Page 5 of What did you do?

The dark forest where he had stood was now empty. He was smart and fast, I would give him that.

“He wasnotright,” I barked into the empty forest air, my desperate voice echoing off the old trees.

I couldn’t take it if he was right.

If he was right, it meant that I may never get her back—not really.

“Who else in all the realms would send ahumanto do their killing, Mendax? Youknowshe is with the Seelie. You’ve heard the rumors.” His disembodied voice echoed behind me now.

I spun to shout at him. “She is not with the Seelie. Those rumors are nothing more than peasant gossip,” I bellowed, feeling my body shake from the scream.

Distant cicada chirps blended with my heavy breath and the scratch of bare branches in the cool night breeze.

The space in front of me blurred slightly before the seven-foot-tall tank of a fae reappeared in front of me with palms held high in surrender. His sharp eyes pierced mine with concern and gentleness that made me want to stab him.

“If you had a brain, I would impel you,” I grumbled as my shoulders sagged.

“You mean like everyone else you’ve tried to interrogate?” He grinned, showcasing his missing incisors.

I had been unable to harness myself since the day she left. I had no control without her. The last four people who I had tried to interrogate died significantly harsher deaths than this TreeTamer.

Once inside their minds, I hadn’t been able to stop myself.

I hadn’t wanted to.

Ineededthem to snap and break so I didn’t have to.

I missed the way she made me feel, and if the only thing I could feel was their pain, then so be it.

This was on her hands.

She had forced me to feel something powerful and deep, and then just took it all away, along with her soft skin and fiery eyes. Their deaths were her fault.

Needless to say, we hadn’t gotten the most promising answers out of anyone before I melted their minds into unhelpful puddles that sloshed about inside their thick skulls.

“You know where she resides, mate. I came back to help you—or should I say help all of fuckin’ Unseelie with the way you’ve been rampaging. Stop dickin’ around killin’ everything with a pulse, and make a plan,” Dirac said firmly as he slapped my arm. “I’ll hold things down while you’re gone. Go get her, Mendax. Teach her a lesson for leavin’ ya. Don’t worry about nothin’ here. I heard your mum likes the company of Hanabi commanders,” he said with a wink before vanishing from sight.

Deep in the back of my mind, I knew who had sent my pet—I had known all along. She had said as much, but still, I refused to believe she had joined the Seelie. Not after everything they had done to the humans already. If it was the Seelie that she worked for, then she was in a lot more trouble than she realized.

Which meant so was I.

3

PRESENT DAY

Calypso

Breath wheezed out from my chest as I lowered another cardboard box to the floor of my closet. My trembling hands ripped off the clear packing tape to dig through as fast as they were capable. My bloodshot eyes found the small crack of the closet doorway and landed on the tall fae admiring one of the paintings of various wings on my bedroom wall. My eyes hesitated only a moment before returning to the disheveled closet floor. I quickly added a few more things to the leather duffel bag that waited at my feet. My heart—the half I still had anyway—beat like an overused drum. I needed to hurry. It was getting late, and Eli had promised we could go today.

I heard once that if you are angry about something, it was really because you were sad about it. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t. All I knew was that I was always angry, but if I let myself think about the reason why, I would cry until my tears drowned every bird in the sky.

What would it feel like to not have anything but a hollow cavern inside?

I should have been happy. I’d slayed the dragon. I’d checked the last box. Now I would finally get to go to my family.

My family.

“You know you can’t take all of this, right?” The deep voice skittered over me, startling me from my thoughts.

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