Page 23 of Faerie Trials

Her brows came together in a hard line. “I refuse to let you use your halfling status as an excuse. I’ve felt the level of power inside of you. This is not the time for excuses nor is it the time to doubt yourself. You have as much power as any of the students you go to school with, no matter what you think to the contrary. Nowfocus.”

Sweat dripped down from my brow line. “I’m trying—”

“You’re not trying hard enough!” Juno walked in a circle around me, scrutinizing my every move. Adjusting my posture this way or prodding my muscles that way so I’d shift my stance. When she spoke again, her voice was strained. “It’s imperative we work our way through the list of past trials. You’ll never be able to get through this year unless you can show some sort of base foundation.”

“I was at the top of my class at the mortal halfling academy. I made it to Faerie.”

“Then prove yourself,” Juno snapped. “I’m done listening to theoh poor merefrain.”

Was that what she thought I did? Constantly felt sorry for myself? No matter what I said, she would see it as another pathetic attempt at an excuse. No matter what I did, I messed up, and the more time I spent failing these past Trials, the more urgent Juno became for me to succeed. To win.

“Frankly, I’m not sure what the king saw in you.”

Her words instantly had a swell of blind panic welling up inside of me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you would have a hard time making it throughthisschool, let alone the Elite Academy,” she said plainly. She took a seat behind her desk and in an instant had another pot of scalding hot tea in front of her. She poured out two cups, waiting for me to come and claim mine, though I understood her unspoken demand. She wanted me to drink the tea while maintaining the ball of light.

I shifted my thoughts, trying to balance the two acts. Before I could wallow in another round of self-pity about being tired and tell her to just keep the tea, she shook her head.

“My goodness, Tavi. I see your thoughts clearly. You’re not sure you can multitask, and at this point I’d say you are right. I don’t understand how you’ve made it this far, I really don’t. Based on what I’m seeing from you now, you should not have survived the first round of culling, let alone made it to Faerie.”

I grimaced. “Stop it.”

She hesitated for only a moment. “No, I will not stop it. You need to hear this. Whatever barriers you have blocking your power, you need to find the source and surmount them,yesterday. Let me make it very clear for you. There is no way for you to get out of participating in these Trials, but when you compete, you will not finish. Do you understand what that means?”

She spoke to me like I was a child, and her gaze sent flashes of burning pain through me. I hated the mirror she held up. What I saw there was everything I wanted to run from. “We’re on day two and you cannot divide your attention between holding a spell and taking a drink. It’s unacceptable, quite frankly. I’m going to need you to—”

“Stop it,” I cried out. “Stop it right now!”

“It’sunacceptable,” she said again, harshly, “and I’m not going to stand for it. Do you want to know the real reason why I am helping you? Because everyone else said no. They didn’t think you were worth the trouble.”

Desperation and devastation swirled inside of me and the light I held fizzled to nothing. I needed her to stop talking. I needed her to stop throwing my failures in my face. Did she not see how often I thought the same thing? How many times a day I wonderedwhyI was at the Elite Academy when I clearly couldn’t hack it?

I scrunched my eyes closed, fists at my sides. “I’m sorry that in your eyes I’m not worthy of being here. I’m doing the best I can but it never seems to be good enough. Every day I get up, and I work hard, and it still isn’t enough. I might die during the Trials. I get it. At least I’ll go out knowing I did everything I could to get through.”

Seconds of silence ticked by until I realized Juno wasn’t responding. When I opened my eyes, I saw her staring at me. Her face had gone pale, the blood rushing from her cheeks and her gaze focused on my arms.

“What is it?” I barked out.

It didn’t take long for me to understand, for when I looked down I saw how my hands had transformed into claws. I saw lethal talons instead of fingernails, and feathers growing longer by the second.

Oh no.

No!

Whatever internal desperation I’d been struggling with had manifested using my transfiguration power. That I wasn’t supposed to have.

And now Juno knew my secret.

11

Icouldn’t panic. I would have to keep my tears in check and my wits together, assess the damage and sort it out to the best of my abilities. Then, maybe then I’d figure out what to do with my tutor’s look of indisputable terror.

Juno stared at the talons, watching as they slowly retreated into my skin.

“You…” she began. Then stopped, snapping her mouth shut. “Tavi, what did you do?”

I reined in my anxiety. At least the question was better thanwhat are you, although I knew she thought it. I knew she wondered what the hell I was, because she understood the difference between illusion and reality. Any Fae with magic had the ability to change their outward form for a small amount of time. But it was just an illusion. It was fake, a mastery over the elements, and completely different from cognitive manipulation.

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