by Leia Stone
I’d had no idea. I knew his father was part winter and part summer. Mixing the courts was expressly forbidden with royalty, and this was why. It mingled the magic, which could create problems.
I looked at the dead and smoking creature, grateful it was gone. But the way Liam was gasping, I wondered at what cost.
“I’m okay,” he finally croaked. Standing on shaky feet, he swayed a little.
I hadn’t really looked at Elle until now. She was staring at me in shock. “Lil…that was…the light magic…it’s not normal.”
I suddenly felt self-conscious. No one wanted to hear they weren’t normal. I laughed nervously. “The healing pool. It…supercharged me.”
Elle frowned, and Cam pulled her by the elbow. “Come on. The quicker we get out of here, the better.”
She took one last, long look at me, and I frowned, too.
When I glanced up at Liam, he was staring at my feet. Following his gaze, I saw that I now stood on a four-foot patch of green grass dotted with wildflowers.
I expected him to say something, to question me. But instead, he slipped his hand in mine, and we followed the others.
We walked through the darkened forest of Faerie, Liam’s long gaze stretching across the space.
He held my hand tenderly the entire walk to the healing pool. Elle led us toward it while she and Cam bickered, except their bickering had turned more to flirting. I was so wrapped up in Liam’s seemingly knowing gaze and the fight with the stag creature that I didn’t realize we had reached the healing pool until Liam stopped and I looked up.
There, against the black lava and smoking earth, was the most beautiful pool of blue water.
“Whoa,” Liam said reverently. Even Cam looked mystified.
Elle elbowed Cam in the ribs. “Take up watch while they fill the jars,” she said, and started to pace the area with her throwing knives in hand. He nodded and began to walk the perimeter of the water.
Reaching into my backpack, I produced the three jars. “Help me fill them?” I asked Liam.
He nodded.
I half wondered if the mermaid High Priestess would pull me back in for another visit. Perhaps I could ask her about Liam’s mom and whether the water would work on her.
“So…” I hedged, as I kicked off my shoes and placed my bare feet on the ground. Immediately, grass and flowers started to bloom, tickling the soles of my feet. I ignored it, hoping Liam wouldn’t notice. “There is a keeper of the pool…a mermaid.”
“Right,” Liam said with a chuckle.
I glared at him. “Your dad told you about everything else, but not the mermaids?”
He shook his head. “No, he did, but they’re all dead.”
I chewed my lip. “You might want to take off your shoes, just in case.”
He frowned, looking at me like I was crazy. Had I imagined that whole thing last time? Oxygen deprivation or something from falling in the water? Doubtful, and if she pulled us into her cave again, I wanted Liam to be prepared.
Without another word, we both crouched at the edge of the pond and dipped our jars inside to capture the water.
With a yank, I was pulled forward, crashing through the surface of the pool.
Here we go. Wasn’t wrong.
I felt that swirling washing-machine feeling, and then I was falling. When I landed on my feet, I was prepared for it. Liam wasn’t, however. He hurtled into the mermaid’s cave, falling onto his butt and groaning as he rolled over on his side.
“Oh, sorry about that,” trilled a female voice from deeper in the cave.
I reached out and helped Liam up before stepping forward, following that glowing light like last time. Soon, I found the mermaid High Priestess.
“Hello, again.” I bowed.
She smiled and bowed back. “Hello, dears.”
“Mermaid…” Liam’s voice held shock and wonder.
The High Priestess laughed and batted her eyelashes flirtatiously. “You brought a young man,” she said, her voice dropping a few octaves.
I gulped. “Umm, yes. This is Liam. His mother is…human.”
I thought it best to leave out that his father was the Winter King, considering all of Faerie felt he was responsible for the Dark War and our eventual downfall.
The moment I said his mother was human, her gaze sharpened. “Halfling…”
Liam stayed quiet, most likely still in shock about meeting a legit mermaid.
