Page 38 of Fractured
“Because the palace would not hold you here if it were.” The words were so final I didn’t dare even argue, which was absurd all in itself.
“So…what now?” I asked, and I stood up, looked at the ceiling, at the walls that I could have sworn were closing in on me, though they hadn’t moved an inch.
“Now, you learn,” the lynx said, and he jumped off the sofa as well.
“Learnwhat?”
“Frostfire magic, I think. And the truth about yourself.” Again, he looked confused, like he was having trouble remembering himself.
“I don’t want to learn frostfire magic—I amhuman.Just help me get out of here, Vair.Helpme,” I said, even though I knew it was pointless, but I was getting more and more desperate by the moment. Because I was really starting tobelievethat this was real, and that I was truly here, and that a fucking building was holding me hostage, pretty much, and that I couldn’t do shit about it.
“I can’t do that,” the lynx said, turning his head to the side, like the very idea of what I said was madness to him.
“Yes, you can—youbrought me here. You dragged me—I remember it. You can get me out the same way.” Had I not been so weirded out by the fact that he was a talking animal, I might’ve even gone closer to him just to make my point clearer.
“Even if the palace let you out, I couldn’t. This is where you need to be.”
Laughter erupted out of me. “But you can’t even tell me why!”
“You will find out, and then we’ll both know,” he said, and he was serious about it, too. Dead serious.
I never knew just how annoying I sounded when I was being serious, though.
“And what if I don’t? What if Ican’t?” I raised my arms to the sides. “What the hell am I going to figure out inthisroom where even the books are fuckingempty?!”
“You must try,” the lynx said, unfazed by my screaming. “You must continue to try.”
“I’lldiewithout food and water—I’ll rot in this fucking room.” God, my throat hurt, but my heart hurt more. Because who knew where the others were, where Rune had ended up? Who knew if he was wounded, if he was looking for me? Who knew if he believed I’d died—or was taken by the Seelie guards?Fuck.
“Don’t be silly, Nilah. You will not die. There is plenty of food and water here.”
My hands were in my hair and I nearly pulled all of it out of my skull. “What about the others, then? The other people who were with me—what happened to them?”What the hell happened to Rune?!
“There were armed Seelie soldiers, and others, unmarked. The frostfire you released kept them down until I took you away, I imagine.”
“So, they’re not dead or anything?”
“No—not unless someone else killed them. Like I said, frostfire doesn’t kill, even when it keeps one in limbo for days and weeks. It preserves the body in perfect condition.”
My legs let go, too weak to hold me, but luckily, I fell on the edge of the sofa again. Shaking my head. Trying to make all those words stick to my mind and make sense.
“I’m stuck,” I whispered to myself. I was stuck in a room with a talking lynx, and I had no fucking clue what the hell to do about it.
Then the creature was right there in front of me, sitting on his legs, so close I could touch his fur if I reached out a hand. Too shocked to move away, I only looked at his face, those sharp eyes and sharp teeth. His fluffy, silvery white fur that looked almost like he was covered in snow.
God, he was absolutely beautiful in anunrealkind ofway. Exactly like the creatures in Lyall’s Illusion Game, and maybe that’s why I found myself raising my hand for real. Maybe that’s how I was convinced to actually reach out a shaking finger and touch the edges of his fur right underneath his chin.
The lynx didn’t move.
The lynx didn’t disappear to give me a fucking token.
This wasnotLyall’s game. I was not stuck in his playground. I was not being manipulated.
And the fur against my fingers was as real as it was soft.
“How are you possible?” I heard my own self say—my voice coming frommylips, not the lynx’s. I never thought I’d actually live a day in which Iwouldn’t be sure who spokewhen I heard my own voice.
“Magic,” the lynx said. “I am made of it. Of the sorcerer who made me, and the Ice Queen who brought me to life.”
