Hello, everybody! I'm really sorry about the unplanned hiatus between this chapter and the last one. It was my intention to try and stick to a regular posting schedule; however, I had an unforeseen event come up at my part-time job that made things a bit difficult for us.

I had a coworker get fired, and in the interim while we are attempting to hire another partner to take their place, all of our hours have been jacked up to make up for the loss. We're already running short-staffed, so losing our coworker has made things just a bit stressful.

I have also been in quarantine for the past week and a half, as I'd been experiencing COVID-19 symptoms. My COVID test came back, and thank goodness I was negative, but I had a horrible chest cold. Due to my severe asthma, it knocked me out of commission for a little while. I am feeling better, and am back to updating my fics!

It's my goal to post a new chapter of this fic as often as I'm able, and I thank all of you so much for your constant support and understanding!

Stay amazing~

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Shion shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. The gentle wind ruffling his hair sent a chill skittering down his spine; he shivered and sunk further into his coat, though he wasn't entirely certain the wind was the only thing to blame. He could feel the world shifting around him, the approach of winter dancing in the distance.

Nezumi stared back at him, his pale gray eyes piercing and serious. The human glamour threw Shion off a bit―but he knew, as he'd never known before, that he would recognize Nezumi no matter what he looked like. He hadn't known Nezumi for long, but he'd become part of Shion's life in a way Shion never could have predicted. It seemed as though Nezumi's otherworldly presence had jammed himself into Shion's spirit like a little splinter; difficult to notice, but ever-present, wounding and damaging in its own way.

Shion stole a desperate glance back at the café window. He couldn't see Safu and the others through the frosted glass, but he imagined Safu must have been panicking. Anne and Roy wouldn't understand her concerns, which meant Safu would have to come up with some story to appease them.

She'd probably tell them Nezumi was an abusive ex-boyfriend, and that she was concerned about Shion being out with him. He immediately scrapped that idea. Roy, though not particularly close with Shion, wouldn't tolerate abusers in any sense. If Safu said Nezumi was abusive toward Shion, then Roy would have already stormed outside and picked a fight with him.

Her story, most likely, would have been something like concern for the type of people Nezumi hung around. She'd weave a tale about Nezumi being part of a gang, and that his presence put Shion in danger with the higher ups in Nezumi's circle. Not too far from the truth—the Fair Folk were, in a sense, part of gangs, and Nezumi's presence did, in fact, put Shion in danger.

"My friends wouldn't like that I'm out here talking to you," Shion said carefully.

Nezumi raised an eyebrow. "Do they have the Sight, too?"

Shion's heart stuttered. "No. It's just me. But you're a stranger, at least to them, and you look like you'll get me into trouble."

Nezumi's lips quirked up in a bemused smirk. "I'll take that as a compliment." The amusement on his face quickly dissipated, replaced with a stern severity that made Shion's blood chill. "We do need to talk, though."

"If this is about what happened the other day," Shion said carefully, wracking his brain for the many things he'd done to result in this conversation, "then I'm sorry. I... don't know why I said all that."

"You know," Nezumi mused, cocking his head to the side. "It's always amusing to watch humans lie."

Shion's shoulders shot to his ears.

"You were angry at me, so you meant every word of it. But that's not why I'm here." Nezumi jerked his head back toward the café. "Before that, though, what are you doing here? This is a hot spot for the Folk. Surely, you know that."

Shion looked back at the door. His heart clenched, but now that he thought of it, it made perfect sense. The building always bled with the Fair Folk. Shion suspected the building was made of wood and stone, no real metal keeping it upright. Several buildings in Kronos shared that same structure, offering a sense of "old world" flair to an otherwise modern world. The age of the industrial revolution hadn't touched the outer structures of these particular buildings, allowing the Fair Folk unlimited access to their innards. Pixies crafted nests inside the rafters, and mischievous gnomes rooted themselves beneath the hollow wood-and-stone steps.

"I didn't know, actually," Shion mumbled.

Nezumi raised an eyebrow. "Pity."

Shion shoved his hands in his pockets. "Anyway, what did you want to talk about?"

Nezumi mimicked his motion, pushing his fists deep into his pockets and slumping his shoulders forward. He moved his injured one slowly, and Shion imagined the wound was still tender. He still felt a surge of pride at his assistant, even if it resulted in the potential of his own demise.

"Listen," Nezumi said, looking around to see if there were any other Folk lingering nearby. "This isn't going to make a lot of sense, but for the next few days, you need to stay inside."

Shion's heart clenched. "What?"

"Stay indoors. Surround yourself with whatever iron charms you can and whatever you do, do not come outside until three days from now. Do you understand?"

