Page 56 of Magic Betrayed

When she finally came to a stop, her nostrils flared as she looked down at me.

“Was she there?” she asked abruptly, her chest heaving with labored breaths, as if she’d run all the way from the Elemental Court. Her voice was cracked and terrible. Filled with unimaginable pain and devastation alongside the hope. “Was my daughter in that place with you?”

I felt rather than saw Callum stepping up behind me. Ready to intervene should Talia’s anger get the better of her a second time. But I was no longer afraid of the queen’s power. I was far more terrified of what I would have to relive in order to answer her questions—of the guilt that this conversation would stoke to life once more.

No matter what Callum said, no matter how many times I told myself that none of this was my doing, I could not escape the conviction that I should have done more. Been braver. Faster. Stronger. That even if Talia did not blame me, perhaps she should.

“I don’t know,” I admitted quietly.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” she demanded. “How could you not know?”

My arms crossed over my chest defensively, almost without conscious thought.

“I’m not going to pretend it was right,” I said, without much hope that she could ever understand. “But for so many of us humans in there, it felt safer not to get attached. Not to form relationships with the Idrians sharing our prison. We never knew when someone would disappear. And we knew Elayara used people against each other. So even if I’d met her…”

“You were trying not to remember,” Talia said bitterly.

“Yes,” I told her honestly. “Sometimes that felt like the only way to survive.” I hadn’t wanted to know whose power would take up residence in my body. I had been in too much pain already for me to willingly take on more by witnessing someone else’s helpless anguish.

It was entirely possible that we’d been in the same room, and I’d simply chosen not to see.

“Don’t forget,” Callum said from behind my left shoulder, “where the true blame lies, Talia. Raine did not do this. She had no choice in what was done to her.”

“But I cannot resurrect Elayara and kill her again,” Talia shouted, shocking the entire room into silence. “Everyone who hurt my child is dead, and I have no one to blame, except…”

Oh.

Guilt was such a tricky enemy. No matter how fiercely we blocked it with reason and reality, it managed to find a way in through the cracks. Through the places we cared the most, where our walls were the softest. Where love made us vulnerable.

And the only thing that could drive it out was anger. Talia was angry because she blamed… herself.

I doubted she would want my compassion. The elemental queen was proud, and would loathe the realization that someone had seen through her scorn to the heart underneath.

But I was going to offer it anyway, because if she was feeling anything like I had when I realized Ari and Logan were missing, I simply wasn’t heartless enough to ignore her pain.

“You didn’t do this either, Talia,” I said softly. “Whatever our mistakes have been, the pain we’re suffering is not our punishment. In fact…”

But before I could finish the sentence, the door opened, and every sound in the room died.

Talia stood between me and the door, but I heard an overloud thud as Seamus set down a bottle a little harder than normal. A sharp crack as a chair hit the floor. Then a tiny voice that made my heart stop and my eyes widen with sudden, terrifying hope.

“Rainey?”

I moved so fast I almost tripped over my own feet. My shoulder collided with the elemental queen—drawing a harsh exclamation of annoyance—but I didn’t care.

I was staring at the open doorway—at the familiar form of Shane standing just inside… with a grinning, dark-haired imp in his arms.

Ari.

Ari was safe. She washere.

Suddenly there were tears streaming down my cheeks, filling my eyes and blurring the view of my tiny, curly-haired sprite and the tall, dangerous-looking man who held her so gently.

“You found her,” I whispered, nearly choking on my relief.

Shane set Ari down, and she raced across the floor, ignoring all the staring eyes to throw herself into my arms.

“I missed you,” she proclaimed matter-of-factly, just before her tiny arms wrapped themselves around my neck and squeezed like a bony boa constrictor.

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