Page 88 of Faerie Hunted

She’d moved from the first and second shelves to baskets at the bottom, rifling through stack after stack of what looked like journals.

“Did I send the journal with her? I must have. Right?” Livvy muttered to herself rather than reply. “Yeah, I did. Why didn’t I keep it here?”

“Please. Talk to us. What are you doing?” I asked.

Livvy shook her head and more strands of chestnut hair pried loose from her bun. “I have to find it, Tavi. It’s time for you to know the truth of your birth.”

The way she spoke sent shivers along my spine. There were secrets bubbling up for her to drop such casual words with the force of an exploding bomb.

My instincts roared at me to pay attention.

At last, Livvy straightened.

I wasn’t sure what got through to her or whether she’d just given up the search. When she turned, her hands were empty. She held them out to me, palms up, her expression agonized.

“You’ve survived this long, but if the truth isn’t revealed… It’s clear I’ve waited much too long to do this. I just never thought we’d get to this moment.” She bit her lip and shifted her weight to the opposite foot.

The movement made her look oddly innocent. Child-like.

She reached for my hands and widened her eyes slightly when I refused to take them. Goosebumps lifted the hairs on the back of my arms at the chill of her flesh.

“There’s something special about you, Tavi. More than just being the child of a werewolf and a fae. Halflings are special, of course.” She nodded to Bronwen, to Onyx. “But there’s more to your story.”

I wasn’t sure how much more I could take, to be honest. But I held my tongue, even as my stomach did acrobatics.

“You were conceived with a very specific witch magic. I wasn’t able to have a baby on my own, and I loved your father desperately. We wanted a family more than anything else. So we contacted a witch. She worked a spell of complicated magic. A magic that sealed your fate with the entire history of Faerie.”

“I really don’t like where this is going.” I took an involuntary step back.

She refused to let me go, and moved with me.

“You’re more than what you’ve been led to believe, sweet girl. A chosen one. Someone who will bring together the realm by annihilating the corruption within it. Not just because you’re a halfling, but because you are one third ofeach.” Livvy held up her fingers and ticked off on them. “Fae. Shifter.Witch. All three magics are combined in you. The spell changed the make-up of my baby before her birth.”

Through the ringing in my ears I recognized the sound of Laina inhaling sharply.

“You’re crazy,” I whispered.

My ribs went tight enough to pierce my heart, which had taken up the beat of a one-legged, one-armed member of a marching band. Livvy’s eyes locked with mine and despite a settling in my bones at her expression, I fought.

“You’ve felt things. I’m sure you have,” she insisted.

“One person can’t be tied to Faerie. All three magics?” I laughed. “That would make me a freak. I wouldn’t be alive. No one is all three. Besides, power doesn’t alter someone’s blood. A witch spell doesn’t make me a witch.”

“Don’t you ever feel like you’re a littletoogood at magic? Have you ever been able to pass through magical barriers without a thought?” Livvy snapped her fingers. “Just because you can?”

My mind immediately ricocheted back to a night I wanted to forget, when I’d walked right through Barbara’s wards. I violently forced the thought aside.

“I’m not who you think I am.” I threw back my shoulders. “You don’t actually know me. Maybe you just want me to be important because the me in front of you wasn’t what you expected.”

I needed air or I’d suffocate in this room.

Holding up a hand to keep the others from following me, I strode toward the door and skipped a few rickety steps on my way down. I caught myself before I fell flat on my face but none of it mattered. Nothing mattered. This reunion had not gone the way I thought it would, and now it turned out my mother was crazy. I pushed out into the dingy restaurant with Noren behind me and strode for the front door.

Outside, the clawing sensation around my throat remained. I chose a direction at random and took off.

Leaving was a terrible idea but I couldn’t stop myself with logic. Not with my gut and my mind swirling in opposite directions.

Noren kept pace and with him at my heels, I broke into a jog, the crash of the surf nothing compared to the tambourine in my head.

---