Page 81 of Faerie Fate
Chapter Twenty-Three
Iknew enough to understand that I was the stupidest person alive.
I’d gone too far, shrunk myself past the point of no return?—
And if I were in the right frame of mind, I’d have leaned into the incredible dumbness and chastised myself to within an inch of my life. Trapped in the form of the gun, there were only half-remembered sensations of shame and worry. Nothing else.
Nothing more.
If I’d known the rules of my power, if I’d understood the limitations a little better, then I’d have seen how unsafe it was to turn myself into something with pieces to lose. I’d just wanted to protect Poppy.
If Poppy died, there would be no Mike. It had been the only thought in my head. I’d needed a weapon capable of great destruction against a fantastical beast.
Had I ever had a real classroom lesson to learn about the transfiguration powers?
No, I hadn’t. The academy had been focused on teaching me the limits of my cognitive manipulation because they hadn’t seen the second symbol during my inherent power test. And because they wouldn’t know about me being half werewolf, I’d kept the second symbol to myself.
Safety trumped knowledge. At the time, anyway.
If I had been sure a sword could take down the burrendigger, then I’d have changed into that. Or kept with my jacked-up halfling warrior form. Anything was better than agun.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Stupid girl indeed.
I dozed in and out of consciousness, useless. Paralyzed. Without my power, and without a way to restore my magic, I couldn’t speak anymore. I couldn’t help them figure out a solution to the problem I’d created.
Something detached inside of me. The spark of consciousness left from the shift unhooked from my physical body, free from any confines. The images I saw in the scrap of consciousness left were detailed and beautiful. Distressing and alluring. Real but not.
My dream was a world made of sand.
Every building in the distance had the intricate spires of a sandcastle sculpted by a master builder.
I walked the streets with my hands in my pockets, as easy as Sunday morning, staring around at the odd scenery with a sense of detachment at the wonders. The heat of the sun caressed my skin with just enough warmth for my hair to prickle, as though I’d somehow been transported into an alternate reality where the amazing became real.
A humanoid figure lifted a hand in greeting at my approach, waving wildly. The movement shook the leaves growing from its fingers. Its skin was made of bark withseveral extra branches stretching out of its body and searching for the light.
Wherever I was, I wasn’t a stranger, but a curiosity. Something for the inhabitants to study the way I studied them. No one seemed surprised to see me.
The humanoid figure who waved wasn’t the only one on the street. The more I walked through the land of sand, the more tree people came out to watch me.
“Tavi, hold on. You have to hold on.”Mike’s voice.“We’re going to find your pieces. We’re going to make you whole again.”
Hmm. He wasn’t in this sand world. He was somewhere else, far away. A different place and time. I smiled as though he might somehow be able to see my thoughts and assure himself that I was okay.
It was peaceful here. Unique and alien enough to keep me on my toes but the tree people were friendly. They were living the same as anyone else, going on with their busy lives and haggling with vendors on the street. They greeted each other with friendly conversation in a language I didn’t understand but somehow accepted. Even their leafy smiles brought an answering grin to my face.
The sun glinted off the sand buildings, and in the distance the spires of a palace reached higher than any of them, growing larger the closer I walked. I knew those spires.
The palace from Poppy’s vision was larger than I’d seen in the glimpse. The empty holes where windows should have been were the same. One of the tree people leaned out from a window on the second floor and shouted something unintelligible to the courtyard below.
“Do you think she can hear us?”Bronwen’s voice. “I’m not getting any sense of her awareness when I tune in.”
“I don’t know.”Poppy sounded helpless. “This is an entirely new situation for me. Now keep looking. We have to find every missing piece.”
“I’m doing the best I can!”Bronwen again.
“Your best isn’t good enough if we’ve only found two bullets.”
