Page 71 of Curse the Fae

His greatest weakness isn’t a random misdeed or error in judgement.

His greatest weakness is the person who cursed him.

“Me,” I whisper to the water.

Fables forgive me. I’m the snake. I’m the bewitcher. I’m the water lord’s greatest weakness because I’m the one who blinded him.

I’m the one who cursed Elixir.

19

And he knows. Elixir knows I’m the one who cursed him. In fact, he must have known from the beginning.

That explains his reaction during our first acidic conversation in this chamber. I had blustered, arguing he was the same vile Fae he’d been nine years ago, and he had gotten infuriated—and sarcastic.

Yet I have not changed.

Not. At. All.

Back then, I’d heard the serrated texture of Elixir’s anger and the piercing sound of accusation. The latter, I hadn’t comprehended. Yes, I’d wronged him before, though for an altogether different act. Why would he blame me for his blindness as well?

Now I know. I had affected Elixir in more ways than I’d thought.

Guilt and astonishment, shock and grief, tenderness and turmoil collide within me, along with a defiant passion I shouldn’t feel, the same emotion that had swept me into his arms hours ago.

This is why I can resist his power. If I’m the one who created the curse, I’m immune to it.

During our first clash, Elixir had asked me how I fended off his magic, but he hadn’t needed to. He’s wise enough to have drawn the same conclusion. The only reason he’d asked was to confirm whetherIknew about my role in his fate, whether I knew about my immunity to him. He’d been fishing, discerning the level of my ignorance.

He still thinks I don’t know.

The Fables say knowledge against magical beings is power. That’s why he didn’t tell me, because it would have given me a potential advantage. Knowing who incited the curse would have been the first step to winning.

Fables forgive him. He made other mortals play the same game, aware they couldn’t break it, that it was impossible for them.

Change comes only from the bewitcher, who must see, feel, and enact the opposite of old truths and past deeds.

Yet how did I bewitch—curse—him? To break this curse, what does it mean to see, feel, and enact the opposite? What old truths and past deeds is the Fable referring to?

Does Elixir know these answers?

What happened in the lily pond…that hadn’t been a game. It hadn’t been part of his agenda, nor mine. It had been genuine, hadn’t it? Otherwise, we wouldn’t have tried to resist.

We had truly desired each other.

But I still want to win this game. And he still wants to stop me.

My likeness wobbles in the depth, unsteady and on the verge of losing its shape. As harrowing as this knowledge is, I need to find out how this curse happened in the first place. I need to keep playing my own game, keep getting close to Elixir, keep chipping away at his heart.

I need to do one of the few things Faeries can’t do. I need to lie.

20

I crawl into bed, hoping to recover some of the rest I’d lost while swept up in Elixir’s embrace. In the lily pond, we couldn’t have dozed for more than an hour. While Lotus curls against my feet, I fall into a deep, dark slumber.

The respite doesn’t help. The moment I awaken, everything comes rushing back. I’ve cursed my enemy, yet he doesn’t feel like my enemy anymore. I’ve betrayed my family, yet I can’t seem to wish back what I’ve done.

I preoccupy myself with the map under my bed. In addition to sketching The Fountain of Tears and the lily pond, a new ambition inspires me. Using the drawing rock, I mark the places where the river levels have shifted. But without Lark and Juniper’s help, I fail to decipher a pattern, any indication that the river’s draining in a systematic manner. Maybe it’s futile to hope this natural event can be prevented in some manual way, with the effort of physical work rather than magic and the extermination of my people. Regardless, if there’s a remote chance to save the Solitary wild without sacrificing mortals, I won’t stand by and wait for such a miracle to manifest.

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