Page 39 of Evil Eyed
And I’d left her.
My throat ached with unshed tears. She never would have left me.
The rusted tin box she’d saved all these years seemed to stare back at me with reproach. Absently, I pried the lid open, remembering the heartbroken look in her eyes when I’d told her about finding my favorite coat burned. Had she looked at my back the same way when I pushed Warwick out of the interrogation room?
“Stop it,” Aidan growled, bumping his shoulder against mine. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You had no reason to think her boss was up to no good.”
Ivarr set a steaming cup in front of me. “He’s right. Vivi’s heart is too full of love for you to think she’d be angry with you.”
I ran my finger over the melted lump of a button from my childhood coat. “I know. She’d tell me the same thing you’re telling me. But she still wouldn’t have left me behind.”
“But she did leave you to deal with the changeling alone,” Doran said.
“No, not at all. She was always there for me.”
“Was she, now. So she knew the changeling tortured you every night, and she did nothing to help you escape?”
“No, of course not. She didn’t know how bad it was because I didn’t tell her.”
“She knew enough to feel badly about it once you were free of him. She took herself to task for not acting sooner and becoming so involved in her job. I don’t say this to upset you, or to try and make you think ill of your friend, but only to point out that she left you to your own devices. To live your life and deal with the choices and decisions you made. She chose to work for Evil Eye himself for years. In some ways, that taint has affected her whether you or she could tell. That taint dulled her concern for you and delayed any kind of action she might take to set you free.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way. I couldn’t imagine her working so closely with a dark fae for so long… Almost as long as I’d been with Jonathan. That relationship had changed me forever. I had to assume that Vivi had also been changed and damaged by being so close to dark fae.
Lightly, I rubbed the charred scrap of green cloth between my thumb and finger. “Things were so much easier when we were kids. When we played in the woods, it was just me and her against…” My brain slipped into neutral, my words falling off into nothing.
Doran laid his big hand over my forearm. “Are you well, love?”
A memory played out in my mind, fogged by time and age and damage, like a delicate wisp of cloth with moth holes and frayed strands. Playing in the forest with Vivi. Just children. Dancing and laughing, whirling without a care in the world. I held something up against my face, my eye, like a lady with opera glasses.
Then we collapsed in a heap beneath our favorite old tree, roots arching up out of the ground. Massive low branches sweeping out, inviting us to climb into a leafy treehouse. We lay there in the shade beneath that tree, and I told her stories.
Of all the things I’d seen with my special glass. Imagination? Or…
Snapping back to the present, I reached out and picked up the stone with the hole in it. “What did you say this was again?”
“A hag stone,” Keane replied. “It’s a stone of protection.”
“And you can glimpse Faerie through the hole,” I whispered, lifting my gaze up to his face. “Right?”
“Aye, supposedly, though I can’t say that I’ve ever taken the time to try it out.”
Holding my breath, I slowly lifted the stone up toward my eye. I didn’t know what I hoped to see. Why my fingers trembled. I’d just been a kid with a vivid imagination.
A fae child trapped in a mortal body. Could I have been seeing…
The stone passed up my cheek until I could see through the hole.
I sucked in a harsh breath. Keane stared back at me, but he looked completely different. His skin glowed so brightly that I could barely make out the color of his eyes. Glowing golden tendrils flowed all around him, stretching out toward the pots on the stove. The mixing bowls on the counter. The fridge.
Cauldron magic at work.
Heart pounding, I turned toward Doran, keeping the hag stone pressed to my eye. His gargoyle stared back at me with glittering ruby eyes. Red ribbons of light danced around him, swirling around his wings and wrapping around his glistening claws.
Ivarr shone like the noonday sun, making my eyes tear up at his brightness. Molten honey dripped from his fingers, golden droplets of warmth and truth and love that lingered on everything he touched.
Slowly, I turned my head to my right, braced to see the Slaughterer in all his gory detail. Blood streaked his face like the red paint I’d painted on Keane’s forehead. Where light dropped from Ivarr’s fingertips, Aidan left fingerprints of blood. He gleamed like a silver, vicious blade, so sharp that it hurt to look at him. His eyes glistened like chips of ice and jagged shards of glass.
I pulled my gaze away, dropping my head slightly. Opal light filled my vision, softening the blood and cutting edge seared into my eyes. Confused, I turned my head, trying to see where the light came from.
