Page 126 of Curse the Fae

I alternate between our weathered group, with our torn clothes and bruised bodies, and Elixir’s distant gaze. One by one, he drifts over the faces. Just like that, I know before my sister draws her conclusion.

“You can’t see us,” Juniper says.

“I cannot,” Elixir confirms, peering toward the small gathering marooned on this platform, then swerving to me. “Yet I see light.”

My heart swells with joy. The river ruler sees his bewitcher. He sees me, and it’s new, and it’s the same, and it’s beautiful. Because he has always seen me. In a thousand different ways, he feels me, and he touches me, and he knows me.

Elixir sits up and cups my face. He stares as if he’s reached his safe harbor, a place he already knows well, already knows the path to, only now he treasures it from a different angle. “I see you,” he whispers. “That is all I desire.”

I smile tearily into his hands. “I see you, too.”

When we drag ourselves apart, my sisters crush themselves to me on either side. Cerulean hands Lark my necklace, and she drapes it over my throat while Juniper holds my hair.

I want to cover Elixir’s nudity, not out of shame but privacy. However, there’s nothing we can do about that, and he’s hardly concerned about who sees him.

Quickly, I explain about Scorpio, the saltwater, Elixir’s near-drowning, and the spell. Despite this shock of information and the calamity surrounding us, Elixir’s brothers regard him with dark smirks that fail to conceal their shaken relief.

Puck shakes his head. “You fucker,” he mutters.

“I’m pleased to see you in one piece as well,” Elixir grunts.

“Now who said anything about one piece?” To illustrate, the satyr indicates a split in one of his antlers. “Don’t suppose you know a way off this rock before I lose another part of my crown?”

Still too weak to move swiftly, Elixir says, “This flood is beyond me. I lack the strength.” He glances across the gulch. “However…”

He draws his fingers over the thrashing river, sending ripples across the gulch. Seconds later, the water agitates from where the rapids usually run. Several waves break from the depth and roll toward us, the water shaping itself into the graceful bodies of six horses with glistening scales and finned manes.

The sight robs me of breath. Of course! I recall his tales about this place and how these water horses once rushed through this realm, chiseling out the secret passages and subterranean channels of The Deep. If they did that once, they can do it again.

The Kelpies gallop our way. They whinny, the sound infinite and vibrating through the expanse. As they race through the flood, the river splits and bleeds back into the recesses and tunnels. The animals drive off the flood, pushing the water back to where it came from. In their wake, the gulch drains, and the cave reappears from beneath the swells.

Half of the team speeds off, clearing the flood as they pass into farther areas of The Deep. The other half offers each pair a ride. Elixir slumps behind me, securing my midriff with his arms and draping his legs over one side as the kelpie dashes ahead, its liquid limbs pounding across the river. As we race through the arteries, the stampede snuffs out the last vestiges of chaos, and the water calms.

We emerge into The Twisted Canals, the devastation unhinging my mouth. Chunks of buildings and bridges have collapsed, waterfalls are overflowing, and puddles of foliage crowd the currents. A host of water dwellers swarm the river proper, from distressed dolphins to sharks and crocodiles, along with legions of other fish and reptiles, some floating lifeless.

Merfolk, undines, and water sprites drift about in a hollow daze, either bobbing in the ripples, collecting dead sea creatures or fallen Fae, salvaging boats and weapons, nursing contusions and bloody lacerations, or trying to scrape the debris from pathways.

My sisters and I take in the carnage of Faeries and fauna who didn’t survive, their bodies amassing beside one of the few bridges left intact. There are visions one wishes they could unsee. For me, the suffering of innocent beings is one of those visions. I cover my mouth and catch Lark and Juniper doing the same, their eyes welling.

Cold terror grips me as I think of my chamber and how far the flood might have reached. My eyes dart about, scouring the environment for a snake with brown-marble scales. The longer this goes on, the worse my heart cracks.

Please! Please not him!

Puck and Cerulean wear agonized expressions. I turn to see Elixir’s face twisting with grief. He glimpses the signs across my countenance, and beyond that, he senses them.

He smells the fallen. He hears the echoes of bereavement from his kin as they growl and weep and sing laments.

“I’m here,” I tell him, caressing his jaw. “I’m right here.”

“As am I,” he says gruffly, covering my hand with his own. “We will find him.”

Lotus. My eyes sting because of how much I want to believe Elixir.

The Folk stop to observe our approach, their murderous glares slackening as they watch us mounted on the majestic horses—The Three and their mortal sacrifices united atop the kelpies. Many of the wrathful expressions give way to widespread shock, while others seethe with bitterness. This is too monumental, too blatant a reality, too brutal an example of this world fading for them to weather any semblance of compassion or tolerance.

Only Elixir’s presence pacifies them, along with the warning scowls of Puck and Cerulean. The kelpies slow to a trot, then stall before a walkway. We dismount to a strained audience, tension escalating by the second. Once the kelpies depart, that pressure intensifies. Already, we’re forming a weaponless ring to guard one another.

Yet again, I want to preserve Elixir’s modesty, though his subjects show no sign of caring about his state of undress. By now, I’ve seen enough of their unclad forms roaming about this domain to know better.

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