Page 68 of Faerie Fate
The heat continued to filter through me, worse than the chill of the water in her vision. It was so much worse because it brought with it the familiar prickling of nausea and I wondered if I was going to spew all over Poppy’s cauldron.
“What are you saying?” My voice shook. “You’re going to have to spell it out for me because for some reason I’m having trouble processing it.”
Everything. I was having trouble witheverything.
“If we unlock your powers now,here, in the past, then when you return to your time, your presence will immediately set off achain of catastrophic events. It will cause mass casualties in the Faerie realm.”
She couldn’t be any plainer.
Floored, I couldn’t break eye contact. I couldn’t force myself to face it, either. I stayed trapped in indecision and panic.
“People willdie?”
I whispered the word and Poppy tried not to react. I saw the minuscule twitch near her eye followed by a glistening that no doubt heralded tears.
“The prophecy tells me that you would be the only one who can stop the consequences of this ritual. So it would be up to you to fix it.”
“Fix what?”
She seemed to be calm now, back in her body although she was spent, her face craggy with restrained emotion. Her fingers lightly clasped in front of her. The shadows in the room ran cold despite the fire.
“It would be perilous,” Poppy said, more to herself. “Fraught with danger, possibly deadly for the people you love. Something you must do, though. There really would be no other choice. It has to be done. I know that much.”
She was giving me a worse migraine with the information she kept to herself, expecting me to read between the lines.
Maybe something about the vision turned my brain into a frozen tundra and I had to wait for the spring thaw. Maybe I wasn’t following because I didn’t really want to follow her.
I worried the inside of my lip, chewing down until the coppery metallic taste of blood coated my tongue. “Faerie herself said we needed to unlock them.”
Had Faerie known about the casualties, though?
I had a really hard time believing the goddess would want me to have these powers if it meant such catastrophic weather and death for her people.
Poppy forced herself to pat me on the top of my head hard enough to jar my teeth. I wasn’t sure if it was comfort or chastisement. “On the bright side, in setting off these events correctly, you’d earn staunch support and precious allies for the upcoming battle.”
White spots flickered in front of me. “Battle? What battle?”
“I have no idea,” she answered with a shrug. “I just know there’s going to be one.”
Damn, my head spun. I’d done my level best to stay out of the line of fire but trouble found me no matter where I turned. Every direction there was something new, something awful, and I held tight to the knowledge that it wasn’t going to stop soon.
My path wasn’t easy. Hell, it was no path at all.
A long exhale hissed between my teeth. “So now we?—”
The rest of my question cut off under a fierce rumble, the ground bucking and throwing me off balance.
The shaking grew in intensity and Poppy reached out to pull me toward her when the floorboards were pushed free of the nails holding them.
“Tavi!” My name echoed from the other side of the door as Mike pounded his fist against it to get inside. “Tavi!”
Poppy and I both went down with the force of the second shockwave.
“It’s an earthquake!” she screamed beside my ear. “We have to get out.”
I lost my breath. Was this a preview? Was this some sort of warning to drive home the repercussions of unlocking my powers?
I inhaled forcefully and choked on a lungful of dust and plaster.
