Forty-Two

I

woke swallowed up in a plush, comfortable bed. When I opened my eyes, it appeared as though someone had turned the calendar back about five hundred years. An ornate canopy of thick toile swirled overhead, gathering into a gold-sculpted cap in the center. The posts of the bed were wider around than my legs and carved with figures I couldn’t see clearly in the flickering candlelight. I stared groggily at the candle. A dark wick, skirted in blue, rose to a dancing orange flame, fading to white like an aura.

I bolted upright. My head spun, and a wave of nausea rolled in my belly.

The memory of what happened to me, the sick certainty that I wasn’t safe, hit me full force. I jumped out of the bed, fell to my knees, and crawled to the door. Gripping the doorknob, I hauled myself to standing and jiggled the knob. Locked. There were no windows in the room, except for an opening in the wooden door—roughly the size of a torso—which was barred. Another piece of wood on the other side of the bars stopped me from being able to see through.

I fought my rising panic. It made me sick to think of my father’s misery. His fears had come true. Guilt coursed through me. No wonder he’d clipped my wings. Look what I had done at the first hint of freedom.

Clancy…he was supposed to get me out of harm’s way. That’s what Ina told him to do. Put me on a plane to America, back to my dad. But he hadn’t. Instead, he brought me here. He let that man Griffin feed off me.

A sheen of sweat broke out on my upper lip as everything became clear. I’d heard the name Griffin before. He was the family friend Finn had been staying with in America, the one who worked at the hospital. My insides roiled. Was I destined to die like the woman in the park? Griffin stole her flame. Snuffed her out like a candle.

The way Finn almost did to me.

Did he know? Had he known all along and kept it from me? I remembered the constant ball of a secret in his aura, and how I’d wished to know what it was. But I’d been intent on keeping my own secret. I never thought his might be as big. Or so devastating.

My knees wobbled. I grasped the edge of the bed and bent forward, taking deep breaths, willing my dizziness to go away. Using a footstool to hoist myself up, I climbed back between the sheets. The air smelled faintly of warm lemons and herbs. A tray with a pot of tea sat on the nightstand with a delicate china cup and a full silver tea service. I lifted one small, gleaming lid to find sparkling cubes of sugar. My tongue ran over my parched lips. A carafe held ice water, and though I was suspicious of anything offered, I couldn’t resist. If they wanted me dead, it was not going to be by poison. I gulped down two glasses.

I had no way of knowing what time it was, whether it was day or night or even how much time had passed since I arrived. I was depleted to my core, far weaker than I’d been when I was ravaged by fever in the hospital. I pushed myself into the crisp sheets and curled up on my side against the pillows, thinking a body as terrified as mine, a mind as chaotic as mine, and a heart as broken as mine would never sleep.

A woman’s voice woke me. “Drink the tea.”

I rubbed my eyes and focused on the lady standing next to the bed. Real, actual daylight cast shafts of gold across her high cheekbones and on the floor at her feet. I glanced around for the source, then followed her eyes to the ceiling.

“Skylights,” she explained. “Too too high to fly.” Oh yeah, this woman definitely had ghosts. They crowded her eyes.

She reached for the silver teapot. “Here,” she said, handing me the tiny cup filled with warm tea. “To help.”

I eyed it dubiously but took a few sips while she watched with eyes like cracked green leaves. “Little bird, little pet…how did they trap it?” She wasn’t asking me. It was more like a conversation with her invisible friend. I set the cup down and spoke slowly, as one should do with a crazy person.

“How—do—I—get—out—of—here?”

Her eyes snapped from the cup I held back up to my face. “You don’t.”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and grumbled, “We’ll see about that.”

She didn’t look very strong. Lanky. Like a teenager, though I could see she’d passed that more than a couple of decades ago. She was as pale and flimsy as thin paper. I could totally take her. I’d follow her to the door and jump her. Hot adrenaline pumped into my blood at the thought. I set my cup gently on its matching saucer. My fists clenched at my sides.

“What are you? My babysitter?”

The look that passed her face was pure pity. “No.” Then she mumbled something in Irish.

“What did you say?” I asked, irritated, ready to tackle her and get the hell out of there.

She clasped her delicate hands together and took a deep preparatory breath, like she was about to deliver the Gettysburg Address, but all that came was a weak breeze of words. “We are birds in the same cage.”