Page 111 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“To rip an answer out of Neo’s throat.”

“Wait.”

“Too late. You had your chance to tell me.”

Ten minutes later, Nia showed up to my room. She sighed, threw a tote bag stuffed with all sorts of leaves on my bed and came to sit beside me on the sofa where I’d curled up on, holding his pillow to my chest while I’d pressed my face to it.

“You didn’t have to come.”

“Malik threatened to end my lineage if I didn’t.”

My eyes drew shut and I smiled. “What did he ask you to do?”

“To check you over.”

“And?”

There was a beat of hesitation. I wouldn’t like this.

“And undo what Neo has done the best I can. I’m not as good as him, but he said he was too angry to do it himself.”

Tears skittered down my cheek and I sniffled, nodding and sitting up. “Alright.” Though these past few weeks I’d gone without Neo’s help, it was barely a fraction of what I expected it to be after she’d restored my emotions entirely. Suddenly, I remembered ten years ago, and braced myself tightly for what was about to come. I wondered if twenty-nine-year-old me was as strong as nineteen year old me had been.

I was not.

Not nearly.

“I brought all sorts of herbs for tea, as requested,” she said, attempting to soften the blow.

“What for?”

“Mal said to pick something that would ‘help her fucking sleep’.”

I snorted, wiping my eyes.

“You should have come to me.”

“Things happen to people I keep close. They don’t want to be near me anymore. I’ve kept you far and close enough. And look at you,” I said, taking her stretched hands. “You’re still around me. Don’t tell me my curse hasn’t been warded off.”

“Thora—”

“Three years ago. I’m stuck back three years ago. It feels like my mind is constantly on a loop on that day. Constantly feeling how I felt that day. For three years,” I confessed. “Then before that time, it was for two years, when I couldn’t smell his scent around Adriatian corridors anymore, when I knew he’d really and truly left. Then before that, when I killed my father. He kept haunting me every waking moment. When he was done torturing during the day, it started at night, too. I could go on and on and on. No one can help me, Nia. Nothing could. In a way, this made me feel like I had some control of my emotions. If I could threaten to take them away, they’d hide and leave me alone.”

It was late. Not that late, but he should have come to our room at least fifteen minutes ago. Maybe I was more anxious because part of my ability to feel fear and pain had been restored, but I couldn’t bear the sting of worry. What if he’d gone and done something silly? Like actually killing Neo.

I got up. Against my better judgement, I still got up and then headed down to track someone to take me down to Adriata. Couldn’t believe the idiot had left me alone with his skeletons in this god damn empty castle. Especially when he knew how queasy bones without flesh in them made me.

“He isn’t in his room,” Pen said just as I made to head in that direction. “Rain and Sam took pity on him sulking in the gardens, so they are doing a sleepover.”

I was moving before she even finished that sentence, throwing a quick thank you over my shoulder. Gently cracking the door open, I peeked inside, not wanting to wake my niblings. Only to find out the only person I could wake up was him.

Sam was sitting on the floor, going through a massive book, while Rain was next to a snoring Malik, putting about a dozen braids in his hair and a ton more clips and bows.

“You two should be asleep.”

“Cannot,” Sam said disinterestedly, continuing to flip through the dusty pages. “He snores too loudly.”

“So does your sister.”