Page 114 of Fairies Never Fall

Plato cracks the curtain. “They’re here.”

The hairs on my arms stand up. I pull away from Ezra. I need to see.

Orion’s shadows surround the pool house, hiding the park from view. Figures move inside his shadows,throughthem, reaching the fence and beginning to climb. My stomach turns. I look away, a hand over my mouth.

“It’s gonna be fine,” Plato murmurs.

“How do you know?” I gasp.

“Orion told me. Just watch.”

I force myself to look again. My sister climbs the ladder of the diving board, the thorns of her ur-form gleaming. She looks fierce — but frighteningly small. A single figure, alone.

Maddox stands at the bottom of the ladder. Even from here I can make out the pinched worry on his face. The first azeroths make it over the fence before Elsabeth reaches the top, and the fear that seizes me is unparalleled. I thought I’d been afraid before, but this is jolting, sinking its claws into me, shredding my insides. My breath flees. Ezra comes up behind me, leaning in to see, and when his hand finds mine I grip it so tightly he grunts.

The azeroths hurtle toward Maddox and my sister. Maddox is completely unarmed, but he doesn’t run. And as they reach him, something explodes into being between him and them. The azeroths rear back as the towering figure’s dark wings snap open and a gleaming whip materializes. The whip slices past them with a crack that makes me jump. They scatter.

“That’s anight-terror,” Plato hisses. “What the fuck?”

“It’s the Watcher.” Everyone turns to Ezra in surprise. “The fucker who showed up at Maddox’s office. The one in charge. It’s him.”

“Jesus,” Felix breathes. “Is this what you guys see all the time?”

Ezra’s right. It’s the same Watcher as before, only this time he’s ready for battle. The Watcher shields Maddox with his body, staying between him and the azeroths. I don’t get the sense he’s protecting Maddox simply because Maddox is a human.

Elsabeth reaches the top of the tower. Below, the gate flies open. The azeroths outnumber us now. They stagger toward the gate house, only to be stopped in their tracks by flashes of blue. The riiga drive them back, their spears more deadly to the azeroths than even the Watcher’s whip.

A normal weapon can’t kill them, but Ann’s potion can.

The riigan sisters alternate, one taking on an azeroth, then another. Those that are hit, crumple.

They catch on quickly. The fairy inside the pool house is guarded by deadly riigan weapons.

The fairy on the diving board… is not.

Almost as one, they turn toward the pool.

“What’s the plan?” Ezra hisses.

Plato speaks up. “Maddox has dragonstone doctored with a riigan potion.”

Lilian’s hand goes to her mouth. “What will happen to Her Highness?”

“She’s jumping!” Felix yelps.

I straighten just in time to see Elsabeth spring from the board, and my heart stops. She enters the water seamlessly, disappearing from view. The azeroths leap after her, their hideous faces illuminated by the pool light. A strange thought strikes me.

They’re as desperate as us.

Without fairy magic, their unnaturally prolonged lives will be over. And there are only so many fairies left after they hunted us to near extinction. Their own greed has been their downfall.

Ezra’s hand tightens on my shoulders. “Lys,” he whispers. I realize my fingers have turned to claws and the windowsill is splintering under them. Thorns gleam on my knuckles. Maddox is climbing the ladder now, and I can’t see into the pool, everything a mass of churning, glowing water.

Where’s Elsabeth?

Maddox scrambles to the end of the board, holding something aloft — a craggy chunk of stone that flashes like a torch in the dusk. It’s about the size of a dragon’s fist. He heaves it into the water. It winks a brilliant blue on the way down.

Elsabeth breaches the surface. She bursts into the night air, wings propelling her upward. Crooked, patchwork hands thrust after her, but the azeroths are too slow. The dragonstone slams into the water. Everything goes blue, the color of the sky, the color of a fairy’s eyes, then white.

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