Page 29 of Faerie Fate
He drew in another long breath and his magic rose, the same corona of summer-green sparks drawing us out of our current time and sending us shooting in reverse. I squeezed my eyes shut as vertigo sent my brain spinning inside my skull.
I can make it through.
For Livvy. For the mom I was only just now getting to know, the one I’d missed out on having all my life. I used the thoughts like a tether to keep me in my traitorous body until Mike deposited us in the past.
When I opened my eyes, we stood in the basement of the elite academy, the room emptied of bodies. The boxes were still in place but their towering heights were halved. A trail of footprints led through a layer of dust.
“How far—” A cough stole the rest of my words and doubled me over.
Mike squeezed my fingers tighter. “About two weeks. I’ve never tried to go years into the past. It’s much harder to do. But these short trips are manageable.”
Manageable? Hell. He looked like he was about to keel over, and his shoulders slumped forward at the energy it took to bring us even this far. Then Mike shook it off and reached for his Faerie key, thrusting it into the open air and twisting.
My heart lurched when nothing happened.
Mike glared at the empty space like it was to blame for the failure.
“It looks like the barrier is still locked even when you go backward.”
“If we can’t fix it going backward, then we’ll go forward,” Mike replied determinedly.
He sheathed the key back into his cloak and tugged me closer. I stumbled against him as his magic pulsed. It felt hotter this time, tainted with the dregs of his frustration as we erupted into time.
We both staggered when we landed, his magic remaining around us in an echo of the spell. This time when I looked at him, trails of sweat trickled from his hairline down to the sharp plane of his jaw.
Mike ground his teeth and tied the key again.
“How far?” I croaked.
“A month in the future.”
Mike sounded as exhausted as I felt as he twisted the key hard. Hoping for a different outcome and disappointed with the lack of a result.
The basement was colder than I remembered it being. And when I looked around, the lack of dust provided an almost sterile contrast to the scene I was getting used to observing.
What happened down here to make them clean this way?
I leaned heavily against Mike whether he wanted me to or not. “We could have gotten caught on the other side, too.”
“Narrowly,” he agreed. “The barrier is locked down. There’s no way around it unless we want to try something drastic.”
Judging by his ominous tone, we definitely didn’t want to try. Not yet.
“We have no way to get through to Livvy.”
Mike rolled his shoulders. “We’ll figure out a way.” The determination was clear under his breath. “We’re not going to leave her behind. Whatever’s happening, we’ll find a way through, if we have to go over or under it.”
“What if this is like the wall dividing Seelie and Unseelie?” I whispered.
He finally looked at me, his eyes pools of worry. “Then we’ll find our own version of the necklace that let you through. I’m not going to leave your mom behind, Tavi.”
His grip gentled and after he stowed the key, he brushed his fingers against my chin. A slight, feathering touch, over as soon as it began. Mike dropped the contact and heaved a sigh before his magic rose again.
His time manipulation brought us back to our present moment slowly, as though our feet dragged through quicksand. How did he know exactly where to go, how to get back to the exactly right nanosecond?
We never left the ground and yet it felt somehow like we’d been deposited down into the heaviness of what was supposed to be our present moment. And as I dropped my jaw to ask him, I collapsed.
The last bit of strength gave way under a wave of weakness that sent me down to the ground hard. I barely realized I’d moved until pain from my shoulder filtered through the rest of me from where I’d hit.
