Page 27 of Hunted in the Shadows
“Places like these are prime real estate for hauntings,” Cliff muttered. “But with the outpost so close, nothing around here can stay haunted for long.”
Legs aching, I lowered myself into the sturdiest-looking pew up front. “You’re sure it’s gone—whatever was here?” I asked Sylvia.
“It feels like a smudge of sorts, like a handprint on glass. Nothing more.” In her brief silence, I had to wonder if I wasfeeling the same thing as her—that unsettling heaviness in the air. “I’ve been feeling it lately after you’ve killed a monster.”
“Sounds like your senses are getting sharper,” Cliff called over from where he was rifling through a stained chest of drawers in the left alcove. “Good girl. Keep it up.”
“Tell that to the vampire king that snuck up on me,” she muttered in reply. Managing a short flight, Sylvia perched on the backrest across from me. As she combed her fingers through her hair, wringing out the tiniest droplets. “Whatever I felt by the car definitely wasn’t a memory, though.”
The mere mention of the close encounter added another layer of tension to her face. I studied her, noting the circles under her eyes—which she had been diligently trying to hide from me lately.
“How’d you sleep last night?” I asked.
Her pout was reproachful, but she averted her eyes like she’d been caught. “I’m wide awake, Jon. IknowI sensed something out there.”
“I believe you, it’s just—” I sighed, wishing I could ease every sign of stress from her features. “You look like you’re burning the candle at both ends. You have for days.”
She looked ready to soften, but another flash of lightning accompanied the muted drumming of the rain. She went rigid, fists clenched in her lap to weather the answering crash of thunder. The illumination cast a fleeting pattern of colors on the walls as the light refracted through the intricate windows.
“You’re sure you don’t wanna hide until it passes?” I asked. It wouldn’t have been the first time a coat pocket or sheltered space had served as a panic room for her.
Sylvia shot me a hard look, shaking her head. Frustration laced her voice like thorns, but not directed at me. “I’m not under the willow anymore, and I’m tired of hiding,” she said. “I should be better than this by now.”
My jaw feathered. Sometimes, I saw too much of myself in her. Sylvia had voiced embarrassment over her panic attacks more than once, but soft assurances from Cliff and I fell short when it wasn’tusshe needed to prove something to. Though, I was sure his callous remark earlier hadn’t helped.
“We all have our blind spots,” I said. “If we were at a high altitude, you know I’d be worse off.”
“Damn straight.” Cliff’s voice was further away now, his athletic frame barely visible as he rifled through a pile of rubble behind the altar.“Remember that time we had to take out that ghoul in a high rise? Thought you were gonna hurl when it went out on the fire escape.”
He chuckled to himself as though he could sense how I paled at the memory. Sylvia shot him a grateful look—seeming to take the shift in his tone as a signal that his anger was not lasting. She sighed, cupped her hands in front of her, and gathered a shimmering orb of ice between her palms. The cool breeze of the magic caressed my face as she stretched the substance—somehow both liquid and solid—into different shapes. She settled on a small double-sided spear before pushing her palms together and ousting the magic like a snuffed candle.
“Father used to tell me stories about Fae warriors from long ago. Ones who lived hundreds of years ago, their days filled with danger and excitement.” Her smile turned bitter. “Living in Elysia, you can understand why I clung to those stories so ferociously. I lived through those heroes like a second life when I was a child.”
“Like Karolyn the Gilded?” I ventured.
The corner of her mouth lifted. “Good memory.”
Sylvia had readily latched onto this legend and shared it with me our first week on our journey west: a fairy who had supposedly used gem magic to change forms into various animals,even stealing the likeness of other fairies temporarily. Fitting, considering our joint quest to find Sylvia an equally capable stone.
“She’s an obvious favorite of mine,” Sylvia said, giving a little toss of her hair. “But most fairies don’t see it that way. She was a little cutthroat, and trying to use deception to steal the crown became her legacy above all her other feats.”
“Royalty?” I quirked a brow, recalling the Elysian governance Sylvia had explained. A few of those assholes I’d seen with my own eyes.
“Apparently, her coup is part of how my village eventually moved to the council of Elders.” Sylvia shrugged, some of the light dimming from her eyes at the very mention of them—the people who had banished her. It didn’t escape me that while she cared for me—for both of us—her decision to stay with us was made under extreme duress.
“There are so many others, though,” she went on, brightening. She stretched her legs out, wings fanning in sync with the motion. “Heroes that became legends in the stars, like Edin the Valiant. Father loved him—another gem scavenger of old. I think Father was jealous of the prestige scavengers used to get. The story goes that Edin used gem magic to protect his village, somewhere far off where streams and mountains cut through vast red trees. His greatest tale of bravery—the one all the children cared about, anyway—was when he was supposedly trapped in a cave with a wolf for three days. Only his magic and wits to protect him.”
“Hell of a bedtime story,” I scoffed.
Sylvia grinned, shaking her head. Her gaze was distant, torn between me and that cozy hearth room under the willow she had described so often.
“He conquered it against all odds. Some thought him immortal, but he ultimately sacrificed his life for his closest friend. Another reason Edin’s name is synonymous with courage and kindness.That’s his legacy.” Sylvia fell quiet, her eyes dropping to her lap. “And my legacy? Crying like a child at every thunderstorm that passes.”
My smile dropped away, the bitter tone in her voice cutting like poison. “Sylv—”
“It’s true,” she insisted, voice hardening. “I can’t shake the feeling that I should be better by now. Like… maybe it’s time for me to stop being afraid. I should be something to be feared. It’s safer that way.”
My lips pulled into a mournful smile as I felt torn between protecting her from every dark corner of the world or admiring the hell out of her, becausethat’s my girl.
