Page 169 of Flame and Sparrow

Maybe I could stay here for a little while,I thought. Maybe I could sleep off my misery, and somehow find a way to start anew when I woke up.

I desperately tried to convince myself that such a thing might be possible.

Then I heard the woman say, “We should send word to the ones up near Habostad. All their kind seem wrapped in one another’s business; they’ll likely know who she is, at least.”

No.

My lips formed the word, but the sound wouldn’t come out.

“Don’t worry, dear,” she said, patting my shoulder. “We’ll see to you in the meantime. You can rest.”

I nearly snarled in response—itwouldbe my luck that I would run into a human who actually had sympathy toward elves.

“Poor thing seems confused out of her mind.”

No, no, no.

I wasn’t confused. Not about this. I had to get up. I had to get away. I couldn’t let them send word to any of my kind. I couldn’t go back in the state I was in, carrying the things I was carrying.

I fought my way to my feet, grabbed my bag that was hanging from the bed’s poster, and sprinted toward the door.

The woman let out a little cry of surprise, but she didn’t follow me or try to stop me—not until I stumbled and was forced to catch myself against the wall. As I hit it, black dots swarmed in my vision, overcoming me completely as soon as I tried to force myself to keep moving.

I felt myself slumping against the wall, slowly collapsing, while the same word roared over and over in my thoughts.

No, no, no.

I’d brought my sister’s necklace back with me; why hadn’t I used it to hide what I was? Yet another foolish mistake.

The old woman was beside me again when I blinked back into awareness, tentatively wrapping an arm around me for support.

She shushed my attempts to protest her help, and called over her shoulder to her companion, “Let’s get the valerian root, love, before she hurts herself…”

I clenched my fists, preparing to summon every last ounce of strength I had to knock them away and make another run for it.

But then my eyes caught on the fire crackling in the nearby hearth, and all I could think about was Dravyn’s form shifting and flying away from me.

While I was busy reliving the painful memory, something was shoved underneath my nose—a bottle filled with some sort of herbal concoction.

I inhaled deeply from it before I realized what I was doing.

My nostrils burned. My throat itched. My vision swayed, my thoughts blurring along with it. I was awake one moment, gone the next. Then awake again—but somehow back in the bed with its scratchy sheets, covered up, laying on my side.

I could see the fireplace from here, too, I realized.

So I watched the flames dancing, imagining myself lost within their warmth, and I slept.

* * *

I don’t knowhow long I was unconscious.

Long enough for my self-appointed saviors to send word to my old home.

Long enough for my body to grow numb and stupid from the side-effects of the herbal remedies they’d forced on me.

Long enough for my old world, my old allies, and all my mistakes to find me again.

When I woke, my nose was still burning from the herbs, all of my senses wrecked and half-ruined, but I recognized the scent of spice and sandalwood that had entered the house.

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