Page 109 of Faerie Fate
Panic erupted. “Do you know or don’t you know? It’s kind of important.”
Our eyes met and latched, and in hers I saw the struggle. How she desperately wanted to believe her memory but couldn’t be exactly sure.
Her chin lifted decisively. “I’ve got this. Go sit inside the circle and center yourself. I’ll be there momentarily.”
I sat cross-legged on the ground with my palms resting on my knees and every part of me strung tight, pulled in opposite directions.
Glass tinkled against glass, followed by a muffled grunt. Poppy dumped several more wet ingredients and a slew of dried herbs at my feet, unceremoniously. Seemed to me like this time, the ingredients mattered even more to ensure the potency of the spell. We were out of time.
Poppy threw a pinch of this and a drop of that into the bowl she’d gathered, mixing with a competent hand. She remained calm under pressure. I tried to take a page out of her book but fell short, because when she finished her mixture, when she reached for my hands to begin, mine were trembling.
Her grin failed to portray her earlier confidence. There was an expression on her face like she was prepared for the absolute worst.
This is it.
Poppy took a deep breath. “Prepare yourself, Tavi. This time we’re not leaving the chamber until your full powers have been unlocked. No matter what happens.”
Her power pushed through me, into me. Drawing us both down and together, around and around, entwining until we were one energy rather than two separate people.
This time, it wasn’t just Poppy and her magic. It was the two of us, and she melted into me. Into my head and my body and my soul.
I heard her words of power, the spell, inside my head as her eyes went pure white. Electricity ground us together better and stronger than those silver bangles around her wrists. The hair on my arms lifted and the hair on my head whipped around in the invisible wind.
I took up the spell refrain inside of me as the darkness in the room built, pressing and familiar. My vision went blank, the world nightmarish and awful, but the sacred circle of this ritual space protected us. From the battle overhead. From ourselves.
Our fingers crushed together until we were both nothing but stardust drifting in an infinite universe. The mingling of our power was intimate and necessary.
Poppy and I fell together. Backwards this time, with the witch tipping forward into me. I sucked in a breath and my physical body not only filled with heat but with substance. Instead of falling into Poppy?—
She fell intome.
We detached from our bodies at the same time, and the blinding white of her eyes replaced the darkness.
This time, the ritual took us inside of me. The impact of the landing sent a shockwave through my body. Poppy skidded to a stop beside me with her arms windmilling to slow her fall.
This was very different from her vision of the water rising in the small house. The intensity of displacement wasn’t as difficult to handle. Or maybe I just had a better clue what to expect.
I touched a hand to the top of my hair. If I looked half as bad as she did, then we were not going to win any prizes.
Poppy snorted when she looked at me. “Don’t think you’re looking as fresh as a daisy either, Tavi.”
The walls of the cave sent her voice echoing back to us from a thousand directions.
The first step Poppy took into the cave transformed it. The walls rose, lightening in color to a healthy green, a hedge reaching up into an interminably gray sky.
“Where are we this time?” I hardly dared to ask it out loud.
The leaves shivered in answer.
“Unless I’m off my rocker, we’re in a maze that represents your magic. Basically, we’ll have to get to the center to figure out what we’re working with.”
And her words left me with the clear picture that it wouldn’t be easy. Not by a long shot.
Poppy might have looked like she was ready to kick ass but she threaded her arm through mine. “Stick close to me.”
I jumped at the first turn we took that brought us to a dead end. Twists and more dead ends sent us doubling back on each other and I braced, waiting for monsters to jump out of the limbs.
There was nothing except the ragged pitch of my breath.
