When I came to, there was shouting, and everything was moving as if I rode atop a horse or mule.
What the—
Something soft under my cheek felt like fur, and my eyes snapped open.
I was draped over Cam’s back. His wolf back. We were running in a big group toward a house with a shiny, fresh new blue door.
“I can walk,” I mumbled, and Cam ground to a halt.
I slid off the wolf and peered around for Elle or Liam. They were half jogging. Elle had the lid off the jar of healing water, and Liam’s hand was plunged inside of it with the crystal. The crystal looked light blue and normal, which made me breathe a sigh of relief, but we only had one of them. Two were left behind.
Running up beside them, I looked in Liam’s eyes. “Are you okay?” Last time, the crystal had completely taken him over, and I could still see some faint traces of black threading in his eyes.
He nodded. “Are you?”
We slowed, and I reached for the blue door. “I’ll feel better once we’re all back in Faerie.”
Please let Mara be inside.
Turning the handle, I was greeted by Bashur.
Oh, thank the gods!
He jumped up on my chest and licked my face, dragging his wet tongue across my cheek.
Yuck.
Digging my fingers into his soft fur, I gave him a few pats, then pushed him out of the way. “Come on, everyone!”
I raced into the house, searching for Mara.
“Mara!” I called out. We needed to get the hell out of here before the Sons chased us down and burned this place to the ground, too.
When I opened her office door, she looked up at me, holding my mom’s journal in her open hands. Tears filled her eyes. “Oh, Lily.” The tears escaped and spilled over on her cheeks.
She’d read it.
She knew. My mom wasn’t my mom.
Standing, Mara wrapped me in a quick hug, and when we pulled back, she frowned. When she spoke, her voice was low and deadly. “I’m going to kill Indra.”
Panic seized me at her words. “What? No, we need to play it cool.”
Anger distorted her features, making her look dangerous. “Your mother was so afraid of Indra and her mind control that she felt she couldn’t even tell me this!” Her fist shook with rage, red hair trembling around her shoulders. “I could have protected her.”
All her anger whooshed out of her, and she sagged against the desk.
I reached out to grasp her shoulder. “What’s done is done. Let’s focus on the now.”
And the fact that the Sons of Darkness where probably coming here right now to burn the house down.
Liam and Elle ran into the room then, and I took the journal from Mara and placed it back in my bag. “We’ll talk about this later, I promise. But right now, I need you to take us to Faerie.”
She chewed on her lip before taking a deep breath and nodding.
Five minutes later, I was walking out into Faerie with over sixty Halflings at my back and another crystal in my hands. We passed Mr. Dursey first. He was on his front porch. When he looked up, the watering can dropped from his hands, and his jaw practically unhinged.
I held the crystal high. “Got another one.”
He just nodded, looking at the company of Halflings behind me. I didn’t fly to the Elders because I didn’t want to leave any of Liam’s friends behind in case they were attacked or ridiculed, so we walked right through the center of town. I knew that if I had brought them directly into Indra’s library, inside her home, she would have completely lost her shit, so I figured we would knock on the door like any old guests.
Rumors spread fast in Faerie, as they do in any small community. By the time we reached the Elders’ door, half the town had assembled behind us.
I looked over my shoulder to see Liam’s men, beaten and bloody but wide-eyed as they watched fae fly in from the corn fields with their pink, purple, and blue hair. They stared at the river, at the protection dome and everything in between. Kira flitted between them, giving a remedy here, laying light there. I didn’t have the heart to ask Liam if we’d lost anyone. I thought the answer was yes, and I’d ask later.
Before I could even knock, Indra wrenched open the door. When she laid her eyes on the Halfling army behind me, she actually took a step backward in shock. Then her gaze went to the crystal in my hands, and I could see the greed take over her expression.
“You got them?”
I sighed. “We got one. We need to recoup and get the other two, but we will.”
Her look of greed turned into a snarl of disgust. “They can’t be here until you get them all. That was our deal.”
Liam growled low in his throat—an honest-to-gods growl. “I lost three men today. For that.” He pointed to the crystal. “For you. For Faerie!” He raised his voice at the last part, and some of the fae stepped back and hung their heads in shame.
Three? My heart sank. Death…war…it was so pointless when we all wanted the same thing: to live long and happy lives.
Turning, I faced Liam. “Would you like to do the honors?”
Indra gasped. “Absolutely not!”
I was still feeling weak and definitely not in the mood for this shit. “You take it, then.” I reached out to hand it to her, and she recoiled.
The fae were watching, no doubt wondering why Indra wouldn’t allow Liam to take it to the tree when she herself couldn’t touch it. It was discrimination, pure and simple. She hated the Halflings, and it made a white-hot anger rise up inside of me.
She glared at me with such hatred, then, that I knew I’d gone too far. Liam took the crystal from me and walked past her, zero fucks given.
Indra bristled, but upon seeing the group of village
