Page 123 of What did you do?

“Show us a trick, pet,” Mendax said from behind.

I held my hands out to the side widely as I faced Saracen with palms spread. Slowly, and a bit dramatically, I raised them up. A smile curled the edges of my lips. Then I dropped my hands to my sides.

Each of them looked at one another in confusion.

“Nothing’s going to happen.” I smiled wider. “I’m human.”

Everyone gasped.

I stepped in closer to a confused Saracen, my face in front of hers, making sure I could see every inch of her expression. I wanted to remember this moment forever.

“You killed the wrong daughter,” I whispered, savoring her expression. “Adrianna was the Artemi.”

“That’s impossible,” she protested.

“Artemi choose which child will receive their powers, and my father chose Adrianna.”

I dug my nail into the scar on my thumb painfully.

“Because of his status, Adrianna got her powers earlier than normal. She was two, and she couldn’t handle them. You can’t imagine how much pain it caused her little body and mind. The painhecaused her, leaving my mother and I to watch her suffer. When my sister was five, we learned that she could siphon off the tiniest amount of powers to one of us, only for a few hours ever, but it was enough to give her some relief. When she would pull her powers back, everything would blur for a second, and then we could see what Adrianna saw for a minute. We used to play hide-and-seek with it.”

My teeth ground together. “Adrianna had pushed some of her animal abilities into me before she went to town with Mom.” I bit the inside of my cheek to stop the tears. “I saw everything, Saracen—everything. The last words I heard from my sister’s mouth were her asking me what I’d done by saving you that day.”

“Oh my suns, Caly,” Eli murmured.

“If you saw it all, then why didn’t you do something? Why wait so long?” Saracen asked.

I watched the small lines of her mouth twitch. “Because I wanted to hurt you from the inside out. I wanted to destroy everysinglething you have ever loved. It was easy to wait, knowing that one day I would hurt you. The hard part was learning there was nothing you loved.” My eyes caught Eli’s.

“What—what about me?” he questioned.

My gaze fell to the ground—I was too scared to watch his face during what I was about to tell him. “My plan was to arrive and kill all of you the instant I was empowered as a Seelie royal. Then, I’d go to Moirai and kill my father for what he did to Adrianna.”

I looked up and saw Eli’s mouth drop open, hurt in his eyes.

“You were my first mistake,” I said with a small tremble in my voice. “She never loved you, but I did. I made a promise that no matter how much I had to lie or kill to get revenge for my sister, I’d never hurt you more than I had to.”

“The only way I can ever see my sister again is if I get into the Elysian Fields,” I said, wiping at my stinging eyes. “Humans go to heaven or hell, and I-I need to tell her…tell her I’m sorry. Sorry for ever saving you in that field and bringing you into our lives!” I screamed as the rage came. “You already thought I was Artemi; this way I would get to be with Adrianna again and see my father.”

Saracen looked stunned. “But the heart?—”

“That was tricky. The act would have been up pretty fast when you realized I had no powers. You had just started to worry about taking me through the veil. I knew I needed something to convince you of my loyalty so I could get to Seelie—it was perfect.”

Saracen smiled as she tried to move from Eli’s grip, but he held her firm. “You shouldn’t have told me you’re a human.” Aneerie laugh crawled from the queen’s throat. “You’ve made this far too easy.”

The Seelie queen grabbed the glowing blade from Eli’s belt and raised it high before bringing it down with force straight over my head.

From out of nowhere, Walter slammed his shoulder into mine, pushing me out of harm’s way.

Before I could scream, the sickening sound of blade and bone echoed across the open land as the queen’s dagger pushed deeper down on Walter’s head.

The world stilled.

Shouts from behind me rang out, but it felt like everything was in slow motion.

“Walter! No!” I screamed from the ground with everything I had, as if I could move him away to safety if I felt it hard enough.

Walter faltered then, dropping to his knees while a trail of onyx blood began to swell and cascade from around the blade protruding from the top of his head. The dark stream trickled over his tousled brown hair before dripping down into his kind eyes.

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