Page 110 of Shifting Winds
I was a shit for hiding myself from her for so long. All she’d ever done was love me.
“It may not,” Hazel said. “This is merely a beacon to let her know where we are. If she’s still conscious, it may lead her home.”
“Her power is gone,” I said. “How can she escape?”
Hazel’s hands stilled. She turned to face me. “Never in my life have I met someone with her sheer will to live. All Evie wanted to do was overcome her challenges and try to carve out some semblance of a life, even after everything. I have to believe she is fighting to find a way to return to us.” She buried her shaking hands in the folds of her skirt.
“It is the only thing I can believe if I don’t want to fall to my knees and scream to the heavens.”
I blinked in surprise as Hazel turned back around and finished up.
Okay. Maybe I’d been a little hasty in my judgment. If she needed virgin tear spring water, I’d stop being a bitch about it.
She finished up a few minutes later and stepped away, her sharp gaze taking everything in one last time.
“Step back,” she commanded.
We all walked back a few feet.
Hazel lifted a hand and twisted it toward the circle. As one, every candle lit up. The brick of incense began to smoke before a sharp, pungent scent circled the area. I wrinkled my nose but stayed silent.
Hazel nodded once to herself.
“Now we wait.”
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
Fear had no place here. There was nothing to be afraid of except for my thoughts.
Granted, those were terrifying on a good day, but right now, it was just me and my consciousness floating along like one of those long-lasting batteries.
The moment my metaphorical battery died, I’d be in deeper trouble, but I still possessed all my faculties, and I’d come up with a real dumb plan.
If it failed, no harm, no foul. I was basically a space rock so no big deal.
But if it succeeded…the fae were going to be real pissed off at me.
A tug to my left caught my attention. Nothing had tugged me since I’d been in this place. I sent my thoughts in that direction and let myself float along. But the thing, whatever it was, kept tugging, and I caught a hint of something familiar.
Something…someone who loved me.
Hazel. If I could cry, I would.
Hazel was calling me home.
And I would do my damnedest to answer her call.
I let go of everything fae. I let go of my first knowing of Cliona. I let go of my mother’s eyes and cold demeanor and the later revelations that told me maybe she really did love me. I let go of my father, my plants, my roses, my shop, everything that connected me to the fae. My Floromancy was the hardest to let go, but I needed the burning fury of something else to save me.
When my mind was clear and I’d buried my heritage so far down I could no longer find it, I let the fiery rage of the Chimera fill my thorned heart. I thought about Finn and his hands and lips on me, and how I’d felt such hope only to be let down and wounded both in spirit and in body. Fury filled my missing bones, my veins, my heart. I let the anger drive me until I hurtled through the ancient magic like a rocket, heading straight for Hazel’s summons.
I remembered my hurt and pain and confusion, and I remembered Finn’s burning eyes when he savaged me. I remembered how hard I fought to come back to myself.
All I ever wanted was to be loved.
And someone had used that against me, sending me into a years’-long spiral of grief and self-recrimination.
