Page 49 of The First Trial
‘Ozzie? Oh, thank fuck! Are you okay? Where are you?’
‘I’m fine. We’re still in the same chamber where you and Tinky-Winky disappeared. Where areyou? Are you okay? He didn’t try anything else, did he? I’ll kill him…’
I blushed as he continued his protective brother tirade, unsure how to tell him that Phenex did, in fact, try something.
‘Phenexand I are fine,’I said, emphasising his name but also trying to contain my amusement because he really did look like a hotter, Daemonic version of the purple Teletubby. ‘We’re trying to find our way back to everyone else, and we ran into the group of Fae. Things are… tense, but I figured something out.’I told him about our theory and how we’d worked it out, and while he did need that information, I was mostly just using it to distract him from asking any more questions about me and Phenex. I wasn’t really sure how to answer them. What was I supposed to say?‘Hey, brother dearest. I let some random Daemon come down my throat, and now we’re together because I think we might be soulmates.’Because that would go downsowell.
Silence simmered on the other end of our connection, and I could practically feel the steam coming from his ears.
‘What the fuck did you just say?’he demanded, his voice low and deceptively calm.
Oh, shit… I hadn’t projected those thoughts to him, had I?
‘Yes, Junie. Yes, you did.’
‘Fuck,’ I swore out loud, my feet freezing where they stood like I was suddenly stuck in mud. The mud was my brother’s wrath and my own mortification.
Phenex looked down at me in alarm, immediately on alert, while Elvina stepped back like something was going to jump out of the shadows and attack us.
‘What is it?’ Phenex asked, the hardness in his tone exacerbated by his gravelly voice.
‘Nothing,’ I squeaked, unable to tell him even though I knew I should. Stupid curse.
‘He’s a dead man. What were you thinking, Juniper? He’s not even Human, for fuck’s sake!’
I tried to hide my wince at Oz’s shouting, knowing it would look weird to an outsider, but I wasn’t very successful. Phenex and Elvina both shot me concerned looks, though Elvina’s seemed more like she was second-guessing her choice in companions. I didn’t blame her, though I wished I could tell her I wasn’t insane.
‘Does this have something to do with the curse?’ Phenex asked me, and I swayed with the speed my blood drained from my face.
‘What curse?’ I asked, my voice a higher pitch than normal, which didn’t help me look any less guilty.
He lifted a single brow again in that way that made me think of Oz, and I knew I was caught. There was nothing I could do about it, though, because I literally could not get the words out to explain.
‘Right. Sorry. I forgot we can’t talk about it,’ he apologised, and no matter how much I wished I could explain, my mouth literally slammed shut. I couldn’t split open my lips even to breathe, they were sealed so well. He noticed, and a mixture of hope and trepidation filled me that he would work it out.
‘It is part of the curse, right? You can’t talk about it?’
My breathing became so heavy I thought I might actually start to hyperventilate. He was so close. He wasright there.
He studied my eyes for any reaction. I blinked rapidly, the only way I could even attempt to communicate with him in that moment. I could feel the trickle of blood dripping slowly from my nose, the curse’s objection to my weak attempt at ratting it out.
Elvina’s gaze was bouncing between us, and she finally plucked up enough courage to ask the question on the tip of her tongue. ‘What curse? What’s going on?’
Her words attracted the Fae’s attention, and they came to a screeching halt to stare back at us. The mention of a curse would likely get that sort of reaction from anyone, but this was not ideal.
‘Oz… I think Phenex is close to figuring things out,’I thought to my twin, since he was the only one I could actually talk to right now.
‘What? What’s going on?’
‘After we kissed, a clue appeared. Writing that seemed to carve right through the air. At first, it was in the language of the Legion, so I couldn’t read it, but he could. Then the words were replaced with English, and I read it out loud, only it changed for a third time.’
‘What did it say, Junie?’
I repeated the clue that both Phenex and I had received and let him mull over it for a while before he inevitably asked the next question.
‘And the last clue?’
‘It said‘The curse is the key’.’
