Page 102 of A Dark and Lovely Devastation

“Can Illya go himself? Can he warn Dagda?”

Mina shook her head. “Illya is more than a day’s ride from the palace.”

No solution. There was no solution. If I didn’t find an alternative, Dagda would die. There was no way in hell I’d let that happen.

This wasn’t about the Otherworld. I’d already chosen to leave it to the mercy of my sisters.

But Dagda was worth risking everything for.

I marched to the window on shaking legs, resting my palms on the windowsill, as I struggled to breathe. My god. What had I done? I’d nearly destroyed our bond. I’d put Dagda in this position.

“He’s doing this for me.” My voice shook. “I-I need to…” I spun to face Mina and Nellie. “I need to return to the Otherworld.”

They looked at me blankly. But the words were out of my mouth and they felt right. “Nellie, I’ll need a ride to Ireland, like five minutes ago. Your boyfriend just received his pilot’s license, right?”

She nodded and gripped her phone. “Yeah, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Chels,” Mina said. “Even if we got there before sundown tomorrow, how will you get through?”

Damn it. The scepter was the key to the portal.

“They got it open once without the scepter,” I said.

Mina looked incredulous. “Yeah, when Prince Lugh sold his soul to the Chimera. Are you prepared to do that?”

Shit. Was I prepared to sacrifice all on the chance that I might make it to Dagda in time? I shuddered at the thought.Cross that bridge when you get to it.

“Even if you are,” Mina went on more gently, “the Chimera might refuse you. He doesn’t have to make a deal.”

“I have to try.”

“Try to what? Break into the castle? Face your sisters? The same sisters youfailedto control? That you consigned the Otherworld to?”

“I have to try.”

Her head tilted, her eyes challenging. “Why?”

I glared at her. Mina always thought the worst of me and maybe she had good reason, but to question me, to question this…

“Mina,” Nellie said, her voice filled with reproach even while she held the phone to her ear.

“No, I want to know.” Mina stood, getting in my face. “After everything that has happened, after the times you’ve put your safety over all of ours, why now throw caution to the wind? Why now play the part of the hero?”

“I don’t know, okay?” My teeth grit together. “I just… can’t imagine a world without him.”

A grim realization settled into Mina’s golden brown eyes. She turned and walked toward the door.

A pit dropped into my gut. “That’s it? I know I’m not perfect, Mina. I don’t always have the best motives. But this, this feels right. You know it’s right and you’re abandoning me because I can’t give you a good enough answer?”

She slid a hand through her short cropped hair. “You are going to need some things to reach Ireland and beyond safely.”

It was a thirteen hour flight between Boise and Dublin, including stops for fuel, not to mention a seven hour time difference. Mina said Dagda would fall at sunset. According to Google, sunset in Ireland—the closest time zone that I knew of to the Otherworld—at this point of the year was 6:12pm.

After we landed, Mina’s shape shifter faerie guardian could change into a pegasus and take me to the portal, but even then it would be close.

Nellie’s boyfriend, Preston, agreed to fly us on his dad’s private jet, and Mina would use her faerie guardian to get us out of any other scrapes with customs and things.

Nellie and Mina sat in the plane's rear with me and tried to strategize.

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