Fractured Souls(63)

Around the six or seventh day, I begin to connive a plan to get away. The one that I create makes me utterly sick, but I don’t think I have another choice other than to stay here forever and sink further into my rage.
I mentally prepare myself for what I’m about to do when he walks into the room. He drags a chair from the corner and puts it beside the bed, sitting down.
He slants his head to the side and examines me with curiosity as he props his foot up against the side of the bed. “You know, you’re very talented and I have to say I’m quite surprised that you haven’t found a way out of this yet.
Oh, I have. I’m just waiting for the perfect moment.
“You can go into and out of visions without a crystal ball,” he says enviously. “With a little practice and enough emotion, you could travel anywhere without a crystal ball as well.” He pauses, assessing me. “I could teach you… we could work together—we’d be amazing together.”
I stare blankly at him. “Maybe.”
He studies me with a distrusting look on his face. “You don’t trust me.”
I remain neutral. “You’ve given me no reason to trust you.”
“You’ve barely gotten to know me,” he says. “Maybe I’m different than what you think. Maybe there’s a reason for everything bad that I do.”
“Prove it,” I challenge.
He stares me down defiantly. “How much do you know about the Fey?” he asks.
I bend my fingers downward and itch beneath the cold metal cuff, the skin has been rubbed raw underneath it. “Not much.”
“Of course you don’t, since you’ve been spending most of your time with Keepers, Witches, and Vampires.” His lips twitch. “And of course there was all that time you spent by yourself unemotionally detached.”
I frown. “You know about that?”
He shrugs. “Of course. I’m a Foreseer and can see anything I want, something you should learn… but that’s a story for another time.” He drops his foot to the ground and transfers from the chair to the bed, the mattress concaving beneath his weight as he sinks down beside me. “The Fey have been around forever, you know. Most people think of us as tricksters, which we are, but we can be very serious as well, given the right circumstances, like if our kind are suffering.” He brushes his hand over the top of my head. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard of him or not, but there used to be a man called Malefiscus who was the personification of evil.”
I shake my head, letting him pet me because it helps me with my plan. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t.”
He rolls his golden eyes. “Haven’t the Keepers taught you anything?” He withdraws his hand from my hair, but only to tap his fingers on his chapped lips. “Then again, they might not want you to know about it since Malefiscus started out as a Keeper.”
“The personification of evil started out as a Keeper?” I ask, remembering what Laylen told me about the Mark of Evil and how it used to exist and was directly related to the Keepers’ blood.
“Are you surprised?”
I want to say yes but the more I learn about the Keepers, the more I realize they aren’t as good as they portray themselves to be.
He smiles, pleased, and begins petting my head again. “Well, I’ll fill you in on the story of Malefiscus so you can get a better understanding of what he was—what a Keeper could become if they ended up switching sides and getting branded by evil.” His fingers drift to my cheek and I refuse to look away, knowing I have to do this.
“During Malefiscus’s time, there was sheer and utter chaos in the world,” Nicholas explains. “He tortured everyone—Vampires, Witches, Faeries. Even humans. He had a whole army of followers and they would go around on killing sprees or trying to persuade people he saw fit to join him.”
“There was so much death and blood as well as pain that the Fey leader of that time decided he’d had enough. There were too many Faeries dying and so he made a bargain with Malefiscus to try to save lives.” His fingers roam to my mouth and he strokes his thumb against my lips as he licks his own. “He told Malefiscus that if he would leave the Fey alone, that we would forever be indebted to him—that we would exchange a favor for the Fey's freedom from his chaos.”
“Did he agree?” I ask, my lips brushing against the pad of his thumb. He tastes salty while he smells like dirt and murky water.
He nods, sticking his thumb into my mouth, and I just about gag. “Malefiscus agreed to it since the Fey are very powerful and he loved power. So the leader of the Fey and Malefiscus made a Blood Promise.” He removes his thumb from my mouth, although he keeps it resting on my bottom lip.