“Yeah…so, his mom has cancer, and we thought if we brought her a glass of water and had her drink some—”
“Drink some?” The mermaid gasped from where she sat on her rock, her long purple tail glistening with water. “Do you want to kill her?”
“The water won’t help her?” The crushing disappointment in Liam’s voice made my heart sink into my stomach.
The mermaid reached up and pulled her hair over one shoulder. “I didn’t say that, but drinking a whole glass of it would kill her.”
Her words gave me hope. “So, a little could help her?” I refrained from adding, Come on, lady, we don’t have all day.
The High Priestess sighed. “I have known of a couple humans who were healed with a specific measured dose of healing water.”
Liam grinned. “That’s great. What’s the dose?”
The mermaid looked at me. “Did you know my healing pool used to be ten times the size it is now?”
I didn’t like that she wasn’t answering him right away. I shook my head.
She nodded, starting to braid her hair. “Then the Winter King got greedy and took all of the crystals, and the darkness came. I had sixty mermaids in my coven. Now, I am all that is left. The pool has shrunk, I’ve been driven underground, and all because of his father.” She pointed at Liam and snarled.
Fuck.
“How did you know?” I asked.
Tilting her head high, she tossed her braid over her shoulder. “I’m a High Priestess. I see.”
I see. That was enough to give me chills, but I wasn’t leaving this place without explicit instructions on how to heal Liam’s mom.
“Then you see that he’s my soulmate.” I felt a lump rise in my throat. “You see that I won’t leave here without knowing how to heal his mother.” I stepped closer to her, tears building in my eyes. “You see that his pain is my pain. Please help us.” I felt desperate. I had been unable to save my mother, but I wouldn’t let Liam go through what I’d endured.
The mermaid frowned, and a vulnerable look washed over her. “Oh, child, I see more than that.”
I frowned, unsure what that meant.
She looked me right in the eye. “If you ask it of me, I cannot refuse you, and I will give you the dose that may help her.”
For fuck’s sake, I thought I’d been asking this whole time—but fae were tricky with words.
“High Priestess of the healing water, what is the dose that may save Liam’s human mother?”
She nodded. “Because she has carried a Halfling successfully, it means her body will be somewhat attuned to fae magic.”
Liam leaned forward, closer to us both.
“Day one, you place one drop on the palm of her hand. Only one drop,” she warned.
I gulped.
“If by day two she is better and has not worsened, you do two drops.”
Two drops—that was it? Here, I was going to have the woman drink an entire jar.
“On the third day, if she has not worsened, you do three drops on the palm and no more. Repeat a month later if needed, but give her body that month to purge the disease.”
“Thank you.” Liam’s voice cracked.
She nodded. “If after the first drop she worsens, say your final goodbyes, because she will meet death quickly.”
Not exactly the parting words I’d wanted…but okay. “Thank you so much.”
“One last thing.” She held up a finger. “You must tell her what you are doing and get her consent. Healing magic only works that way.”
“We will,” I p
romised.
She bowed her head to me. “Come back and see me when you’ve helped restore Faerie.”
I gulped. Word sure got around about that promise, huh?
“Will do,” I vowed, and before I could say another word, I was sucked up into a cyclone of water and spit back out into the healing pool with Liam beside me.
Swimming over, Liam wrapped his arms around me, hauling me flush against his body. I opened my legs to straddle him while we floated.
He looked into my eyes and frowned. “I’ve never had anyone fight for me like that.” He sounded mystified. “Lily…I’m not sure that I deserve you.”
Liam clearly had some self-worth issues—he’d said things like this before. It made me wonder just how dark his past was, not that it would change anything. Everyone was worth a second chance.
“We deserve each other.” I leaned in and pressed my lips to his.
“Okay, let’s wrap this up!” Elle shouted, and we broke away to see her and Cam stalking the outer woods with their eyes on the trees.
Right.
Paddling to the edge of the pond, Liam climbed out first, then pulled me up. “You okay?”
