Page 137 of Faerie Hunted

She seemed to consider her next words. “We all make our choices. Some of them are more painful than others, and some of them require a heftier cost.”

I wondered if she spoke about what I’d just gone through or her own journey, and if there was any difference between the two. We’d both had to pay a price for our actions. She’d left me. I’d lost Onyx.

Noren bounded off between the trees with a flash of silver, and within a heartbeat I’d lost sight of him. Even so, Livvy and I stood there a moment longer. Staring, watching. Feeling the weight of the air in this sacred, awful place.

Were her thoughts as deep as mine?

Would we ever voice them out loud or were they too personal for us to admit even to the other?

Eventually her hand fell from my shoulder and Mom walked ahead, leaving me no choice but to follow her. I trailed her along a path that wasn't a path, past the ring of stones toward an opening in the trees beyond.

Here, stones decorated with moss rested on either side of the trail and soon the trees thinned enough to offer a glimpse of intensely blue water in the distance.

Not the farmland I expected to see, but a slight slope in the land rolling down to a massive lake with clear water.

We reached the shore in the next five minutes and I hung back. No way I was going back into water anytime soon. Even the beach brought back too many ghastly sensations for me to get close.

“I hope you don’t mind.” I turned my back to the water. “It’s too soon.”

She squinted against the sunlight. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me. Not with this. We’ll stay here tonight and wait for your friends to return.”

I barely heard her talking about resting here while she searched for the ingredients she needed for the spell. Barely saw her disappear back into the forest. One foot in front of the other took me to a spot where the land leveled out and I sat, the grass prickling against my backside.

Even anticipation and excitement for the spell did nothing to clear my head. Trekking out here might have gotten us the journal but I’d lost someone I cared about, someone who loved me.

Was the price really worth it?

I wished Onyx was here. Wished someone would come along and bespell me so that I wouldn’t feel a damn thing, or maybe even rip my heart out of my chest.

I wished there was a spell to smother the horrible voice hissing inside my head that Onyx died for me and I did not deserve it.

I failed him despite the victory of navigating the Abyss. And no matter how I tried to quell that part of me, it never quieted.

How did I fix something like this? How did I make it right again?

How did I stopfeeling?

The clear water of the lake spread out like a sparkling mirror. Tall pines and deciduous trees rose around the rocky shore. My eyes blurred again, stinging, and I curled in a fetal position.

Nothing was going to be the same again.

Livvy returned softly. “Tavi?”

I sprang up, my head visible above the grass. She caught sight of me and came forward.

“Here,” she began. “I gathered some of the things we need. Lemonberry, wild rosemary. These small white blooms are greater toadblossom. Then uvelas, night milkbalm. The journal says we need water untouched by human hands, a small flat stone, and you see those reeds over there?” She pointed in the distance. “It is amazing for us to find every ingredient we need to work the spell.”

Amazing? No. It wasn’t amazing, and it wasn’t luck.

She opened her palms and the herbs dropped down to the small spot of crushed grass.

My chest clenched. “Are you sure this is going to work?” I asked in a hoarse voice. “Are you sure this will unlock my powers?”

She bobbed her head. “This is the spell we need. The ingredients will ensure its potency.” She cleared her throat. “I read through the journal while I foraged. It’s all there. Everything we need.”

I should say something to her. I wanted to crush the excitement lighting her eyes and say something foul to squash her smile before it grew.

What if I didn’twantit to work? What if I wanted to stay exactly the same as I was now, because the person I was now felt normal. The opposite of special, even though I’d never been that way so I had no real comparison.

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