"I... I don't. Why do you want me to stay inside?" His blood chilled, and Shion lowered his voice. "Did someone figure out what happened?"

Nezumi pursed his lips.

"Oh, God..." Shion's stomach tightened. He felt sick and cold. "Did... did your king find out?"

Nezumi's eyes flashed dangerously, and Shion knew he'd hit the nail on the head.

He sucked in a deep breath. A faerie king knew Shion had the Sight. A faerie king knew that Shion had helped a member of his court. All the rules Safu's grandmother had ingrained in him since he was a child had gone fluttering out the window the moment he saw Nezumi leaning against the tree. In those moments, it hadn't mattered that Nezumi knew Shion had the Sight.

What did it mean to have a faerie king after you? Shion knew nothing about faerie courts, but he'd heard several terrifying stories about their cruelty. Children who'd foolishly made friends with the Folk, only to get dragged off into the woods in the middle of the night. Grown adults swayed by a pretty face who'd disappeared for years, only to return babbling and insane, frothing at the mouth and swearing they'd only been gone for a single evening. Murdered teenagers scattered in the middle of clearings, the victims of supposed animal attacks―even though the damage couldn't realistically have been caused by any human animal.

"You need to stay inside," Nezumi said, slicing through Shion's panicked thoughts. "For the next several days, at least."

"What does your king want with me?" Shion demanded.

Nezumi hissed at him to be quiet, then darted a glance over his shoulder. He turned back to face Shion, and the dark look on his face sent shivers down Shion's spine. "Watch it. You're already on thin ice as it is."

"Maybe I can talk to him?"

Nezumi barked out an incredulous laugh. "Talk to him?"

"I don't know!" Shion threw his hands up, desperation twisting through his veins. "I don't even know why he's after me! Is it because I helped you? If so, then I don't get why he'd want to hurt me."

"Really?" Nezumi's voice lowered, and Shion went still. There was something dangerous in his tone; some feral undertone of danger that made Shion feel like a rabbit caught in a snare. Nezumi's voice was soft and sinister as he said, "You don't know why a faerie would want to hurt you?"

Shion clenched his fists to keep them from trembling. Every moment of his life had been building up to this moment. He'd spent years cowering from the Fair Folk. Years pretending not to notice as they tore each other apart, as they stalked humans from the shadows and teased them by yanking their hair and tripping them.

"You let a faerie know you could see them," Nezumi growled. "You let creatures you know crave violence and pain know you can see them―and you don't know why they'd want to hurt you?"

"Then why didn't you hurt me?" Shion snapped.

Nezumi reeled back. A look of shock flickered across his face; he quickly smothered it behind a furious sneer, but Shion could still see the horror flashing in his mind's eye. "You know why. I owe you a debt."

"And if you didn't? If you didn't owe me a debt, would you have hurt me?"

Nezumi clamped his mouth shut.

"Well? Would you?"

"Stop talking," Nezumi snarled.

Shion burned with a mixture of fury and terror. He'd broken the rules, dismissing the consequences that came with letting the Fair Folk know that Shion could see them. Safu's grandmother had embedded the concerns in him from the moment she became aware of his Sight. And in an instant, all because Shion had seen a faerie boy in trouble, he'd tossed those precious teachings out the window.

That was his responsibility. He accepted his hand in it. And yet, Nezumi had been handed the opportunity to strike him down for his transgressions. Nezumi didn't have to give Shion a debt. He didn't have to accept the help. He could have jammed the silver knife between Shion's rib cage the moment he spotted him and bandaged his own wound while Shion bled out in the forest.

So why didn't he?

"You owe me an explanation," Shion snapped.

"I owe you?" Nezumi's eyes flashed dangerously. "Is that right?"

"You didn't attack me, when apparently, that's exactly what you should have done." Shion's hands trembled. He kept them jammed into his pockets, even though his soul screamed at him to defend himself. It didn't matter if Nezumi was out in plain view of human beings. Nezumi could attack him and vanish before the authorities arrived. No one would ever find Shion's killer—no one with the Sight, in any case.

Nezumi's lips drew back in a vicious sneer. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Then enlighten me," Shion growled back.

Nezumi moved forward, then, dangerously close. He stopped an inch from Shion's face, and Shion staggered back. His spine struck the stone wall; Shion's chest ached with terror. Nezumi lingered dangerously close to him, his teeth bared in a perfect imitation of a wolf's snarl. He'd backed Shion against the wall, towering above him. Shion's heart hammered in his throat.

"You have no idea," Nezumi hissed, "how stupid it was for your to let your secret out. I owe you? Don't joke with me. You put yourself in danger. You let us know you can see us, and there are consequences that come with that mistake."