I was extremely okay. More okay than I’d been in a long time. Popping up out of the water, we both quickly filled our jars and secured the lids before putting them in my backpack. I was just lacing up my boots when Elle gasped. “What the hell is that?”
I followed her gaze, and my stomach dropped. A winged creature was flying high above the tree line but coming right for us. She had the head of a human woman but the body of a vulture, although she had human arms protruding from her chest.
“Demonic harpy!” I shouted, remembering them from the history of the Dark War. We weren’t taught about the Halflings and the real reason for the fall of Faerie, but we were taught about the Winter King and the untold evils he’d unleashed in an effort to control people near the end.
“Run!” Liam shouted, and hoisted the backpack over one shoulder, pulling me up with his free hand.
With one foot still bare, I took off after Liam as Cam and Elle ran right alongside us. When we entered the thick wood, I turned over my right shoulder to see if the harpy was going to follow us. She couldn’t attack us from above—the trees were too close and gnarled together.
Instead, she landed hard and turned to face the direction in which we were running.
Shit!
She booked it on bony, gnarled bird feet, and came after us through the trees at blinding speed. Elle stopped and spun, throwing herself in front of me and chucking two knives that landed squarely in the center of each of the harpy’s wings.
“Nice!” Cam called out.
The harpy looked unfazed for a moment, but then she pulled her head back and opened her mouth, emitting the highest-pitched scream I’d ever heard in my life. An unseen force knocked into me, blowing us all backward as I clutched my ears in pain.
I landed hard on the ground, my left elbow taking the brunt of the fall. While the harpy screamed, I rolled over and saw Liam wincing in pain. Cam, too. For some reason, it seemed to be affecting them more…maybe because they were half human.
Elle seemed to recover and rolled on her side, grabbing another dagger. My gaze tracked the harpy, who now ran at us, high-pitched squeal on full blast. I popped up to my feet, stepping in front of Cam and Liam, since they seemed to be the most affected, and prepared to confront her.
The problem was, I couldn’t call my sunlight magic, or whatever it was. Normally, if I felt unsafe or angry, my palms heated up, but this was different. It was like her freaky scream was impairing me. I looked at my belt, and my stomach dropped. I’d lost my sword somewhere on the run, too. Probably back by my boot.
Elle chucked her final knife, but the harpy ducked, and it sailed past her. Crouching on her bird legs, she leapt from the ground and aimed right for me.
Everything Trissa had taught me about close combat came rushing back. The second the harpy was close enough for me to hit her, I snapped out with my flat palm and shoved upward, right into her nose. A crunching noise cut off her awful scream, and she reached out to grasp both of my arms and steady herself as she landed before me.
The moment her skin touched mine, she hissed, backing up, and looked at me with wide eyes. I could smell burning flesh, and my gaze snapped to the blackened skin of her human palms.
Holy crap. Had I done that to her?
A breeze of cold air rushed past me, and then a wall of ice slammed into her, knocking her backward.
“Let’s go!” Liam shouted as he helped Cam stand.
I didn’t need to be told twice. I could hear the trickling of the river from here. We were close.
Together, we ran to the bank, glancing over our shoulders every other second…but something told me she wouldn’t be back. Touching me had burned her, just as touching the dark crystal had burned me.
The moment we reached the water, we plunged in without slowing. I paddled hard under the low-hanging tree branches and finally reached the dome protection.
“Let me try,” Liam called out just over my shoulder. “You said any Seeker can open it, right?”
I nodded. “The Elders told me that.”
I felt stupid the second it left my lips. Why should I believe anything the Elders had told me anymore? Liam reached out and palmed the dome, grasping it as if trying to tear it like a cloth. It flexed a little, but nothing else happened.
What did that mean?
“Guess they lied,” Liam said point-blank. He was systematically breaking down the things I’d been told one by one, and my brain couldn’t process it.
