Page 92 of Faerie Hunted

My lungs shrank like balloons without air.

Every tense step had my muscles seizing, and even with the distance from the Black Dog, my attention remained hooked there. Wondering when they would pick up our trail and which shadowy corner they’d pop out of. Dorian Jade was far from the boogeyman of my nightmares but he was real enough for me to worry.

Livvy knew the city, that much was clear. She strode ahead with the purposeful attention of someone confident in their direction. This was her playground.

How long had she lived here and when had she taken it upon herself to explore the backstreets?

It was clear she knew exactly what she was doing.

She led us on a wild goose chase through twists and turns and soon enough, the sounds of the scuffle faded behind us. The Claw & Fang following us were now just as lost in the maze as we were.

When Livvy held up a hand to get us to stop, my legs refused to listen and I stumbled. My muscles were too tense to slow down and the ache traveled up my calves all the way to my hips.

Every part of me shook, whether from adrenaline or the lack of magic.

I’d been emptied out and left to suffer through the effects.

“We’re safe here,” Livvy said breathlessly.

Bronwen slapped a hand against the brick, sucking in a breath. “How do you know?”

Livvy didn’t bother to answer. A bright splatter of blood dotted the side of her face but it wasn’t hers. “I must have sent the journal we need with you, Tavi, when you went to live with your uncle.”

Her abrupt change of subject took me by surprise.

“You’re still going on about the journal?” Onyx snapped. The blood had drained from his face and left his skin as ashen as his hair.

I grimaced. “I never hadanythingof yours. Uncle Will told me I came with nothing when he took me in. Everything I had, he bought.”

And my memories of that time in my life were nonexistent. A big black hole in my head and no amount of pretending had ever been able to fill it.

I watched Livvy’s face go the exact opposite of Onyx’s. The flush began at the base of her neck and crept up to mottle her cheeks until every part of her was a bright crimson in her fury. “Thatodiousman. I sent everything with you. Everything I could.”

And here I thought she’d had nothing but nice things to say. It seemed that her gentle facade held some secrets buried deep.

“What’s in the journals?” I asked. “Why are they so important?”

Maybe if we had an explanation it wouldn’t seem weird, a strange focus when it would have been smarter for us to worry about theactualmonsters chasing us down.

Livvy turned to me and grabbed me by the shoulders to force me to pay attention to her. Her eyes were wide, the whites overtaking everything else. “When Faerie gave me the prophecy that you would return, she said you would be the catalyst for peace. But your witch powers were locked. They always have been, it’s safer that way, at least until the time was right. They needed to be unlocked and Faerie gave me the specific spell for doing so.”

Witch powers. Yeah, right.

I broke away, my chest heaving. “You’re not the one who got the prophecy. Oxana the Sightless did.”

“It’s the same prophecy, but not the same,” Livvy insisted. Her lips twisted in frustration. Like I somehow wasn’t paying attention. “She only received a part of the prophecy. Faerie gave me the rest, along with the key needed to unlock your potential.”

“I’m not following,” Mike muttered. “Explain, please.”

Laina gripped his hand and shook her head once to get him to hold his questions.

“Why are you speaking about Faerie like it’s a person?” I asked. “It’s a place. It’s our world. You can’t talk to a world and have it talk back to you.”

Livvy reared back and rolled her eyes. “Tavi, of course Faerie is a person. Honey…she’s a goddess. Haven’t you heard the truth?”

Okay, my mom was officially nuts.

She’d lost her mind and that was why she spouted off about goddesses and prophecies and witch powers.

---