Page 49 of Fractured
“But you’re alive.” I could see him. I was talking to him right now.
A pause. “I shouldn’t have been,” he whispered.
It made my stomach twist. “Don’t say that.”
“No, no—I should have died when the queen did. I was tied to her. I…I don’t understand.” And he soundedexactlylike I did. Exactly like me.
Maybe that’s why it hurt to see him like that because I knew what he was feeling.
“Yeah, me, neither.”
I sat on the ground and pulled my knees up, looked out at the white clouds in the sky. Fuck, it was like a differenttimeline to be here—winter, when in the Seelie Court and the Mercove it had been summer.
“Maybe…” I wondered, shaking my head. “Maybe that’s how she did it. Maybe she cheated her fate throughyou.” Because if Vair claimed he should have died with the queen and he hadn’t, maybe she usedhimto cheat fate somehow.
But… “No,” the lynx said.
“How do you know?”
Again, that look, like he was completely lost, but when he spoke, he still sounded a hundred percent certain about this. “Because I feel it. She did not use me. She used…”
Fuck, the way my muscles locked and my heart stood still. I watched his mouth and waited with my breath held, and…
“Something else,” Vair finally said. I almost rolled my eyes.
“Whatelse is there to use?”
His eyes almost sparkled when he said, “Magic.”
Yes,magic.
I’d grown up with fairy tales back home, and though there were plenty of villains to learn from, magic had always been this magnificent sparkly pretty thing that made good things happen to good people. I’d always tried to imagine what the world would be like if everyone had magic, and I always thought it would bebetter.That people across the world would be happier, and that there would be nobody sleeping on the streets, no children starving, no polluted water, no wars. All our problems would simply disappear with magic.
Except now I wasn’t so sure anymore. Now that I’d seen the dark side of magic much more clearly, with curses and prophecies and cruel kings beyond my imagination, I was thankful that we were magic-free back home. I wasthankful we didn’t have curses and people who could do spells by sacrificing other living beings.
“There must be a way,” I told Vair. “Just like that book in the other room…”
Suddenly my heart jumped. I stood up, looked around the bedroom, chockful of hope all at once when I said, “Show me where to look to find the next piece of your puzzle.”
I said the words slowly and clearly so the fucking walls that pulsated with their own light could hear me. That’s how fucked up my life had become.
Talking to a room? Pfft. On the daily. It and I are the bestest buddies.
Except the room wasn’t best buddies with me, it seemed, because nothing moved. Nothing changed. Nothing shimmered or vibrated, none of the books on the shelves or any other item in the room.
Vair and I looked at one another.
I shrugged. “Worth a shot.”
“This is the queen’s bedroom. We’re in her chambers, and the throne room shouldn’t be far. The closer to it we are, the more hesitant the palace will be if it has any doubts.”
“See—you lose me completely when you talk like that, Vair. Not that you don’t lose me the whole time you usemyvoice to speak with, butespeciallywhen you talk like I’m supposed to know how any of this works.” I pressed my lips into a tight smile. “Please assume that Ijust got herein this realm and I knownothing at allabout sentient palaces and fae queens and the likes—okay? Can you do that for me?”
Vair blinked.
Vair turned his back to me and walked to the center of the room without a single word.
Fucking hell, that was ice-cold.
