Page 80 of Faerie Fate
Never again. I said I’d never shift into an inanimate object again because it wasn’t worth it.
But trying to shift back to human once more knocked me on my ass, dropping my magic to dangerously low levels.
“Tavi? Follow the sound of my voice. Come on, stupid girl, you can do it.”
Poppy calling my name was distant, too. Someone having a muttered conversation in an adjoining room kind of distant. Shehad no clue what was happening. She just wanted to draw me back.
I tried again to change back but the agony kept me locked in place. Stuck. If I had eyes, they’d be crying.
Poppy hopefully sensed the wrongness of the situation. She picked me back up, cradling me against the warmth of her chest.
“Okay. Okay, not to worry. It’s gonna be fine. Whatever it is you need, I’ll make sure it’s taken care of,” she said. “The burrendigger is dead, at least. We’ll call that a silver lining.”
Her movement jostled me. We were walking through the tunnels. Moving from one place to another and retracing our steps before Poppy finally let out a rush of air.
“Oh, thank god,” she muttered under her breath.
What had she found?
A breeze tickled against the cold metal of the barrel. Was it fresh air? Maybe she’d found a way out.
She said nothing throughout the rest of the trek.
And then, strangely, “Poppy! There you are! What happened? Where’s Tavi?”
Bronwen’s voice. Poppy didn’t slow her steps at her approach to the others.
“We’re both here. It wasn’t an easy trip, let me tell you. Stop fussing! I’m in one piece, aren’t I? Stop. Oh, gosh, don’t cry.”
“Where’sTavi?” Mike’s voice was panicked. “I don’t see her with you.”
Poppy paused for a moment. “A lot happened in the tunnels.” She gripped me tighter against her chest. Her heart beat erratically. “And, ah…”
Trailing off, she held me out in front of her. The open breeze and the sun warmed my metal but it wasn’t enough to ease the agony of existence. Not even a little bit.
“Poppy, where the hell did you get a gun?” Bronwen’s voice was strained.
“It’sTavi, clearly. She changed into this, what did you call it, a gun, and she hasn’t shifted back.”
“A gun is a modern-day weapon that has small metal rounds called bullets inside of it, fired at very high speeds. The bullets can kill whatever you aim it at,” Mike explained.
What was left of my heart gave a low throb. Mike sounded strange. His voice was a thrum inside me but the reality of him felt teasingly out of reach. I couldn’t picture him. I couldn’t place his emotion.
“Well, there are no guns in Faerie. Maybe you have them in modern-day Faerie but back in my time,gunshaven’t been invented.” Poppy’s hand vibrated. “It’s a strange-looking weapon, isn’t it?”
“Why would she do it? Why would she turn herself into a gun?”
Footsteps thudded on dirt. Was Bronwen pacing? I imagined her face, the horror rounding her eyes.
“Because I guess she thought it was the best way to deal with a pissed-off burrendigger,” Poppy snapped. “I admit, it was effective. Never seen the beast go down quite so quickly.”
“Did you shoot the Tavi gun?” Horror dripped from each of Bronwen’s words.
“Yes, many times.” Poppy bit out each word with enough heaviness to make Bronwen understand the stakes. “I had to kill the monster trying to kill us. Get it?”
“Those bullets are pieces of Tavi. If she changed into the gun, then anything you fired is made up ofher.” Bronwen’s horror only grew louder, screaming at me, implanting the sensation in the last shreds of my mind. “In order for Tavi to shift back, we have to retrieve every single bullet and replace them. Otherwise?—”
“She’s stuck like this,” Mike filled in. “Permanently.”
