The Autumn Prince

49. Never Alone

"Still out."

Rachel shut the door to Katherine's room and joined Becca and me on the sofa. We'd just finished cleaning up after lunch, and my concerns were growing at an accelerated rate.

"That's all?"

"Tom . . ." her glare could have curdled milk.

"I know," I sighed, exasperated, "I'm just worried." Becca squeezed my hand and leaned her head against my shoulder in yet another attempt to reassure me.

After Katherine fell asleep the night before, I could barely contain the idle energy buzzing through my system and finally eased out of bed, rinsed off in the shower, and took a walk to clear my head. The air was sharp with cold, but I hardly noticed as I played the strange vision over and over again in my mind. It hadn't been a dream, it was too much like the fairy lights, there but not quite, and while I'd spent several minutes in that wood, only a few seconds had passed in the real world.

The woman on the shore was Katherine, I had no doubts about that, but she was also nothing like her, possessing bright green eyes that nearly glowed in the moonlight and a brutal scar down one side of her face. She seemed timid, at least as frightened and surprised as I'd been.

Unable to make sense of it, I returned, catching a couple fitful hours of sleep near dawn. Have I mentioned that she snores? It's not obnoxious, because whatever benevolent force blessed her genes had given her a cat's purr instead of the bandsaw I had to endure living under the same roof with my foster father.

When the sun had been up more than an hour I tried to shake her awake and spent the next thirty minutes in a near panic when every attempt failed. I searched for her anima, and for the first time since drinking Miss Gold's tea I saw nothing and feared the worst. It took Becca and Rachel an hour to calm me after I'd dragged them both out of bed.

Becca checked Katherine's sleeping body through the hagstone then passed it to me. The green stain was gone, leaving a glimmering web, glowing like sunlight and honey, but there was an occasional sparkling verdigris along the strands of her aura, as though it had been purified and absorbed instead of clinging to her like an infection. None of us could guess at what the change meant, and I didn't care, as long as she opened her eyes.

It happened just before dinner and I nearly passed out from relief. Her return to consciousness was announced by amber fairy lights suddenly swarming in front of me like the ghost of good cheer. I threw open her door and raced up the stairs to find her sitting, one hand holding the sheet over her bare chest, blinking the sleep out of her eyes and smiling.

"Good morning," she said and yawned. She tried to, at least, but I crushed her in a fierce hug, cutting her off. She hugged back until I was ready to let go.

"It's evening," I told her, "You've been asleep almost twenty hours."

She knit her brow, but appeared unbothered. "Really? It doesn't seem that long. Did you sleep too?"

"He's been annoying the shit out of us since daybreak," Rachel said as she entered with Becca close on her heels. "Pacing like he's trying to wear a groove in the concrete."

"Well, you can stop worrying because I feel fine," she said, pulling me close for a kiss.

"Nothing different?" Becca asked tentatively.

"Not so far," Katherine announced, then stretched, letting the sheet fall, and swung her legs off the bed. "Though I could really use a shower."

Rachel smirked, "Want me to get you a bathrobe?"

"Why? It's just the four of us and now everyone has seen me naked. It's kind of liberating."

"Hey, you don't need to convince me, but you're gonna break him," Rachel replied. I cleared my throat and forced my eyes off Katherine when the words finally registered. Becca was blushing, but also trying, unsuccessfully, to cover a grin.