Page 44 of Curse the Fae

The animal springs forth. I have one second to glance over my shoulder, to where Elixir’s towering form looms.

My guide launches across the river, abandons The Fauna Tides, and cuts through The Twisted Canals at lightning speed. After passing the colony, the dolphin veers into a tunnel where shadows consume us. My companion slips in and out of passages so fast it’s difficult to orientate myself. I can’t recall having traveled this far from my chamber, but the creature could be taking a longer route because of its size and to avoid areas too dangerous to enter.

We shave through the ducts, the animal submerged and shooting ahead like an arrow, and me exposed above the surface. Waves split around my hips and spray the crusted walls. Air whisks through my hair and lantern flames glimmer from crannies on either side.

The dolphin pokes from the water with a jubilant squeal. I chuckle and spread my arms, letting the gusts course around me. I’m lost in a dreamscape, a place out of a storybook where danger lurks on the fringes like in any wilderness, in any world.

Then I stop laughing. The dolphin wrenches to a halt, and my body flops sideways. I scramble to clasp its head at the last minute.

Arrested at a cave-like intersection of tunnel archways, the baffled dolphin paces this way and that in front of a particular threshold. I realize why. The conduit’s water level is too low for us to pass through without the dolphin scraping itself on the foundations. My guide is confused, as if this hasn’t happened before.

Trepidation crawls up my spine. The river must be draining here, too.

The dolphin lurches eastward, then stops. It leaps westward but stalls again, its flippers and flukes battering the water in agitation. Water levels in the other arteries seem fine, yet something about them discourages the creature from entering. The environments beyond remind me of swamps festering with some type of fermented algae, sickly green cesspools gurgling loudly.

After rejecting several passages as options, my companion emits a series of frantic whistles. My first thought is to return to where we’d started, head back to Elixir, who can provide insight and show us an alternate way. Unfortunately, the animal fails to draw that conclusion, and I’m unable to communicate the request.

The creature is in such a dreadful state that my second thought is to calm the male down. “It’s okay,” I coo, leaning over to pat him. “We’ll be fine.”

It’s easy to see the bottom, despite the half-light. With my height, it’s shallow enough to stand, but not so shallow that I can’t swim through.

I swing my limbs off the animal’s back, submerging only to my hips. My feet hit the sandy bottom. Although the water’s clean throughout the intersection, sludge coats the depths beyond the archways. That is, all except the one we’d hoped to enter.

The mires’ putrid odor singes my nostrils. My heart races as I consider the types of river predators that might exist in swamps.

“Shh,” I whisper, running my fingers across the dolphin’s back. I gentle my voice, the way I do when the animals of my family’s sanctuary need taming. This one yearns for a soft voice and an even softer hand.

“I get lost all the time,” I assure the creature. “You know what I do when that happens? I think of a story.”

No, I don’t. But the poor thing doesn’t need to know that. Instead, I murmur a Fable about dolphins exploring the oceans and rivers of this world.

The animal slumps, its anxious whistles receding. When I finish the tale, the dolphin goes still and floats sedately beside me, though I barely have time to feel relief. The creature’s whistles have quelled—and been replaced by another sound.

This new noise is bigger and bumpier. It’s the sound of a creature with canine teeth.

Slowly, I turn and find a pair of reptilian eyes floating several feet from us. It’s another dweller I’ve never beheld but seen in one of Juniper’s books. Although only its orbs have surfaced, I imagine what the rest of it looks like, from its armored body, to the length of its snout, to the trap of its mouth hidden below the depth. The reptile’s ethereal pupils blaze like malachite, and its scrolling grunt rises from under the pool, traveling as far as the dolphins’ calls had.

Terror roots me to the ground. If Faeries name locations after their fauna, I make a horrible conclusion: This must be The Bask of Crocodiles.

The crocodile growls but doesn’t move.

With painstaking slowness, I pry my spear from the dolphin’s mouth and step in front of my companion, blocking it from our predator. Except a telltale lap of water alerts me to another presence behind us. Veering that way, I spot another set of malachite eyes slicing through the water. Another croc drifts our way from the opposite threshold, followed by another, and another.

They’re fencing us in.

I raise the spear and broaden my stance. That’s when I realize their growls aren’t directed toward us but one another. Each creature is staking its claim, challenging one another over who gets the kill. I sense the makings of a fauna battle, with me and the dolphin caught in the middle.

The outcome depends on who gets to us first. That’s how they’ll decide.

The crocodiles let out a grating roar and launch at us.

13

With their mouths open, the beasts charge. A great roar of sound rents through the cave and unhinges the foundation.

I bolt, ready to dive in front of the dolphin. But the mammal is fast, springing out of harm’s way, so I throw myself in the opposite direction.

We splinter apart. Hurtling from the snarl of reptilian bodies, I land on the fringes of the pool while the dolphin stashes itself safely on the other side. My frame hits a craggy facade, pain slicing through me.

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