Neither of them actually does anything but look at me, and I drop my gaze to the embers.
Then I’m forgotten.
Other fae draw closer, stand around the dying embers, and that barbed sound lifts as murmured conversations snake around the camp.
I keep my gaze down until the last campfire is extinguished, and the humans are huddled at the end of the unit, surrounded by a half-dozen armed fae guards, and, as I look around, the light gets dimmer every second.
The itch to reach for my torch flinches my fingers.
But where my torch is, I don’t know.
It’s not with me, not anymore. Last I had it was in the street, on the road, before we walked into that trap.
Now, I stand in the swell of darkness.
Those slick blackwood sticks with flames dancing on their tips are the only source of light left in the camp.
But even that is taken from me.
All over, dark fae tear out the torches from the earth where they were planted, then lower the torches until the fiery tips are downwards, and… the flames vanish.
The blackout swallows us whole.
It comes thick, swelling my lungs, and my instinct reacts with a sudden pinning of my muscles to my bones.
The tension ignites my injuries.
I wince against the surge of pain.
In the pure darkness, I lift my hands to my chest and dig my fingertips into the seam of my ribcage.
That ache…
That fucking ache.
I need the inhaler.
My hands tremble against the cold. Even sheathed in gloves, the bones of my fingers shiver as I reach out into darkness.
I find him.
My fingers press into hard stone—and I flinch.
I flinch, though I reached for him.
My lips part, but no words come from me. I should speak it,I need my inhaler, but my throat tightens around any noise I can make.
My lungs are hungering for it, for that relief to drive the ache out of my body, but I’m just frozen.
The stone moves against my fingertips, until it’s gone—and replaced by something softer, something much smaller.
I close my fingers around it, the L-shaped curve of plastic with a tin-metal tip.
I feel it for a beat, as if to make sure it is what I think it is, then bring it closer to my parted lips.
I don’t go easy on my low supply. I should. I should probably space it out, since I don’t know when I’ll get more,ifI’ll get more.
But the greed in my lungs can’t be battered away, and I suck in one, two, three desperate breaths before the ache starts to fade away.
