Page 70 of Faerie Fate
On my stomach, I crawled forward, tears streaming down my face. My power sputtered. The beam crashed down in the space left behind, and there was Noren, his head lowered again.
“Thanks, buddy. You’re the best.” I used him to get to my feet, keeping most of my weight off my leg.
Another round of coughing wracked me forward. The debris in the air made it difficult to see anything outside of the mockery of blue sky.
My legs refused to carry me on my first step and Noren had to move quickly to keep me from falling. There was no point in telling him I was fine. No point in lying to him when we both understood the truth.
After a second, I nodded, gathering myself and stepping out of the wreckage. I waved the haze away but without any magic left, the gesture only stirred the particles. They circled in front of my face.
Whatever had happened with the prophecy, with Poppy’s vision and her resulting warnings, I’d been drained, like an empty vessel, left carved out and hollow.
“Mike? Bronwen?” Noren led me through the piles of debris. “Can you find them for me?”
He stared up at me with the put-out expression of someone torn between two duties. I nudged him and he huffed, then found a trail through the rubble.
What a mess.
I limped over a piece of stone from the cabin’s foundation, the edge jagged and cracked. One of the small iron nubs at the base of the cauldron poked out from another pile of debris. The thing survived into the future so I knew it hadn’t broken.
Or I’d changed the future drastically by being here.
After a few tense minutes, Noren howled to get my attention. I carefully picked my way through the wreckage of the spell room. This had to be the living room? Maybe?
Noren dug at something on the ground. Terror clenched my heart. I crossed to find Bronwen trapped under a pile of plaster and drywall. Impossible to bend down, I somehow managed to hold onto a pile of wood and reach for her with the opposite arm.
She was breathing. Alive but unconscious, a long trail of crimson dribbling from her nose. It was going to take a lot bigger punch than I had right now to get her out.
Someone coughed behind me, and over my shoulder I saw Mike shove his way out from under more debris. Stones from the fireplace crashed down around him. I caught the flicker of flame from behind him, the fire spreading rapidly with its newfound freedom.
My eyelids fluttered, then opened wider, meeting his green eyes and the life there.
“Tavi? You’re okay?”
I nodded in spite of the dizziness, still holding tight to Bronwen. “I’m upright. How are you?”
Sweat dampened his hair to his brow. “I’m okay. Where’s Bronwen?”
“I’ve got her right here.”
The blood continued to flow from her nose but hopefully it would slow down once we got her out.
My pulse beat erratically as I pulled her into my arms. “She’s hurt.”
Mike responded to the heavy sadness in my tone. “Let me help you.”
“The fire?—”
“The fire is going to have to wait,” he snapped.
He lost his balance when the floor gave way beneath him, one leg sinking down through the cracked boards.
“Fucking earthquake. And Poppy…where is she?”
“I’m not sure. Noren? Can you look?”
This time the wolf met my gaze, his yellow eyes a deeper color than I’d ever seen them, and showed me his teeth. Rather than going for Poppy, he took the front of Bronwen’s shirt gently in his teeth and gave a tug.
Her limbs flopped like she was some kind of life-size doll rather than a human but the motion pulled her free from the plaster.
