Page 59 of What did you do?

“I saw him,” I whispered.

He continued to move me along, still keeping ahold of my upper arm as we ran up the cobblestone path. We were taking a different way than we had come. “Saw who?” he asked. His tan face was flushed, but he didn’t look as alarmed at my words as I had expected.

“Him.Mendax. I saw him in the crowd at the market when you were across the street. He came for me, and I ran?—”

Eli stopped abruptly, his amber eyes hard as they darted over my face.

“Calypso, youcouldn’thave seen Mendax. You killed him. Yousworeyou killed him,” he said frantically. He was holdingboth my arms now, his grip tightening enough that it was starting to hurt, even over the adrenaline. Years of training triggered my reflexes to break his hold, but I pushed them aside. I wouldn’t hurt Eli even if I could, which I honestly wasn’t sure about anymore.

“I know, and Idid…or at least I was sure I did, but I’m telling you, I saw him. He shadowed into the back room after I?—”

“Did he hurt you?” Eli cut me off, immediately softening his grip on me. He looked at each of the guards who had circled us with a hard glare, and they took a step away and turned their backs to us.

“No, he didn’t hurt me, but?—”

Eli cut me off again. “Then it wasn’t Mendax, Caly. It doesn’t matter how fondof you he was before. Mendax is an impulsive psycho with a ferocious temper and a need to dominate. Even if you hadn’t actually killed him like you thought, he wouldnever have let you walk away alive. Never.” His toned chest rose and fell heavily as his breathing evened back out. “Besides, we have moles in Unseelie, and they all say he has been gone. It wasn’t him,” he finished quietly.

“He wasn’t in Unseelie because he’s been hunting me, Eli! He is following me. What about all of the chaos? You said there has been an attack?” I asked.

“We don’t know what is responsible for the attack, but it was near the royal portal just outside of the castle. Which means the attackers are here, and from the way they…did what they did, they wanted to make a point.” Eli dropped his hold on my arms and placed one hand gently on the small of my back as we began our speed walk again.

“A point, huh? Something likeI’m not actually dead and I’m back to kill you all?” I asked angrily.

Why was he not believing me? I felt like a child telling their parents a ghost lived in their closet—only my ghost was very alive and dangerous.

“This isn’t a joke, Calypso. You should have seen what they did. On my land!”

“What did they do?” I asked. “Do the Seelie royals have any other enemies?”

I scanned the sunny expanse of field to my left, paranoid and unable to shake the feeling of eyes pressing into the back of my skull.

“Yes, of course, but both our biggest adversaries use butterflies and moths as their symbols, so that doesn’t help decipher who it was.”

“What do you mean? I know Unseelie claim the luna moth but what does that—” I started.

“The Fallen fae,” he said, interruptingagain. If he did that one more time… “They are the expelled Seelie. Besides the Unseelie, the Fallen fae are our largest enemies. I’ll explain what they are another time, but they claim the deadhead moth as their symbol,” he stated.

“What do the moths have to do with the portal attack?” I asked. There was a scuttle in my purse from my new pet.

Eli stopped to look at me, his eyes full of both anger and sadness. “The Seelie guard at the portal was skinned alive, hung from a tree, and wrapped in a cocoon of his own flesh.” Disgust was clear in his voice.

“Oh…”

Eli quickly grabbed my arm again and hurriedly moved us, but I was tired of being treated like a child.

“I know what I saw, Eli!” I shouted, ripping my arm out of his grip.

“No, you don’t, Calypso!” he snapped as he moved in front of me and pushed his face closer to mine. God, he was fast. “NO,YOU DON’T!” He took a deep breath, but I could see the panic was still coursing through him, even as he lowered his voice. “Because if Mendax is still alive, then that means that you didn’t kill him. And if you didn’t kill him, then that means you will be killed. Not only are you on Seelie soil without paying your allegiance to the court, but that would mean you betrayed and liedto the royal house.”

I flinched at his words.

“How does that even matter anymore? I’m not human. I’m allowed to be here anyway. And as for paying my allegiance, I’ve paid with my own fucking life already!” I shouted back.

“As far as everyone in Seelie knows, you arehuman, and believe it or not, as dangerous as that is, it is farmore dangerous for anyone to know you are Artemi without enough power to do more than call off a few creatures’ attacks.”

Neither of us spoke for a moment as we stood in panicked silence.

Eli’s face and voice softened. “Seirra,” he called to the captain of his guard, keeping his eyes locked on mine. “Alert the castle that Queen Tenebris, theonlyremaining Smoke Slayer, has broken through the wards and is inside of Seelie as we speak. Lock down the grounds to level three, and sound the alarm. Everyone must go to their concealment stations.” He paused a moment. “Let the people of Seelie know they are no longer safe. There is a monster in our realm.”

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