Page 90 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
I ignore her and force the ring into her balled fist. “I’m trying to be a good person. Besides, I have a blade that’s far better than that dagger you’ve pilfered. Take the ring.”
Her eyes soften. “Sabrina—”
“It’s Habren here,” I tell her.
She nods. “Elin.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say. “Does Elin know where the sickness starts?”
Ceridwen’s eyes track to our window. “She has an idea.”
“But?”
“But she couldn’t face it alone.” Ceridwen lets out a deeply held breath.
“What is it?”
She looks back at me, her eyes wide with a horror I’m yet to meet. “You know where we are, yes?”
“The mine,” I say. “The one where Dad worked. The one that collapsed. Maybe it’s all the mines.”
Ceridwen nods. “You’ll see.”
She crosses the room. I twitch. “Or you could just tell me.”
Ceridwen says nothing and opens the door. “I can’t really describe it. You’ll see.”
When we walk through the house, it’s empty, and when we leave, the lights stay on, waiting, always waiting, for us.
28
ychydig o etifeddiaeth
(A LITTLE LEGACY)
Ceridwen leads me to a narrow crack in the wall. She shudders, staring into the dark.
“Is this it?” I jut my head toward the crevice.
She nods jerkily. I step forward, only for Ceridwen to seize my wrist.
A thin black mist pools at our feet, leaking from the gap in the rock. It coils at our skirts like a writhing snake. There’s no obvious smell, nor a change in temperature. If I still had a Davy lamp, I could lower it into the gas to confirm my suspicions, but I don’t need to. It’s black damp, a silent killer that can appear in even the most regulated mines, never mind this forgotten depth of hell.
Great.
“I’ve been breathing it in for days,” Ceridwen tells me. “It’s all over this part of the mine, but nothing’s happened to me. I don’t know why.”
I force myself to shrug. I’m trying to believe that we can do this, but the chinks in my armor are obvious as an open wound.
“Good thing there’s two of us and we’re both armed.” I nod to her dagger and my sword.
“How did you get to Peg?”
“A fairy prince I made a deal with took me.”
Her head snaps around and her eyes narrow. “You don’t mean…”
“Yes,” I say, hoping it’s dark enough that she can’t see my reddening face. “I’ll explain later.”