Faeries couldn't lie. Nezumi's words spilled out of his mouth like a waterfall, without a stutter or a pause. Shion's body burned with shame and terror. He couldn't move. He trembled, pierced beneath Nezumi's silver eyes.

The weight of his mistake came crashing around him. He'd made a horrible mistake. He shouldn't have responded to the shout, shouldn't have let Nezumi know that he could see him. It had been a foolish lapse in judgment, and now that he'd done it, a faerie king was out for his head.

"Hey!"

Nezumi whipped around. Shion glanced up; his vision blurred, but he saw Safu storming down the stairs and making a beeline for them.

Her face was twisted up in fury. Anne and Roy hurried on her heels. Anne's expression bled with concern and terror, but Roy's was alight with righteous indignation. He stormed over toward Shion and Nezumi, hot on Safu's sparkly heels as she stormed right up to Nezumi.

Shion ducked beneath Nezumi's arm. The silver-eyed boy risked a glance down at him. His expression darkened, but beneath it was something like shame and disgust. Shion's face burned as he bustled toward Safu; she quickly inserted herself between him and Nezumi, glaring up at him.

"What's your problem?" Safu spat.

Nezumi glared down at her. "This doesn't involve you."

"The hell it doesn't." Safu squared her shoulders. She was a good head and a half shorter than Nezumi, but she glared up at him as if he was nothing more than a high school bully. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

Roy stood beside her. He was much taller than both of them, and the top of Nezumi's head reached the bottom of his chin. Roy glared down at him, straightening his spine and towering above Nezumi like a hulking tree. He lifted his hands and cracked his knuckles together in an obvious threat, but didn't say anything.

Anne's hands fluttered to Shion's shoulders. "It's OK," she shushed, drifting her fingertips across Shion's arms and turning him away from where Nezumi stood. "It's going to be OK."

Shion risked a glance over his shoulder. Nezumi looked up at Roy, a disinterested look on his face. His eyes clicked over to Safu, and then over to Shion.

Roy, catching Nezumi's glance, eased himself between them and cracked his knuckles again. "Try it," he growled, his low baritone trembling through Shion's core.

Nezumi gave an audible scoff. Shion almost laughed, too, in the midst of his terror and misery. That Roy thought he could take Nezumi—that he could stare down at Nezumi, peering into those silver eyes, and not see that he was a threat—was completely laughable.

Without a word, Nezumi took a step back and gestured with a jerk of the chin for them to leave. Safu made a disgusted, threatening sound in the back of her throat before whipping around and storming toward Shion. Roy gave Nezumi one last warning glance before turning and retreating back to the ground.

"Shion," Safu said gently, hurrying over toward him and grasping him gently by the arm.

He broke down. Beneath her sympathetic gaze, he burst into tears. All the terror and concern that came with letting the Fair Folk know about his Sight came thundering over him. Shion covered his face with his hands, desperately trying to scrape away the tears as fast as they fell.

"Safu," he choked, "I messed up."

Safu's expression darkened. With an understanding nod, she placed an arm around Shion's shoulder and began to guide him away from the café.

⁂

Nezumi watched Shion leave.

Shion wasn't running away, but he wanted to. Nezumi could feel it―Shion's terror, like a live wire, crackling between them. The thrumming heartbeat of a terrified animal. Humans didn't typically run from faeries whose attention they'd caught.

His friends bustled him down the sidewalk, the stocky girl with the short brown hair chattering frantically to the ruby-haired girl at her side. The tall boy kept casting vicious glares over his shoulder that Nezumi suspected were meant to be threatening; he waited until they were out of sight, and then he slipped into the shadowed alley and out of mortal sight.

As the human glamour melted from around his shoulders, Nezumi leaned back against the bricks and cursed to himself. Well, that could have gone much smoother.

Nezumi thought back to the terror that burst across Shion's face when Nezumi backed him against the wall. A spike of pain lanced through his chest at the sobs that erupted from Shion's throat once the stocky girl approached him. He'd heard Shion's trembling voice whisper, "I messed up."

That was the understatement of the century. Shion had been messing up since the moment he crossed paths with Nezumi in the forest.

And yet, so had Nezumi.

His first mistake was allowing Shion to help him. He should have threatened him into leaving, slipping into a human glamour and blaming Shion's "faerie Sight" on a foolish trick of the light. Nezumi would have known the truth about Shion's Sight, but then Shion wouldn't have helped him. Not helping Nezumi would have resulted in the Unseelie King having completely missed Shion on his sacrifice radar.

