Page 115 of Faerie Fate
She brought the artifact to eye level and scrutinized the markings, her face too far away for me to make out the details of her expression. Was I the only one who caught her looking at it curiously?
But I didn’t take it from her. And when her gaze met mine, neither of us spoke.
The stare down couldn’t have been more than a few seconds but it stretched, the world contracting until only the two of us existed. She was the first one to break it. The moment theImperiumtouched her tiny palm, it shrank, contracting in on itself until it was small enough for her to stuff into the billowing fabric of her gown.
The pixies hadn’t possessed the artifact. I knew that for certain. Wherever it had come from, it wasn’t them. But they had it now.
What had I done?
Elfhame fluttered her wings and in the next second, she cut the distance between us to hover in front of me.
“Whatever you did, thank you.” She spoke in a tone low enough for only me to hear. “That was an impressive piece of magic.”
“I didn’t mean to.” My tongue struggled with every word. “I just wanted to set things right.”
The pixies had to win.
Mike was right, though, and maybe he’d always been right and I should have paid better attention. The rules had changed. We’d meddled far too much for anyone’s comfort level, and a sick pit opened up inside of me.
What the hell would the future look like when we finally made it back home? Or had we changed too much to ever be able to go back?
“Whatever it was, you did set things right.”
It might have been my mistake, but I swore I saw Elfhame brush a hand over her pocket. Over theImperium.
“We will always be grateful to you, Tavi.”
Elfhame flew up and a swarm of pixies circled around me. One by one, in a wave, they bent their small bodies. Bowing…to me?
Celebratory chaos exploded around me.
A low groan burned my already raw throat. No, this wasn’t right.
“Our savior! The hero of the pixies. The Warrior of EverRose,” one of them said in a high voice. “All hail!”
“Hail the Warrior of EverRose!” The cry rose up from their masses and it took every ounce of willpower not to cover my ears. Not to blot them and their happiness out. But it was undeserved.
I was a killer. I’d proved it once again today. Intentions didn’t matter when the dead littered the ground.
“We’re forever grateful to you, great warrior,” one of them said, clapping its hands.
Another burst into tears. “You are our savior.”
Their jubilation spanned the circle around me as I broke out in a cold sweat. Rather than feeling drained at the massive amount of power I’d used, I felt full. Charged. Ready to release another wave, and another.
Until I stood not in a ring of admirers but one of destruction.
The magic waited underneath my skin. It only needed to be given a direction and the dragon would fly again to obliterate my enemies.
My teeth chattered and I clamped down to stop the violent movement.
“You don’t have to— Please, don’t thank me.” No one heard me. No one stopped to listen.
“Sorry, sorry, excuse me.” Mike pushed through the crowd with Bronwen close behind. The grim lines of his forehead were echoed in the tight lips. “We need to go.Now. Get a flower, Bron.”
Mike grabbed my elbow. When our eyes met, when his held steady, my insides liquefied in the worst possible way. All the loving words and the shared intimacies of the past were balanced on a fine point, ready to tip into either something wonderful…
Or history. Never to exist again.
