Ink Exchange

Chapter 31

Snatches of time were nothing but blurs and blank spaces, but the lucid periods were becoming more frequent. How long has it been? Her tattoo had been healed for a while. Her hair was longer. Often she could feel Irial close the connection, stopping the pull of emotions that slithered along the black vine that hovered between them. On those days almost everything was in order, sequential. So much of the time was a long blur, though. Weeks?

She hadn't left his side yet. How long? How long have I… Today she would. Today she would prove she could. She knew she'd tried—and failed—to do this more times than she could guess. There were bits of memories jumbled together. Life was like that now: just montages of images and sensations, and through it all there was Irial. He was constant. Even as she moved, she heard him in the other room. Always at my reach. That was dangerous too. The raven-woman wanted to change that, take Irial away.

Leslie slipped into one of the countless outfits he'd ordered for her, a long dress that clung and swirled when she moved. Like everything he bought, it was of material that felt almost too sensuous as she slipped into it. Without a word, she opened the door to the second room.

He didn't speak; he just watched her.

She opened the door to the hallway. Faeries followed her—invisible to any other human in the hotel, but she saw them. He'd given her the Sight with some strange oil he'd rubbed on her eyelids. Lanky creatures with tiny thorns all over their skin were silent, respectful even, as they followed her. Had she been able to, she'd have been terrified, but she was nothing but a conduit for emotions. The walls didn't keep her safe from them. Every fear, every longing, every dark thing those passing mortals and faeries felt flowed through her body until she couldn't focus. Only Irial's touch kept her from madness, calmed her.

The elevator door slid shut, closing the watching faeries out, taking her to the lobby of the hotel. Others would be there, waiting for her.

A glaistig nodded as she stepped out of the elevator. The glaistig's hooves clattered as she strode across the expanse of the room. Leslie's own footsteps weren't much quieter; Irial had bought her only ridiculously expensive shoes and boots with heels.

"… the car brought around?" The doorman was speaking, but Leslie hadn't noticed. "Miss? Do you need your driver?"

She stared at him, feeling the flood of fear in him, feeling Irial several floors above her tasting that fear through her. It was like that, endless blurs of nothing but feeling emotions slither through her body to Irial. He said he was stronger. He said they were doing well. He said the court was healing.

The doorman stared at her; he spilled his fears and disdain onto her.

What does he see?

Irial had the appearance of someone far from responsible. He had the money and the constant flow of criminal-looking guests: the faeries' human masks did little to hide the aura of menace that clung to them. And she—when she left the suite—moved through the halls like a zombie, clinging to Irial, and on several occasions coming close to putting on a public show.

"Will you be going out today?" the doorman asked.

Her stomach cramped. Being away from Irial made her sick.

Gabriel swooped in behind her. "Do you need help?"

The doorman glanced away: he mightn't have heard the inhuman timbre of Gabriel's voice, but he'd felt the fear the Hound's presence elicited. All mortals did. It was what Gabriel was, and as he became agitated, he became more frightening.

The doorman's fear spiked.

"You made it to the door, Leslie. That's good." Irial's voice slipped into her mind. It was no longer surprising, but she still winced.

"Not his driver. Grab me a taxi?" she asked the doorman. She clenched her hands: she wasn't failing, not this time. She didn't faint or crumble. Little victories. She forced the words from her lips, "Taxi to take me to warehouse …"

She swayed.

The doorman asked, "Are you sure you're well enough to—

"Yes." Her mouth was dry. Her hands were fisted tightly enough that it hurt. "Please, Gabriel, carry me to the taxi. Going by the river …" Then she toppled, hoping that he'd listen.

When Leslie woke in a patch of grass by the river, she was relieved. She could feel relief. Irial didn't drink her good feelings away. That should make her happy, knowing she wasn't numb. If not for the other thing—that maddening craving for Irial's touch, the awful sickening longing when darker emotions filled her to choking but didn't touch her emotions—she might be okay.

A bit away from her, several of Gabriel's Hounds waited and watched. They didn't frighten her. They seemed pleased that she liked them. A few times, she'd seen Ani and Tish— and in that shock-free way she lived now, she'd accepted their mixed heritage without pause. She'd come to terms with the realization that Ani—and Tish and Rabbit—had known that the ink exchange would change her.

