That was my delusion, and I was sticking with it.
“Nothing is stationary in Faerie,” he said, and I had to jump back a few brain loops to remember what we’d been talking about. My mind had been caught on the heat pooling in my gut and dripping down to my…
“Nothing is stationary?”
Shadow’s face was highlighted by a burst of golden sunlight that chose that moment to dramatically spray through the window. We had been flying through a bunch of low-hanging clouds, and as they cleared, the light was brighter than ever, and below us was…lava. Just fields of flowing red.
“The landscape here changes as often as the images that adorn my walls,” Shadow explained.
Trying to wrap my head around this concept was not easy. Humans and shifters liked stationary. It was familiar, and that was comforting. “What about Len’s garden? That didn’t move.”
Shadow grinned. “You’re quick. I like that about you. Most humans take forever to catch up to the conversation.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. “Better?”
He nodded. “That’s more the level I expect from your kind. But, yes, Len’s is a small stationary section. There are many scattered about, but they are cut off from anything else, so you still need to find yourself a mode of transportation.” Hence why he had a floating house here. It was basically Faerie’s form of a campervan.
With a shake of my head, I turned back to the view, noticing a few small islands dotted among the rivers of lava. “Can we get back to the Library of Knowledge from your house here?”
Shadow shook his head. “No, there are only a few entrances from Faerie to the library. We’ll have to go back to Len’s garden in two days so we can return. It’s the closest portal on this side of the great divide.”
And just like that, I really wanted to know what this great divide was. Hopefully, I’d learn so much more in our few days here.
“Stand back, Mera,” Shadow said suddenly.
I wrinkled my brow at him, wondering what the hell he was talking…
Inky exploded, his size going to twenty times larger, and I almost got caught in its black smoke.
“Are we under attack?” I yelled, covering my head as I ducked to the side.
Shadow laughed, and I paused because that didn’t sound like someone worried. This was clearly not an attack, but what was happening?
Inky continued to swell, and the spark of lights inside grew brighter and brighter until… a box slid out from the middle of it.What in the creepy fuck was going on here?
Shadow seemed amused by my expression as I stared at the somewhat disturbing image. “Your food has arrived,” he said.
I rubbed a hand over my face, opening my mouth to speak before closing it again. Inky had birthed a damn box of food, and now I had to eat it?
My stomach growled again, louder than before.
Yeah, so, okay, I probably would. But still… “How did it do that?”
Shadow, the beast of secrecy, just grinned.
Throwing my hands in the air, I spun in a huff, annoyed by everything being a secret in this world. My curious nature was driven crazy by all the unanswered questions, and it felt like Shadow was doing it deliberately at this stage.
Although now that I knew Inky was possibly linked to his weakness, maybe he was just extra cautious about revealing any information to do with his little minion.
“Inky has ties to the library that go beyond the norm,” Shadow said after a few seconds of awkward silence. I had not expected him to answer, so I was genuinely shocked. “He’s also connected to me, and between the two, it allows him to form a small magical portal. It comes in handy at times.”
Inky wrapped around us both, and I dragged my fingertips along the darkness. At some point, just like with Shadow, I could touch it without any repercussions. How that had happened, I had no idea, but I wasn’t upset. We’d made progress in the time I’d been with them. Shadow might have only trusted five beings in the world, but I was no longer the enemy I had been at one point.
To test the theory, I casually brushed through Inky and let my hand scrape across the skin of Shadow’s hand that rested near his side. Just a graze. But there was no pain.
I couldn’t stop the broad, triumphant grin from crossing my face. Shadow shot me a half-smirk, like he knew exactly what I was doing. “Don’t get too comfortable, little wolf,” he warned me. “You should take care to protect yourself at all costs.”
I nodded. “Always have, Shadow. And I always will. I’ve been let down too many times to be any other way.”
