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CHAPTER TWELVE

"I can't believe you helped him!"

Safu held her head in her hands. She hadn't looked at Shion since they'd shut themselves up in her bedroom. Shion had spilled everything out to her then, words tumbling over his teeth like water.

Shion sat on the edge of her bed. His knees were tucked up to his chin, but even then, he'd never felt so small.

He rarely lied to Safu. The thought of it was enough to make him sick. Safu was one of two people in the world who knew he had the Sight―well, four now, he supposed―and for the years they'd been friends, Shion had always told her the truth.

"I'm sorry, Safu," Shion murmured. His voice was muffled from his decidedly uncomfortable sitting position. He lifted his head enough to free his chest. "But, maybe... Maybe it's not as bad as we think. I mean, he came to tell me to wear protective charms."

"He's court fey, Shion! Of course it's that bad!" Safu threw her hands up and collapsed back on her mattress. Her brown eyes were wild with terror and fury. "How could you think it was OK to help a faerie?"

Shion flinched.

Safu covered her face again and exhaled into her palms. "Dammit." She took a deep breath. "Dammit."

"I'm sorry."

"Just―just don't, Shion."

Shion wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his face in the darkness. If he thought about it again―the way Safu's face had twisted with anger as he'd finally broke down at her house after Roy and Anne left and told her what had happened, the way she'd looked like she was about to storm out of the bedroom herself―he'd start crying again. It'd taken all his strength not to break down completely when he told her earlier. If he started now, he wasn't sure he'd be able to stop.

"And now a faerie king's after you?" Safu covered her mouth with the heels of her hands and screamed wordlessly. The muffled sound exploded in the air between them, piercing through Shion's heart like an arrow.

He scrubbed the back of his hand against his eyelids, brushing the tears away. They blurred his vision of Safu's pink and baby blue bedroom. She'd yanked the curtains shut shortly before their talk, blocking out the daylight and the world beyond.

Shion looked down at the floor so he wouldn't catch his reflection in the mirror. Safu's vanity sat on the opposite side of the little bedroom, and Shion couldn't bear to see his own distraught face peering back at him. He'd never liked his own physical appearance, and especially disliked dissecting it in the mirror. His eyes were too dark, his nose too thin and his cheeks too pale.

It was hard not to compare himself to the ethereal beauty of the Fair Folk. After spending almost two decades among creatures that were both gorgeous and grotesque, Shion couldn't help but hate his own plain, mortal face.

He clenched his eyes shut and tried not to think about his own petty insecurities. There were more pressing matters at hand.

"How did this even happen?" Safu demanded. She looked at Shion, her dark eyes piercing and accusatory. "You took it off, didn't you?" When Shion raised an eyebrow, confusion swirling through his mind like a thick fog, Safu exhaled and clarified, "The charm."

Shion's brow furrowed. "What―" A cold dart zipped through his heart. Barbs of frozen thorns lanced through his muscles as he tensed, suddenly remembering the iron charm Safu had placed on his wrist before he'd left her house the last time they'd visited. The night Nezumi had breezed into his life, bleeding and desperate for help. Shion clamped his hand over his wrist. He choked, "Safu, I―"

"Please don't lie to me," Safu murmured.

Shion felt her words like a punch to the stomach. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes. "I... threw it away when I went to help Nezumi. He didn't like the smell of it."

Safu narrowed her eyes. "That's the point."

Shion looked down at his toes.

Safu let out a long, low breath. It rose from deep in her core, a discomforting sound of sheer disappointment and sorrow. "I just..." She made a gesture with her hands. "I don't understand. How could you think this wouldn't end badly?"

"I don't know." Shion shifted on the mattress. Nothing felt comfortable anymore. The metal springs beneath him, cushioned by foam and fabric, pressed into his upper thighs. Even his clothes felt foreign, too scratchy and warm to be of any comfort. "I guess I just... saw him there and wanted to help. He was hurt, Safu. Someone―something sliced his arm open, and when I saw it, I wanted to help."

"Faeries fight each other all the time." Safu dragged her fingers through her hair. The strands were twisted where she'd wrapped them around her fingers and yanked. "What makes this one different?"

"I don't know!" Shion covered his face with his hands. Everything stung. Pinpricks of misery peppered their way down his arms, and Shion wanted nothing more than to peel his skin off and get rid of it. "I don't know what made me want to help him, Safu! All I know is that I saw him, I wanted to run, and instead, I bandaged his arm. And now a faerie king's after me!"

"Shh!" Safu's eyes darted to her closed bedroom door.

Shion sucked in a hard breath.

When Safu's grandmother didn't shuffle right into the room, panic splashed across her face, Safu's shoulders relaxed. She dragged her fingers through her choppy hair; she'd developed a nervous habit of tugging on her hair when she was stressed, but Shion thought she'd grown out of it in her teenage years. Shion hadn't seen her like this in years―and he'd never seen her like this over faeries.

"This is so messed up," Safu muttered. She'd dragged her hand down her face, and her palm smothered the words as they ripped their way out of her throat. "How could you―it didn't occur to you that it was a bad idea to let a court faerie know you could see him?"

"Of course it did."

"Then why the fu―" Safu sucked in a sharp breath. Even at her angriest, she tried her best not to curse. She pressed her lips together, inhaled through her nose, and exhaled hard. "Then why the heck did this happen?"

Shion shook his head. He'd run out of ways to say that he didn't know. His Sight should have given him at least a bit of a chance against faerie charms, but Shion didn't feel as though Nezumi had enchanted him. If anything, Nezumi seemed just as horrified that Shion had become entwined in his daily operations. Shion supposed he could just ask him outright if he'd placed an enchantment on him―but that would involve interacting with Nezumi again, and after their most recent encounter, Shion didn't think it would go well.

