Page 61 of Faerie Fate
“No one has all three,” Poppy argued automatically.
“There’s no way to find out unless you help me.”
There was no guaranteeing I’d have witch powers, true, even if I took my mother’s word for it. She claimed a witch helped her conceive, and so I was going to be born with that magic. But the spell she’d been given hadn’t done anything for me.
The tiny kernel of hope in my heart trembled as though I couldn’t bear for it to be false after all.
“I’m not sure you will have that kind of power,” Poppy said, her lips pursed and twisted to the side. Skeptical dimples rose in the wake of the gesture. “But we can try.”
She spoke like she was agreeing only to appease me.I guess the gods agreed, then, huh?
I bounced, the tips of my fingers tingling. “You mean you’ll help?”
Poppy lifted one lazy shoulder and slid her sleeves back down with the opposite hand to cover the wires of the bond between her and Kit. The same kind of unwilling, horrible tether I had with my own K-named prick.
“Do you have the journal with you?” Poppy asked. “The one from your mother?”
“You mean the one I carry in my pocket?”
I reached into my waistband. I’d shrunk it to fit and the journal remained small as I held it out to Poppy, who scowled at the cover.
She tapped the fingernail of her index finger to the center of the cover and the journal reverted to its normal size.
“Your mother filled all these pages?” she questioned, gingerly taking it from me.
“She said she communed with Faerie herself,” I clarified.
Poppy grunted, studying it from every angle before glancing up at me. “You’re lucky the gods agreed. Now get out. I need to read it alone and prepare.”
I hastily backed out and closed the door behind me. The tension in my chest loosened in some places and knotted in others.
My breakfast food had congealed. Rather than waste it, I set it down on the floor for Noren. Bronwen rested with her back to the sink and the copper spigot.
“Well?” she finally burst out when she couldn’t take it anymore. Her arms practically vibrated as she threw them in the air. “What did she say? Who was that guy?”
“That guy was a seriously bad boss,” I replied, “but it’s not my story to tell.”
Anxious, I scratched at my neck, my fingers brushing against my scar. I let my hands drop down to my sides.
“Poppy said she’d help me unlock my powers. Hopefully she finds some answers in the journal.”
My mouth was dry. Maybe she’d figure out what Livvy and I did wrong the first time. We’d gotten the ingredients. The spell began to work, but then—poof, not a damn thing.
“Where’s Mike?”
Bronwen cleared her throat. “He decided to walk around the wards and see if he could feel them. See where that Kit dude came in or whatever.” She looked like she wanted to go outside too. Like the last thing in the world she wanted to do was be trapped in this cabin. “I don’t like this.”
I met her eyes. “Which part?”
“Everything. This is kinda fucked when you think about it. And right now, we’re not only stuck inside his granny’s wardsbut we’re three hundred years in the past and we’re in even deeper doo-doo than we were before.”
“I wouldn't say we’re necessarily in deeper shit, but perhaps a different kind of shit.” The clarification helped.
“I think you have shit blindness, Tavi. We’ve been through so much it’s blurring together for you.”
I grinned at her. “You’re probably right.”
Bronwen moved beside me and brushed her knuckles against the top of my hand. “You ever think about how good it would feel to be back on pack land? To run free without any kind of thought about courts or rival packs or zombie curses?”