And yet Shion's assistance had allowed Nezumi to get back to the Unseelie Court. His intervention had kept Nezumi from bleeding out on the walk back to his chamber. He might not have liked the fact that a human saved him, but he couldn't deny that Shion had, in fact, kept him alive.

Nezumi pressed his lips into a thin line. Shion was an interesting and unsettling difference from the mortals the Unseelie King sent Nezumi to retrieve. He was so fiery, so volatile. Once Nezumi had thought that sort of thing dangerous―the Unseelie King didn't take well to challenges and impudence. It made sense that he would want someone docile and easy to manipulate, but Nezumi imagined that, after centuries of the same, the King would be curious about the other end of the spectrum.

The stabbing pain returned at the memory of Shion's miserable tears that rose beneath his anger. Nezumi winced at it and quickly shoved it aside. He'd been experienced in hiding pain since the moment he'd been handed over to the Unseelie King as a peace offering.

There wasn't any reason for it to bother him. Humans were fickle creatures who grew upset at the smallest things. Shion was no exception to this rule.

Except...

Shion was becoming the exception to many rules, it seemed.

Nezumi leaned back against the brick wall and closed his eyes. Stupid. Completely and utterly stupid.

"Well," purred a voice, "that was interesting."

Nezumi jolted. His hand shot down toward the knife strapped to his hip―and then he saw Scorpia manifesting slowly from the shadows. His black armor seemed to suck the light from the shadowy alley, his golden eyes flashing like twinkling stars.

The darkness from the Wicked Knight's armor made Nezumi terrified that it was, in fact, the Unseelie King who'd appeared before him. He quickly shoved it aside. The Unseelie King never would have risked sunlight. As a bog, the Unseelie King's skin was hyper-sensitive to the sunlight. The only way for bogs―a race of swamp-based fae that dabbled in nightmares―to survive in direct sunlight was to smear themselves from head to toe in thick mud. The Unseelie King was a nightmare himself, but he prided himself on his vanity. He abandoned bog life the moment the Unseelie Queen showed interest in him, wiping the life-saving mud from his skin and thriving in the Unseelie Court as a favored consort until the day he murdered his Queen and seized her crown.

Nezumi's shoulders began to relax at the realization that he wasn't about to have a discussion with the Unseelie King... until he realized it meant Scorpia had seen him talking to a human.

A human the Unseelie King had publicly marked for sacrifice.

Nezumi reached back for his knife.

"Put that thing away," Scorpia sneered, his golden eyes darting to Nezumi's blade. His rectangular pupils narrowed in the light. Phookas weren't sensitive to the light in the way bogs were, but Nezumi understood that Scorpia, in particular, had no love for it. The only times he'd ever venture outside was when the Unseelie King ordered him to hunt down a traitor... or keep an eye on Nezumi.

Since the moment he became an unwilling part of the Unseelie Court, Nezumi understood that the Unseelie King didn't trust him. There was always a concern that Nezumi would try to escape back to the Seelie Court, even though the Seelie Queen―his childhood idol, the woman Nezumi had one day hoped to become a Knight for―had handed him over to the Unseelie King herself, in front of her entire Court. No one in the Seelie Court would welcome him back with open arms, understanding that doing so would incite the wrath of the Unseelie King and risk a war with his sinister Court.

Even so, the Unseelie King occasionally sent Scorpia to trail him. The King belittled Nezumi and ordered him to carry out horrible orders, but he never trusted that Nezumi held any loyalty to him. He'd become an unwilling prisoner to the Dark Court, tied only by his blood-connection to the King and his unfortunate connection to the Unseelie Court's deadly bloodline, and at any instant, he could turn traitor.

"Do you honestly believe," Scorpia went on, "that your knife will do you any good?"

Nezumi's blood chilled. His fingers tightened around the hilt of the blade.

"I don't intend," Scorpia purred, "to let our King know of your little… transgression. I'd be amused watching him slam an ax into your spine, but it's far more entertaining to watch you tear yourself apart."

He turned, laughing to himself, and melted back into the shadows. Nezumi didn't relax. Scorpia, like every other faerie, couldn't lie. It didn't comfort him. Knowing that Scorpia had witnessed him trying to warn the King's sacrifice felt like a burning blade burrowing itself in his heart.

Nezumi set his jaw. Everything was falling apart. He'd grown careless.

And now, he was out of time.

To Be Continued...

So, funny story. I was working on the scene where Safu, Anne, and Roy come out to confront Nezumi late one night after working both jobs, and my sleep-addled brain was having a really rough time coming up with something tough for Roy to say to Nezumi. I just decided to go with the first thing that came to mind and change it in editing if it didn't work.

Apparently, my I-need-sleep-now brain had him say, "You're cruisin' for a bruisin', buddy!" xD