"But you're strong enough, Les, really," Ani had insisted.

"And if I'm not?"

"You will be. It's for Iri. We need him to be strong." Ani had hugged her. "You're his savior. The court's so much stronger. He's so much stronger."

Ignoring the Hounds, Leslie walked along the river until she came to a warehouse where she and Rianne used to go to smoke. She slid open the window they'd climbed in together so often and made her way to the second floor— just high enough to see the river. Out here, away from everyone, she felt the closest to normal she had since the morning she'd left her house with Irial.

She sat watching the river race away. Her feet dangled out the window. There were no mortals, no faeries, no Irial. Away from all of them, she felt less consumed. The world was back in order, more stable somehow now that she was on her own. Is it the distance?

It didn't matter, though: she felt his approach. Then Irial was in the street, looking up at her. "Are you going to come down from there?"

"Maybe."

"Leslie—"

She stood up, balancing on the balls of her feet, hands above her head like she was preparing to dive into a pool. "I should be afraid, Irial. I'm not, though."

"I am." His voice sounded jagged, not tender this time, not reassuring. "I'm terrified."

She swayed back and forth as the wind batted against her.

In that implacable way he always seemed to have, Irial began, "We'll get better at this and—"

"Will it hurt you if I step forward?" Her voice was dispassionate, but she felt excitement at the idea. Not fear, though. There still wasn't any fear, and that's what she wanted—not to hurt, but to feel normal. She hadn't been sure before, but in that moment she knew that's what she needed: the whole of herself, all the parts, all the feelings. And they're as far gone as normal is.

"Would you feel it? Would I feel it if I fell? Would it hurt?" She looked down at him: he was beautiful, and despite the fact that he'd stolen her choices, she looked at him with a strange tenderness. He kept her safe. The mess she was in might be his fault, but he didn't abandon her to the madness it caused. He took her into his arms no matter how often she sought him, no matter that he'd had to move his court, that he looked positively exhausted. Tender feelings surged as she thought about it, about him.

When he spoke, it wasn't to say anything gentle. He pointed at the ground. "So jump."

Anger, fear, doubt, rolled over her—not pleasant, but real. For a brief moment, they were hers and real this time. "I could."

"You could," he repeated. "I won't stop you. I don't want to steal your will, Leslie."

"You have, though." She watched Gabriel walk up and whisper to Irial. "You did this. I'm not happy. I want to be."

"So jump." He didn't take his gaze away from her as he told Gabriel, "Keep everyone back. No mortals. No fey in this street."

Leslie sat down again. "You'd catch me."

"I would, but if the fall would please you" — he shrugged—"I'd rather you were happy."

"Me too." She rubbed her eyes, as if tears would come. They won't. Crying wasn't something she did anymore— neither was worrying, raging, or any other of the unpleasant emotions. Parts of her were gone, taken away as surely as the rest of her life. There were no classes, no melodramatic Rianne; there'd be no laughing in the kitchen at Verlaine's, no dancing at the Crow's Nest. And there was no way to undo any of the things that had changed. Going backward is never an option. But staying where she was wasn't true happiness either. She was living in a hazy dream—or nightmare. She didn't know if she could tell the difference just now.

"I'm not happy," she whispered. "I don't know what I am, but this isn't happiness."

Irial began climbing the building, grabbing hold of crumbling brick and broken metal, piercing his hands on the sharp edges, leaving a trail of bloody handprints as he made his way up the wall to her.

"Grab hold," he said as he paused in the window frame.

And she did. She clung to him, holding on to him like he was the only solid thing left in the world as he finished scaling the building. When he reached the barren rooftop, he stopped and lowered her feet to the ground.

"I don't want you to be unhappy."

“I am.”

"You're not." He cupped her face in his hands. "I know everything you feel, love. You feel no sorrow, no anger, no worries. How is this a bad thing?"

"It's not real. … I can't live like this. I won't."

She must have sounded serious enough because he nodded. "Give me a few more days, and I'll have a solution."

"Will you tell—"

"No." He watched her face with something almost vulnerable in his eyes. "It's best for everyone if we don't talk of this. Just trust me."