"Well," Safu said after a moment of painful silence. "If what you're saying is true, then I suppose we should... take his advice."

She wrinkled her nose as if she'd swallowed a mouthful of rat poison.

"But I can't just―" Shion's frazzled mind twisted together Nezumi's words, weaving them like a paper charm and yanking them so tight the fibers began to fray. "I can't just not go home." Nezumi had insisted that Shion stay indoors and surround himself with iron for at least a couple of days, but that just didn't seem feasible. He couldn't just barricade himself inside Safu's house without explanation.

"Well, it's not like we have much of a choice." Safu swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her bright, colorful socks clashed with the cream-colored carpet spread across her bedroom floor. "I'll figure out something to say to Grandma."

"Safu―," Shion choked, and as she turned to look at him, he lowered his eyes because he just couldn't see her looking like that. Like she was disappointed in him. "I appreciate that you want to keep me safe, but I can't get you involved in this."

"It's a little late for that," Safu barked.

"I know that! But Nezumi doesn't know you can see the Folk, too. That... that king doesn't know, either. If this is my issue, then there's no need to get you and your grandmother involved."

"It's a little late for that," Safu barked.

"I know that! But Nezumi doesn't know you can see the Folk, too. That... that king doesn't know, either. If this is my issue, then there's no need to get you and your grandmother involved."

Safu pinched the bridge of her nose and huffed. Shion couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her this angry, not in the years that he'd known her.

"So―so what, then? You're just going to ignore a warning?"

"No. I was thinking that I'd barricade myself at my mom's place. Y'know... the bakery's got iron in the walls. If we add a few charms outside it, then maybe it'd deter any Folk that came by?"

Safu's eyes flashed. "Even Nezumi?"

"Even Nezumi," Shion murmured, the words sitting like sand in his mouth.

Safu stared back at him without saying a word. Shion looked back at her, clouds of dark gray fluttering in front of his vision and transforming her into a pink and blue blur. Misery settled around him like a cloak, and it was even worse knowing that he'd brought it on himself. He'd brought this misfortune down on himself the moment he decided to ignore the rules.

And now, because of his folly, he was marked for death.

"If we have to go back to your mom's bakery," Safu said, "then I'm calling Anne and Roy." She plucked her cell phone―perched on her nightstand in its pale pink case, the little songbird charm swinging from it as it moved―and began to scroll through her contacts. At Shion's confused silence, she explained, "We're less likely to get attacked in a crowd."

"R-right."

Safu looked down at her phone and shot a quick text to Anne. Shion wondered what she was telling them. From the conversation he'd managed to catch while Anne and Roy escorted them safely back to Safu's house, Shion suspected she'd told them that Nezumi was someone with dangerous ties that she had concerns about when it came to Shion. Roy's reaction to Nezumi painted a clear picture―he believed Nezumi was abusive, and he'd leap at the chance to escort Shion safely back to his mother's bakery.

Shion wrapped his arms around his knees as Safu buzzed a series of texts to Anne and Roy. He wasn't accustomed to this level of uncertainty. Shion liked organization. He liked keeping small planners and journals in his bedroom, as well as a copy of his work schedule at the bakery stored on his cell phone. He preferred to keep busy. Focusing his time on other things meant he had something else to occupy his mind besides the creatures lurking outside the protective walls of the bakery.

A faerie king might have been out for blood, but Shion couldn't leave his mother without help. His mother didn't have the Sight, and none of the excuses Shion thought up seemed good enough to get out of work. Even if he could have come up with a believable excuse, Shion didn't want to be away from his mother's bakery.

He loved Karan's bakery. He loved the flour-coated counter tops and the perpetual scents of baked sugar and fruit. He adored the heat radiating from the oven when he opened it to remove a tray of goodies. The bakery's kitchen was as much his home as the apartment situated upstairs. And if a faerie king was going to drag him away into the forests, never to be seen again, Shion wanted to spend his final moments with his mother.

His eyes pricked with tears, and Shion closed his eyes to force them back. He didn't see any way out of it. Nezumi had informed him to stay indoors for a few days, but Shion couldn't understand how that would dissuade a faerie king. If he stayed hidden for a few days, the king would what―just forget about Shion's Sight and never bother him?

A pipe dream, at best. Catching the attention of the Fair Folk was bad enough on its own. To catch the attention of a faerie monarch?

Shion was as good as dead.

"All right," Safu said, and her voice shocked Shion out of his morbid thoughts. "They're on their way back. Roy's asking questions about what kind of gang that faerie boy's part of, but I managed to convince him I didn't know. I don't think he'll ask you about it, but just in case, make sure you keep your story straight."

"OK," Shion murmured.

Safu looked at him from the corner of her eyes; her expression shifted somewhere between concerned and furious. "I won't say I understand why this happened," she said gently. "Because I don't. I don't think I'll ever understand."

Shion closed his eyes.

"But it happened," she went on, "and now all we can do is keep you safe."

Shion's heart clenched as Safu crossed the room and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

"I love you, Shion," Safu murmured. "You're an idiot and I'm angry at you, but I love you."

She smelled like lavender, and the warmth radiating from her body eased the sorrow from his body, and Shion buried his face in her shoulder. He exhaled, the weight of the world falling off his shoulders. He felt dizzy and sick. Just outside the safety of Safu's house lurked an unknown darkness that called for his blood. But for the moment, wrapped in the warmth of his friend's embrace, for the first time in forever, Shion felt safe.

To Be Continued...