Page 167 of A Fate of Ice and Lies
She jolted when her magic returned to her with a snap.
“Alastor,” she replied, her voice as low as mine. “He recognized my magic and talked to me.”
My grip on her hand tightened, ready to take her away from this cell, this realm, and the dangers Alastor posed.
“What did he say?” Brenton asked.
“Leanora’s absorbing everyone’s magic.” Teddy rubbed the front of her neck. “We have to break the connection between them. She’s draining them, killing them.” Her tone was desperate, seeming to beg me for answers I didn’t have.
“How do we do that?” Brenton asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
Despite my need to protect her, I followed Teddy down the remainder of the steps with Brenton close behind. Together, we passed the rows of cells on either side of us. My anger flared with every fae we passed, the smell of their impending death swarming me.
When she reached Alastor’s cell, empty of anyone but him, she opened the unlocked door and stepped in. Her features calm, she knelt beside him and rested a hand on his frail shoulder.
I stood there motionless, watching Alastor as my magic swarmed around and inside him, trying to note what he wanted. All I saw was a dark emptiness that pulsed weakly.
Her eyes widened when she peered up at me.
“He wants to help us while Leanora’s busy in the human realm,” she told Brenton and me. “He. . .” She startled, her lips pressed in a thin line as she drew her brows together. Her hand shook when she gripped Alastor tighter. “Blaise’s death,” she whispered, her voice coming out distant. “Leanora will kill all of us the way she did Blaise. She’ll take everything from us. If we don’t stop her, she’ll be strong enough to destroy more realms.”
I didn’t care about other realms, only ours.
I knelt beside Teddy, taking the hand she held against Alastor so she wasn’t touching his thin frame anymore. The mage was lifeless on the cold floor aside from the steadylift and fall of his chest. His lips were cracked and as pale as the rest of him while his greasy hair fell limp.
“I don’t trust him, Teddy.” Didn’t trust how easy it’d been to find some of the missing fae. Didn’t trust that Leanora hadn’t used the lirio as guards around the castle or in the dungeon. Didn’t trust the simplicity of entering Alastor’s unlocked cell and his eagerness to help. “This feels like a trap.”
“There’s an orb,” Teddy continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Leanora uses it as a siphon. It holds the magic she absorbs and stores it until she’s ready to channel it to herself. He’s not sure exactly where it is but said we need to track it down and destroy it so that it weakens her. There are consequences to destroying it though.” She drew her brows together in concern. “He doesn’t know what it is though.”
I gripped her elbow and urged her to stand up and move away from Alastor. Her eyes searched my face, and I was sure it held all my doubt.
“Eiran asked me if I’d show Alastor mercy.” She peered down at him before her attention returned to me. “I think he wanted me to help Alastor. I think”—she rubbed her chest—“I think we can trust him, but I don’t know, Elias. If this is all a trap, then I’m falling right into it. But what if he’s telling the truth, and we ignore it? She’s already in the human realm.”
I tasted the sourness of her fear on my tongue, so I leaned down to rest my forehead against hers, taking a moment to breathe.What did we know about Leanora from Teddy’s journals?She’d forced Alastor into a life of servitude where she drained him of his magic repeatedly. Whether or not I trusted him didn’t matter when I knew she’d do the same to these fae.
I moved back to kiss her temple. “Ask him how we can interrupt the connection between Leanora and the faewithout destroying the orb.” Because all we had was the possibility of right now. Whether or not we found the orb wasn’t relevant in the moment. We could worry about that next.
She nodded before going back to her knees and settling next to Alastor. Brenton followed her, his hand on her shoulder while I surveyed our surroundings. Past the shadows the sphere of fae light cast, I could see with my instincts at their most basic level.
On the floor, Teddy murmured words I didn’t understand. Her magic started to move slowly around her and Alastor. It spun and spun, each swipe getting faster until it was a blur of peach, and I could barely make out where Teddy still knelt. Her foreign words grew louder, tinged with a voice I didn’t recognize as her peach threads seemed to twine with a dull green ribbon that grew and grew until it overtook her peach.
Brenton fell back, and he lunged for Teddy at the same time I did, tearing through the strands of magic snaking around her. I ignored the way her magic, Alastor’s magic, tore through my arm and forced myself forward until I reached her. Screaming, I tugged on her arm, but it wasn’t until Brenton also reached her, that her magic fell away, taking Alastor’s with her.
On her knees, she bent over, heaving in breath after breath. I took her in my arms, shaking as furiously as she did.
“Ted,” Brenton whispered.
She peered up at him, her smile wobbly, and said, “I’m okay.” She jutted her chin out toward Alastor, whose eyes blinked open.
Without thinking, I lunged for him, ready to tear him in half while he tried to scoot away. But Teddy’s shout reachedme and made me pause. My fisted hand that wrung the collar of his shirt trembled, but I forced myself to look away from him and toward my mate.
“He didn’t hurt me.” Her tone was as gentle as the hand she rested on my arm. “He doesn’t want to hurt any of us.”
I let out a low but vicious snarl that Nalari echoed from outside.
“I need you two to work with Nalari to put up a protective ward around the castle,” she said, her tone taking on an authoritative lilt that somehow soothed me.
