Page 82 of War of Her Heart

I squinted my eyes and looked between the two. “They aren’t the same?” I asked. They were both black and there was nothing to set the two apart from each other.

Bronwen let out a loud huff and threw the two fabric samples in the air.

One of the fae servants in the room let out a quiet laugh, and Bronwen shot them a glare.

“Well, you’re no help either,” she said.

“What are you doing anyway?” I asked while I turned around to take in the servants busy at work replacing some things and removing others all together.

We were clearly in an office of sorts, but I wasn’t sure who was using it.

“I am . . . cleaning out the old and bringing in the new,” she said. I knew by her pause that she was carefully choosing her words so as not to give too much away.

But I knew exactly what she meant. She was replacing the items that could be the object filled with black opal that was absorbing Sebastian’s powers.

“How many rooms are left?” I asked.

“Four.”

My heart sank. Four rooms left. What would be the odds that out of the entire castle the object was somewhere in one of the very last rooms they went through?

Maybe they had it wrong. They could be looking for something that wasn’t here, and it could be something else tearing Sebastian apart. They had been blindly following the words of a healer, and they could have wasted their time.

“That is one good thing to come out of this predicament. I’m able to redecorate,” Bronwen said, trying to muster up a smile.

She was always trying to lighten the situation, even if deep down I knew she was worried.

I left pretty quickly to continue my walk to the library.

As I stood there, trying to narrow down the selection of books I had pulled, I felt the presence of someone behind me.

I turned around quickly to see it was Sebastian. I stared at him, afraid to say anything as I waited for what he had to say because I knew he had the answer I desperately needed.

His face was solemn as he opened his mouth to speak before quickly shutting it again. He looked down at the ground for a moment, and my heart raced, waiting for an answer.

He looked back at me and slowly shook his head.

This confirmation was all it took to have me falling to the ground. The little bit of hope that I was desperately holding onto was gone.

Astrid was gone.

Before my knees hit the ground, Sebastian had me in his arms and fell to the ground with me. He held me tightly while he ran his fingers through my hair.

I held on to him as I sobbed into his chest.

I was broken, truly broken.

32

Chapter 32

Calum

Days had passed since Violet told me she wanted no contact with me.

She’d skipped dinners.

She was slowly pushing me further and further away.

---