“Psycho fish, three o’clock!” Elle called out.
I looked over my shoulder and spotted its snapping teeth. Planting my feet on the rocks—one of them still without a boot—I placed my hands on the dome and parted it like a hot knife through butter.
Liam and Cam slipped inside, and Elle was next. In a move I had now perfected, I kept the dome open above my head, spinning in the water before closing it behind me. My eyes tracked the water, making sure no dark creatures had slipped through, before I started to swim to the riverbank.
When I got there, Liam was resting his arms on his knees, watching me with an unreadable expression.
“Let’s go heal your mom.” I climbed up, trying to push everything that was bothering me out of my head.
He nodded and grabbed the soaked backpack of water jars.
After a quick change at my house, we packed the jars in a dry duffel bag and headed to the new blue door inside my house. The fact that we didn’t need to traipse through town or deal with the Elders was the best news yet.
I stuffed extra clothes, makeup, my mother’s journal, and the book on illusions into my messenger bag. I had no idea how long we would be gone, but I was prepared for anything.
An hour later, we pulled up to Liam’s. We’d had to stop by the grocery store and get his brothers food. “They eat more than a football team,” he told me as we unloaded our bags from the back of the car.
I noticed some of the guards patrolling the property, but they looked different than the guys from before. “How many guards do you have?”
He looked over his shoulder. One of them nodded to him, and he nodded back. “Five at a time. They rotate in exchange for the crystal energy. I was working on getting us some land where we could all live together, but now we can do that in Faerie. I just need your help to convince them.”
I gulped. Right. Convince them that I was going to help restore Faerie. No big deal. At least we’d brokered a deal with the Elders that they could live there. “I’ll try my best.”
Liam looked at my messenger bag. “Is your mom’s journal in there?”
I chewed my lip. “Yeah.”
“I think it will have all of the answers you seek.” Leaning in, he kissed my cheek and walked toward the house.
If that wasn’t a nudge to break the illusion over my mom’s journal, I didn’t know what was.
<
br /> Following Cam and Elle inside, I helped put away the groceries, and Elle volunteered to make dinner. I was just wondering if there was a room into which I could slip to try to read my mom’s journal when Liam came up behind me. “Would you like to meet my mother?”
I turned, goosebumps breaking out on my arms. I hadn’t been sure how he would feel about me meeting her. We were so new, and he was so protective of his family.
I nodded.
Slipping his hand into mine, he led me down a hallway and into her room. It was the same room I’d seen him in that night I’d looked through the window with Elle. That felt like a lifetime ago.
The room had a weird feeling to it. Subdued. I was about to ask the cause until I remembered the minerals he’d said he’d placed around to keep her from absorbing too much of the energy of the fae crystal.
When we walked to the side of the bed, his mother looked up from a book she had clasped in her hands. She was petite, with fair skin and Liam’s blue eyes. Her blonde hair was short and fuzzy, growing back in odd patches. “Liam,” she croaked, and then her eyes fell on me.
“Mom, this is Lily. Lily, this is my mother, Hannah.”
His mother ran her gaze over me, frowning. “Not human?”
Oh. That was right. Humans wouldn’t see my wings, but she seemed to have a sixth sense.
Liam shook his head. “Fae. A Spring Fae.”
Her face broke out into a smile. “Spring. My favorite season. Is it true you all smell like flowers?”
I chuckled, giving her a shrug. “We don’t smell it, but humans do.”
She reached out for my hand. I gave it to her, and she sniffed my wrist lightly, then giggled. “You do!”
My heart lightened at the conversation.
“Is it true humans smell like mac and cheese?” Liam wondered aloud.
That made us all bust out laughing, but after a moment, Hannah winced and grabbed her side.
Liam stiffened. “Mom, I went to Faerie.”
She froze, looking up at him with fierce eyes. Although her exterior looked fragile, I could see a warrior’s spirit inside of her. “You can’t. They’ll kill you.”