Page 78 of Faerie Hunted

How he’d grown over the last two years. Not just with his magic but physically, emotionally. As a person he was still the same boy with the lopsided smile who helped a stranger on the side of the road. But he was also so much more.

At last he held his arms open for me and I stepped in, stealing every moment of the hug as my own.

“We were trying to track down my missing mother,” I said. “That’s why we came. It’s the last place she was seen, and I thought if we could find her, then maybe—”Everything would be all right.

“What do you think will happen?” Mike wanted to know. “If you find her?”

“I don’t actually have a plan. We were just kind of moving forward to the next step.” I bit my lip. “I lost my place in the human world. I lost my place in Faerie. I thought maybe there was a place for me with her.”

Saying it out loud did nothing to stem my sense of worthlessness.

“Hey.” Mike’s hand fell on my waist and he squeezed to get my attention. “It’s okay, Tavi. It’s okay.”

There was too much pity in his voice for me to feel comfortable being this close anymore. I took a step in the opposite direction, offering him a grimace in place of my body and returned to my own bunk.

Onyx sucked in a breath, shifting his arms overhead and wincing. “If no one minds, I think I’m going to go to bed early. My body has been through what it can take, and I need to sleep.”

I agreed wholeheartedly. I’d been holding off the dizziness through our entire talk and now that I’d finally said my piece, it returned in full force. As though acknowledging it somehow made it much more intense.

My stomach gave a sickening dive and my arms pebbled with goosebumps. “I’m not far behind you,” I murmured.

Bronwen had already dropped to her side with her head rested against her pillow, eyes fluttering closed. Listening, as always, but relaxed.

Mike drew in a sharp breath and his jaw dropped as though he had something terribly important to say. But after a beat, all that came out was “Sleep well.”

It felt like an apology. The sweetness of it soothed some of the cracks in my heart. Some, but not all.

I nodded to him before turning to the queen. “Before I get comfortable, do you mind if we talk privately? There are a few things I’d like to tell you.”

She deserved to know about her mother. And since none of the others knew Barbara the way I did—if anyone could really know a witch like her—then I was the only one who could do this.

No matter how weird I felt when Laina stared at me, through me, and I finally recognized Barbara in some of her features. Amuch youngerBarbara, I mentally corrected, before the chain smoking and the excessive use of power turned her into Swamp Hag of the West.

Laina rose and gestured for me to lead the way. We moved to a corner of the room containing a single large wardrobe, and a wave of her hand lifted a second silencing bubble inside the first.

“Only the two of us will be able to hear what’s said, Tavi.” Her hand slowly drifted back to her side.

“Do you mind hiding our faces as well?” I shifted from foot to foot. “I don’t want anyone to read my lips?—”

“No need to explain.”

The scent of flowers, the smell unique to her magic, filled the small protected space we shared and the bubble around us went opaque.

Her eyes landed on mine kindly, if a little confused, and damn, now I felt lower than low. Because I shouldn't be the one to tell Laina the truth about her past. Barbara deserved to be here instead of me. To hold her daughter’s hands and explain what actually happened.

I was only the messenger. And Barbara would never get to have this moment.

“If you don't mind, I want to talk to you not as a subject in front of her queen. Although…I know youarea queen.” I stumbled over my words and shook my head. A little disgusted with myself.

“Tavi? What’s wrong?”

I shook my head again, my mouth going dry. “When I was down in the dungeons with the witch, we talked to each other. It wasn’t the first time we’d met, either. Barbara helped me out when I was in a bad way.” No need to tell Laina what happened with the artifact, or how Barbara had maneuvered me into a bad position, my back to the wall and her threats at my front.

This heart-to-heart wasn’t my responsibility but I was the only one here to do it. I forced myself to take a deep breath and face the queen. To tell her everything that Barbara told me, the story of being her mother and how Laina had been sold to the royal family.

Through the story, she once again waited patiently for me to finish speaking before she offered anything other than facial expressions.

Boy, those were almost too much for me to handle.

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