throat. I don’t really understand what I am remembering. Who was warning me during the Fall?

I stare at the box in her hands. “That must have been passed down to you by whoever survived the Fall. A piece of Faerie is . . . powerful magic.”

Dangerous magic. Heady magic. If she wants to, she could use this single sprig of a lost realm to play with time, and that is something only one being has ever mastered. With good reason.

“I’ve never shown it to anyone,” she says, tracing her thumb along the edge of the box. She looks back at me, her eyes flashing with new vulnerability, and my heart thuds with a realization about this moment.

She is letting me in. Just a tiny bit more.

“Thank you, princess. I’m honored,” I say, taking her hand and kissing the palm.

“I need to get back to Alice,” she whispers.

I nod, and she brushes a kiss to my forehead before stepping back, taking one last look at me on her bed before leaving me alone in her room.

The sprig sits on her bedside table, and my eyes linger on it.

The Fall . . . the Fall.

Chapter One Hundred Nineteen

Mira

Ibrush my fingers down Rafe’s cheek, keeping my touch light. He’s sleeping so peacefully, and I don’t want to wake him. I’ve stayed here every night for the past week. Sometimes more has happened. Sometimes we’ve just slept. I am not sure where we are right now, but last night, when I got here and he told me about Alice . . . I knew I had to help him. I know little about Drãculea, but what I do know is that the sovereign had a similar tyranny over its people as the King and Queen of Pyrrhos did over mine. That alone made me want to help. That and the fact that she is Rafe’s family. While he hasn’t told me about his mother or father, he talks about his sisters with enormous affection.

I rest my hand over his heart, watching how his eyelashes fan out over his tanned cheeks. His thick, dark eyebrows are relaxed in sleep, and he looks so much more at ease than when I first saw him in Paradis.

With a soft sigh, I force myself away and climb out of bed to search for my panties and bra. Even though Summer caught me last night, I need to keep up the charade for Annabeth. My phoenix can sense Summer’s power, and it is immense. It makes her wary of Summer, but my primal instincts tell me I can trust her.

I am just finishing fastening my bra when I hear the rasp of a charcoal dragging over paper. Glancing over my shoulder, I see Rafe sitting up. The sheet is pooled around his hips, and he is watching me intensely, his eyes dark as they dart between me and the pad. His eyes lock with mine, and my knees threaten to give way from the intensity of his stare.

“I have to go. Annabeth will be up soon.”

Rafe keeps his eyes on me as his hand moves over the paper, still drawing. I pull on my jeans and my crop top before I glance at him again. “I’ll text you.”

Rafe finally stops sketching and reaches for me. “Kiss me goodbye.”

He looks so fucking delicious in the morning. He looks delicious all the time, but there is something about waking up with him, about the way his hair is still mussed from my fingers last night, his lips swollen from mine, the singe marks on his horns from me channeling my fire into them.

“I can’t keep sleeping here,” I say, walking around the bed and bending to brush my lips over his.

“Why not?” Rafe growls, nipping gently at my lower lip.

“You know why,” I say, pulling back a little. Rafe cups my cheek, and his hand brushes over the sketch, drawing my attention to it. It’s stunning. I’m looking over my shoulder at him, and even though it’s a rough sketch, he has perfectly captured how I feel about him in the piece. My breath catches at the sight of it. How is he so perfect?

“It’s not finished,” Rafe says, also looking at the sketch. I turn his head back to face me and slam my lips to his, kissing him deeply.

Rafe groans as he bites my lip again, his fang piercing me this time. I slide my hand over his jaw, the taste of him threatening to make me forget why I need to leave. Panting, I pull back and stare at him. “I have to go.”