Page 107 of Curse the Fae

A human and a Fae are never normal, much less possible. Long ago, we’d crossed those enemy lines. It’s too late to undo everything, and if I had that chance…I wouldn’t want to.

I wouldn’t undo this, even while a single question terrifies me, even while I don’t believe he’d ever give the wrong answer. Despite that, I have to ask, to purge the question from me before it expands like a blister.

My voice fractures. “Do you want me to die?”

Elixir vaults around and clasps my face. “Never!” he swears. “For you, I would sunder The Deep. I may not have told you what I knew, but I never wanted to lose you. I have sought to protect you, to keep you safe while ruminating on how to fix the game, how to free you.” He flinches with uncertainty. “And you? Do you want my kin to die?”

“Never,” I croak, framing his cheeks. “I’ve never wished for anyone to die.”

Again, he winces, because we both know that’s untrue. As a child, I had wanted him to die, and I’d tried making it happen.

“We’re at an impasse,” he reminds me. “That is why we’re seeking a way out of this. Has our mission changed?”

It hasn’t. I haven’t given up, and his tone avows that neither will he. Elixir will stay by my side, band with me.

All the same, my mouth feels heavy, weighed down by stones. “Did you know what seeing, feeling, and enacting the opposite meant? Did you know that, too?”

“I did not.” His voice turns acidic. “Yet I have ideas about the first two now. From the sound of you, they’re feats impossible to achieve.”

“What does that mean?” When Elixir doesn’t reply, I push him away. “If you care for me, you could have told me of your own volition.”

“You found out for yourself.”

“Yes, I did! But I wanted you to tell me, too. We have enough between us as it is. I wanted us to be open and honest with each other.” This is moot, yet I can’t stop myself. “Would you have gone on keeping this to yourself?”

His silence reveals plenty, cutting to the quick.

My stomach hitches. “Why?”

His eyes close, then whip open, emitting a flood of gold. “You tried to kill me.”

I step back, the truth burrowing deeply, opening me like a gash. His irises swirl with residual fury, hurt, and…fear. The feelings igniting between us are so out of his realm, so foreign that he doesn’t trust them.

He doesn’t trust me. Because nine years ago, I attempted to drown him. Nine years, which is no time for an immortal Fae, to say nothing of the scant time we’ve spent together in The Deep. This isn’t even considering what’s happened to my beloved sisters, that he conspired with his brothers to imprison them.

That’s it. By force of will, he was guarding himself, lest I endeavored to defeat him despite what we’ve shared, despite our crusade to find a way around the game. Elixir did this because he can’t bring himself to completely believe in my change of heart.

Why would he trust my affections when he’s never experienced them with another? When they’re so new and fragile?

“What did you see in that stream?” Elixir mumbles. “When you looked at me, what did you see? Do not think. Say it.”

“Evil,” I admit, and it falls from my lips effortlessly.

“What did you feel?”

“Hatred.”

Elixir’s chest caves, as though I’ve flung the answers at him. He waits for me to make the necessary connections. The bewitcher must see, feel, andenact the opposite of old truths and past deeds.

That night, I had seen evil and felt hatred.

To see the opposite is to see goodness.

To feel the opposite is to feel love.

Yet I have ideas about the first two now. From the sound of you, they’re feats impossible to achieve.

My chin wobbles. “Elixir.”

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