Page 138 of Faerie Hunted

But it seemed I didn’t have a choice and there would be no stopping Livvy. She was determined to see this through and fulfill whatever prophecy Faerie told her.

The lake provided the perfect backdrop for what we planned to do.

I sat and watched her work, setting up the area to work the spell with reverence in every move. Day shifted slowly to night.

Magic, midnight, an epic quest. A reluctant heroine who would rather just spend time with the mother she’d thought had died. None of those things were going to happen now. They’d never been in the cards for me.

Why was it so hard to accept, then?

From somewhere in the distance, a lone howl cut through the taut silence of evening. Noren was close. I let out a breath and finally lifted my chin to face Livvy fully.

She stared at me, eyes the same color as mine boring holes through my skull. “Are you ready?” she asked.

I dipped my head once in a silent acknowledgement.

No going back. I’d come this far, hadn’t I?

The magic was always mine, if I chose to believe her. Sealed down in the depths of me and so far I’d never known it existed.

The ruins behind us, the unseen entrance to the Abyss, were an ageless witness to the moment.

“Then sit across from me and get comfortable. I’ll say the words.” She lifted the journal up, squinting in the moonlight to check the words.

Cross-legged, we faced each other and she left the journal open on her lap.

I sucked in a breath to tell her to wait just as the first syllable of the spell left her mouth.

A sharp, awful breeze split the space between us and settled in my bones. I didn’t recognize the words. They were foreign, strange, garbled yet clear at the same time.

Goosebumps lifted the hair on my arms, my legs, my neck. My teeth clenched to keep from chattering, and Livvy kept reading, intoning words of power, precious and sacred, drawn from the land itself. I felt them inside of me and they mingled with the chill and set my veins alight like little fizzes.

I squeezed my eyes shut and braced for the strike I knew was coming. The strike that would split me open and carve out my insides to make room for everything she thought I had in me.

Livvy reached the end of the spell and the last word dropped, detonated in the night like a bomb.

Still I waited. Ready. Unwilling.

Then pried my eyes open when nothing happened.

She stared at me again and this time the fingers holding open her journal were white, her knuckles tense, hands shaking.

Nothing had happened. The spell didn’t work. We failed.

35

Invisible chains wrapped around me as she tried again.

The same jolt of power was whispered on the wind, a promise all but forgotten, but again nothing happened.

Livvy scrambled to check the herbs and make sure she’d gotten the right items. When she turned back to me, her shoulders slumped forward.

Face to face with her failure, we were both just as lost, and neither of us had the energy to argue. To figure out what had gone wrong.

Livvy sniffed, blew out a harsh breath, then rose with her hands on her hips. “I’m, ah, going to make a fire. A fire will help.”

She went through the motions of gathering stones and wood even though none of it was necessary. I sat and watched her.I should help.

Why couldn’t I move?

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