Page 107 of Faerie Fate
I fell onto my side and rolled up an instant later. Before the fae had time to recover, before he did more than clench his crushed wrist to his chest, I rushed him.
He hadn’t expected me to fight back. Hadn’t expected much of anything out of me, really. His shouts of fear were muffled and disappeared as I heaved myself onto him, ignoring the heatedburn of the nearby fire. I pummeled him, my heart thumping an erratic beat in my ears.
The last morsana flower was gone. My curse would destroy me the second I returned to my own time. All this struggle and effort and death… What did it amount to?Nothing.
I bared my teeth and slammed my palms into him, my magic adding extra oomph to every hit as I beat the fae to a lump of flesh.
I was stuck in this hell on earth with the people I loved at the mercy of monsters. I was forced to watch the pixies die, and even the scream smoldering my lungs to a crisp wasn’t enough to make me feel better.
The fae went down, his eyes rolling into his head before unconsciousness stole him from me too soon. I straightened, dragging in a breath with my fingers clenching and unclenching. The stench of blood branded itself on the inside of my nostrils.
A pixie whizzed past me fast enough to ruffle my hair. “Retreat! Retreat!”
A furious unsettling took me off balance. “What’s happening?”
Mike skidded to a halt at my side, glancing at the unconscious soldier at my feet. “No. This isn’t how the fight happened.”
Nausea turned my stomach. “What?”
“The pixies are calling for a retreat, falling deeper into the palace. But…the first battle of EverRose was soundly won by the pixies because they still had their morsana weapons. They had no reason to retreat.”
The pressure in my chest deepened as Mike pulled me off my feet and found a way back toward Poppy and Elfhame.
One dead because of me. Another passed out from the walloping I just gave him.
Indignation and anger could only disguise the truth for so long: The sudden turning of the battle was my fault.
I knew it instinctively. Something I’d done shifted things out of the pixies’ favor and into the faes’.
“We’re not supposed to help because of changing the past, I get that,” I told Mike. “But what if something we’vealreadydone has changed the past? What then?”
Guilt swarmed me. Not we.Me.
“If the pixies were meant to win, thenthey have to win.” Mike’s attention splintered off toward the path of the retreating pixies. “Now we’ve got to help them get it back on track.”
It wasn’t just my urge to fight and spill some blood that won out in the end. It was the worry for what it might mean for Mike in the future. The fear of what might happen to the people I cared about who were waiting for us to come home. They had no idea what was happening, no idea that the past was changing and the tide at EverRose reversed.
What if, with a little prompting, we could get this back on track? I was screwed, but there was no reason for anyone else to go down with me.
“We’ll fight, then. We’ll help the pixies. Mike.”
I’d do anything for him. Anything in my power.
He turned when I said his name and gripped my forearms, pausing in the middle of the raging retreat to stare at me for a single moment longer. My heartbeat stuttered at the expression, the love and the longing and the worry.
“Sure. Yes. I mean, let’s try. We have to try.” He understood the implications better than anyone else, given his upbringing. “What do you need from me?” he asked.
“See what you can do to keep the fae from advancing.” I said it like I wasn’t asking for the impossible. “I have to go find your grandmother. I think—Iknowif I can unlock my witch powers then I can make sure the pixies win.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
I lied without hesitation, and bolted before Mike could ask me to explain myself. It felt so strange to consider his grandmother here as a young woman, but the time had come for us and there was no more escaping. No more pushing it aside for more opportune moments.
We had to pivot to a new plan. Plan B. Which somehow happened to be the same as Plan A all along.Fight like hell and make the fae pay.
Mike and I split in different directions. I knew it without having to look back at him. We’d somehow gotten on the same path again, where we understood without speaking what the other needed.