Page 63 of Faerie Fate
Oxana the SightlessakaPoppyakaBarbara was a very strong witch. And who were we? A bunch of unlucky twenty-somethings, one of us with a blood curse.
“There were a lot of things we should have done and a lot we shouldn’t,” Mike offered. “Now we’re here.”
“Here. Like this is the best place to be.” Bronwen tossed her hands in the air. “This place doesn’t even have running water. I don’t know how you guys feel about having to go to thebathroom in a chamber pot, but I really hate it. Magic has to count for something, and with all her powers she couldn’t put in a toilet?”
“It’s not like she spends much of her time here.” Mike sounded ready to defend Poppy at all cost.
The family bond, I reminded myself.
It didn’t help.
Sooner or later, they were going to realize that Poppy’s trustworthy nature—or not—wasn’t the real problem. It was me.
They wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me, and when they realized it, all the anger lurking beneath the surface would boil over and burn me. The kind of burns a person never really recovered from even though the scars wouldn’t show on the outside.
I braced for impact when Bronwen said, “We don’t know anything about her, Mike. It’s not like she’s been super forthcoming with her story. She knows everything about us but the exchange of information wasn’t exactly equal.”
“She’s my blood,” Mike insisted like it made all the difference.
“She might be your blood in the future, but right now we know she’s a bounty hunter.” Bronwen held up a finger to count off her points. “We know she lives in a cabin in the woods and makes crazy prophecies about the fate of our entire world.” Another finger. “And we know she works for a douchebag with a cowlick.”
Those were good points she made.
I stepped away from the fire, intent on interrupting before the argument progressed further, no matter how badly the three of us wanted to have it out. To do something that would ease the constriction in our heads and chests.
I never got a chance. Poppy banged on the wall between her spell room and the living room.
“Tavi!” Her voice filtered through. “It’s time.”
Oh god, okay.
At once I didn’t feel ready for it. I didn’t want to move or speak or do anything besides catch my breath.
“Good luck.” Bronwen was the foreboding voice of doom, and Mike kept his face covered. Unable to look at me.
Noren was back at the window with his ears pinned to the top of his head, troubled. And my feet weighed as much as any anchor as I went back into the kitchen to meet my fate.
Chapter Eighteen
Poppy had transformed her spell room for the ritual.
She’d expanded the circle underneath the cauldron to encompass the entirety of the room. The lines were clean and white and shot through with something gritty. Salt?
The circle didn’t scuff when I failed to lift my foot fully over the line. She’d anchored it in place against whatever the hell she’d find when she started rooting around inside of me, struggling to pull out the long-buried pieces.
“Hang tight. I’m almost done.”
Bronwen and Mike lingered in the doorway and watched Poppy’s practiced movements. She bounced from one end of the room to the other and when she turned, jars and bundles of odd-looking plants filled her arms.
She set them beside the cauldron. Every time I inched toward the door, she jerked, meeting my gaze, pinning me in place. After several tense minutes, she swung her arm toward the center of the circle and the two purple cushions there, waiting for us to use.
“We’ll be right out here waiting for you.” I caught a flash of Mike’s drawn features before the door swung shut. Trapping me inside and the others out.
I forced my leaden legs to carry me to the center of the circle and I sat, lowering myself to the cushion. I gasped as the ingredients and strings of crystals all lifted into the air overhead.
Mike was right. Our magical education had been interrupted to the point where I felt woefully behind on things I should have known. Things to shield, to protect…
Witches and fae may not differ much from each other, but the gap in my knowledge put them into two different worlds.
