Page 33 of Faerie Hunted

“TheTotalisnullifies magic-blocking attempts. Trust me, Tavi. If you use it with your cognitive manipulation then you should be able to amplify your powers and enchant the entire crowd. You’ve got to save yourself.”

Those green eyes met mine and I found myself wanting to cry.

“Mike, you don’t know what this means to me,” I managed to get out.

“Look, I admit I don’t know what to believe. But I know I can’t lose you, Tavi. Okay? Do whatever it takes to get out of this because my hands are tied. This is the only way I can help.”

He looked ready to kiss me and despite the sickening dip in my abdomen, I lifted my face to his.

“Sir? We’re out of time. We have to take her up now.” Captain Hezarwick returned and I hurried to hide theTotalisbeneath my shirt where no one would see it.

Thank god for stretchy pants.

“I’m sorry.”

Mike’s last words for me were a death knell and horror filled me. My cheeks paled.

Not that I doubted theTotaliswould work. I’d seen the way it helped Mike, amplifying his powers to help get him through the last year we spent at the Halfling Academy in the human world. But I was fighting against the cuffs, the chains on my ankles, Cosmo Foxfall, and the rest of his posse.

Was I strong enough to do this?

I kept my hands clasped in front of me and my head down on my way back to the platform. When I finally lifted my face, Barbara was gone already.

They killed her that fast.

My jaw dropped and a pang of regret clanged through me. I hadn’t been fast enough to do anything for her. Barbara was just a mother who wanted to get her daughter back. She hadn’t been an evil witch trying to take down an empire. Not the way they’d made her out to be.

“Keep moving.”

The guards were not unkind but they also weren’t about to let me stand and feel my feelings. They hustled me onto the platform in the empty space next to Onyx, where Barbara had stood before I’d been pulled aside.

Onyx gave me the side-eye, and I thought I caught the flash of an encouraging smile. The best I could do was not cry.

If I couldn’t work theTotalis, I was as good as gone, and Onyx with me.

My gaze scoured the crowd and I found Mike’s face among the courtiers. Once again, he pointedly avoided looking at me, his expression carefully pinned in place and giving nothing away.

Cosmo’s voice was magically amplified, the way I’d seen during the Faerie Trials. It reached across the courtyard and out over the people outside the castle gates as clearly as though he stood only a foot away.

“Today we have gathered here to eliminate our enemies. To mark the occasion and to show that any future enemies who attempt to stand against the crown will be dealt with accordingly, I’ve allowed you all the opportunity to bear witness!”

Cheering erupted at his statement.

“We have already seen the demise of one such enemy, the barbaric witch who attacked our beloved King Tywin!” Cosmo paused. “Let no one stand against the monarchy and go unpunished. Let no one attempt to take down our royal family and live.”

I gulped hard, the metal of theTotaliswarming against my skin.

A flash of movement in the distance caught my attention and my senses sharpened. There, in the shadows, crouched the direwolf. Watching. Waiting. Somehow the rest of the crowd had focused too much on the platform to be disturbed by the presence of the massive lupine form.

And somehow I knew that he understood: I had the tool and I was about to make a run for it. Noren was waiting for me to get the hell out of here. Somehow seeing him there made the stakes even higher. I had to escape. I had to take the chance that the tool would work.

Even if I might not be powerful enough to entrance the entire crowd.

I nodded to Noren.

Oh my god.

My god.

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