Page 65 of Faerie Hunted

I had to believe those men would do whatever they could to free the others.

With every footstep toward the wall, my focus narrowed, even as my chest tightened. We had to make sure we got there before anyone realized we were missing, and the last few hours until daylight were the only window we had.

“Can you run?” I twisted closer to support Onyx.

“I’ll try.”

Freedom was close enough for me to taste and that scared me more than anything else. There were hurdles to get over before we made it, huge ones, but the collars were off and that had been the biggest problem.

I prayed he was correct and the device would save many more before it fell back into the wrong hands. No one deserved to live under the thumb of a man who wanted to control them, to force them to work, who took away their choices.

I pumped my arms at my sides and hustled as fast as my legs would allow. Onyx kept up to the best of his abilities, leaning heavily on Noren. The direwolf didn’t seem to mind the extra weight.

Every step made the bands constricting my ribs grow tighter and the thud of my heart to pound erratically. If we didn’t get away from this camp tonight then we'd never leave. We’d lose our one shot?—

I pushed those thoughts out of my head and shook it violently for good measure. We’d make it out. We had to.

Dorian Jade couldn’t be allowed to get away with his plan.

We booked it through the trees and into the depths of the forest by the light of the stars overhead, moving as quickly as possible until Onyx started to flag. My own magic had taken such a hit from the collar, I had no power to offer him, only a shoulder.

I fell into step at his side and took some of his weight for him, both of us managing together somehow.

The light in front of us grew brighter and the trees thinned enough for me to make out the shimmering mass of the wall separating the courts. It rose, towering, toward the velvet sky, glowing with its own light.

Oh, shit, it felt…alive, and terrible. It felt heavy and oppressive and drew every ounce of magic out, leaving me hollow.

Onyx and I both stopped dead in our tracks without having to speak out loud to the other.

“The necklaces,” Onyx said, his tone seeped in dread.

I’d been too focused on escape to remember.

We had no way to get through the wall. We’d been given the necklaces to protect us from the magic when we first arrived, and without them, we were stuck. Trapped on the Unseelie side.

“What are we going to do?” I asked him through numb lips.

He shifted from foot to foot, Noren moving to my other side and crouching down with a whine.

Finally, Onyx sank, his legs folding beneath him like he just couldn’t move anymore. “I heard talk in camp. The city where your mom is supposed to be? It’s decently close to the Unseelie wall. If I can figure out a direction, then we’ll travel along the wall.”

My stomach plummeted. “It’s not safe to be on this side.”

Onyx turned to me and his eyes radiated an inner power. “We either stay and wait for Dorian Jade to give us two new necklaces or we walk. We’re out of options.”

My knees gave a twinge of protest at the thought of walking.

“How are you going to figure out what direction we need to go?”

He lifted his face to the sky rather than answer and scented the wind. A small pulse of magic rang out from his hand when he held it aloft and he scrutinized the stars. Then, weirdly, he turned back the way we came.

“West. We go west.”

“Isn’t it going to take us right back to camp?”

He pushed to his feet again, wavering before he straightened his spine. “Somehow we got turned around, Tavi. Our senses must have been muddled with the proximity to the wall because judging by the constellations, we were heading back to camp already.”

Ice grew in my veins at the thought. “Okay.” I paused, swallowed, cleared my throat of the pins blocking it. “Okay, let’s go.”

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