Page 76 of Faerie Fate
My gaze latched on the beam, the strange, out of place rectangle of metal. “This is weird.”
The ground shifted oddly and I flung my arms out for balance. When the tremor passed, I trailed them, last in line. The next step, however, never made contact with the ground. A loud grind of stone on stone and the ground gave out.
My magic flared instinctively with the fresh flow of panic. The magic twisted my muscles, shortening and hollowing out my bones. My bird form kept me aloft, hovering over the sudden fissure that had appeared. Luckily Mike and Bronwen were far enough away to avoid the cave-in. Unluckily Poppy was not.
She fell through into the pit.
With a roar, she blasted magic beneath her to soften the landing but she was a hair too late, taken by surprise. She hit the ground hard on both legs and crumpled with a surprised grunt.
“Oh my goddess!” Bronwen peered over the edge of the pit.
I flew down to Poppy, my heart in my chest, and shifted back to human form.
“Is she okay?” Mike called down from above.
Noren whined, but with my head spinning and my eyes slow to adjust to the change in light, I had no definitive answer for them.
“I think we’re okay.”
My voice echoed back to me as I bent over Poppy. She didn’t smack my hands away, which boded ill for whatever I’d find when I pushed her dress back. Her legs were twisted at a strange angle underneath her and her ankle was already hot and swollen and turning a reddish-purple.
“I’m fairly certain you broke your ankle,” I said to her in an undertone.
“Certain, are you?” she bit back. “Get my bag. It dropped off my shoulder during the fall. It’s over there. I’ve got a potion in there to mend bones. At least, it’s meant to.”
I reared up, my skin still tingling from the quickness of the shift. The pack rested a few paces away, buried under a slight hill of gravel and debris.
My eyes finally adjusted to the dimness. It wasn’t a man-made hole. Not unless the pixies had capabilities beyond anything I’d heard. It seemed like we accidentally stumbled on some kind of flimsy entrance to an underground cavern.
Beyond the hole, a wide tunnel cut deeper into the earth, with calcite and limestone formations marking the entrance.
“See something more interesting than my potion?” Poppy huffed.
“Sarcasm isn’t appreciated. It’s some kind of cave. We must have stepped into a sinkhole.”
She laughed. “It wasn’t a sinkhole, girl. Take a better look around you if you’re going to lollygag.”
Okay, I might have to amend my earlier opinion. The room where we fell was circular, with six arches leading off from the main space. All of them were equally black.
I bent to grab the strap of her bag, my attention zeroed in on the middle arch.
Poppy dragged herself to her feet and hopped over to the nearest archway. She pointed to a mark in the stone. “Still think it’s a cave? Tavi, these tunnels aren’t natural. They were dug out.”
“How long ago?”
“Long. I have a feeling we were meant to go around that metal beam. It was definitely a trap. A misdirection. A person can easily get lost in these tunnels if they aren’t aware.”
I clutched the bag to my chest. “Maybe it’s like a safe house.”
The lines on her forehead became deeper. Her mouth pursed, lips going bloodless. She held out a hand for the bag and dug out the potion from the recesses. Uncorking the bottle with her teeth, she clumsily poured it onto her bare skin, her hands shaking.
“What’s wrong?”
“The pixies don’t just farm vegetables and fruits and morsana flowers,” she said. “How much do you know about them?”
“Not much,” I admitted.
“Because fae history, the kind you’re taught, glosses over what the faeries have done to other races with magic powers.”
