More steadily than she expected, she told Jayce, “I need to go.”

She wasn’t sure if it was the fear she was failing to hide or the anger that floated just under that fear; either way, Jayce looked even more worried.

“Should I follow?” he asked.

Rika shook her head. “No. Not right now. Tomorrow. I’ll come get you if I can leave him alone long enough. . . .” She paused. “Do you have your phone?”

“Yeah . . .” Jayce pulled it out. “Who do you need me—”

“Call Del. Go be with him,” she interrupted. “Even if it wasn’t her that did this, Maili is dangerous, and Shy is too injured to enforce rules. You need to go where you’re safe. She won’t approach a group. Witnesses can cause trouble with the faery courts. She’ll avoid that. Stay near lots of steel. Faeries can’t abide iron or steel.” Her gaze dropped to Sionnach, his injury proof of how badly the toxic metals could wound a faery.

Jayce hesitated, as if he would speak but wasn’t sure if he should.

“Please? I need to get him to safety, but . . .” Rika wanted to let him know that he was something rare and precious, that his safety mattered to her more than he could know, but she wasn’t sure of the words, and she’d already asked him to accept things far more quickly than he’d liked. He was trying to understand her world, but it wasn’t easy.

“If Maili hurt you, it’d destroy me,” Rika said. “If you . . . I need you safe, and I don’t trust that you are if you are alone.”

“Sure,” he agreed. “You be careful too, okay?”

“I’ll come to you as soon as I can. . . . I need to get him home and remove the poison,” she tried to be careful with her words. “I can’t take you both, and it’s not safe for you to follow me on your own, and I can’t let Del know where I live, and—”

“It’s okay,” Jayce interrupted. “Go.”

She nodded as she faded to invisibility with Sionnach in her arms and began to run home with the unconscious faery held tightly in her arms.

Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11