by Chloe Jacobs
Her head spun.
“I’m not ready!” she yelled, throwing her head back. She couldn’t wake up yet. She might not get another chance like this!
Pressing her fist into her side, she pushed to her feet in time for Isaac to swipe his arm wide, striking her in the sternum and sending her flying across the glade.
She hit with a grunt and a thud and hurriedly rolled to avoid the fist coming down at her from above. It smashed into the ground right where her head had been.
Nausea and dizziness overwhelmed her. Isaac looked as wild and dangerous as he’d ever been.
“You’re not getting rid of me. I’m not giving up!” she yelled at him, hoping the words penetrated that thick skull of his. She dodged his deadly claws and steeled herself to reach for him again.
She didn’t get a chance.
Isaac’s enraged howl was like a shrill denial echoing in her ears that followed her all the way to wakefulness.
Chapter Eighteen
Siona’s hand was on her shoulder as Greta jerked awake with the image of Lost Isaac barreling toward her still vivid in her mind.
“I think I can save him,” she said, turning around and gripping her arm tightly.
Siona didn’t have to ask whom Greta was talking about. “Danem, I know it is in your nature to want to try, but after the vicious attack earlier, you must finally accept that the goblin king is still Lost to us all.”
“What if I could do it? Isn’t it at least worth a shot?” She jumped up to her feet, but faltered as her pains kicked in. Siona stepped forward to help, but she shook her off, impatient. “He came to me in my dream. I touched him. I made him remember, I know I did. If I just had more time…”
“No,” Siona said firmly. “We can’t risk your life on a fool’s errand.”
“But if he’s still reaching for me in sleep, then—”
“Have you considered that maybe he isn’t the one initiating the dream connection? That you search for him?”
Her mouth dropped open. She shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t have that ability, Siona.”
“Were you not able to appropriate Dryden’s magick and use it for your own?”
Greta opened her mouth to object, but the words got stuck in her throat. “You think that’s what I did with Isaac’s power to enter my dreams, without even realizing it?”
Siona didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.
She might be right, but it didn’t change her mind. Isaac might not control her dreams any more, but if she could control his instead, then there was still a chance to reach him again. “What if we’ve been wrong all these years, and a person who has gone Lost isn’t completely irredeemable?”
Siona let out an exasperated snort. “Danem, you’re reaching at nothing but air now. After hunting them as long as you have, you know as well as anyone that it’s not possible to come back once Lost.”
“You only say that because no one ever has before.”
“The Lost are the Lost, nothing more, nothing less. You do yourself and his memory a disservice by ignoring this reality.”
“I guess that makes more sense, doesn’t it?” she said flatly. Sure, magick sounded more plausible than believing that a poor Lost creature had managed to retain some semblance of himself within the moon madness.
She hadn’t realized just how high her hopes had risen until they plummeted right back down.
Wyatt approached, and Siona looked at the ground, her features pulled tight. “The faerie group will want to be underway shortly,” she muttered and quickly left.
Greta stayed at the back of the group with Wyatt, watching the sky lighten as they walked and analyzing her dream, searching desperately for reasons to hope when all the evidence said there was none.
For once there wasn’t a cloud anywhere to be seen. The air was crisp and clean, tasting of springtime. They were traveling north, and the farther they went, the farther away from the small gnome and goblin communities they got, too, into territory she was less familiar with.
Whereas Isaac’s lands made up the western counties and Leander’s lands took up most of the southern counties, the section between Mount Laos and Mount Lunas where the faerie queen claimed dominion was relatively deserted and unmapped. That might be part of the reason why the Glass Kingdom was so difficult for curiosity seekers to find.
Greta glanced up at one point to find Siona looking at her over her shoulder with an expression that seemed to alternate between sadness, confusion, and pity.
Greta caught up with her. “You know, as a human in Mylena, I’ve had the great privilege of being treated with dismissal, hate, suspicion, and revulsion, and I manage to throw it off most of the time.” She leaned in. “But if you don’t wipe that look of pity off your face, I’m going to—”
“Danem, I meant no—”
“I won’t accept it, not from you, Siona.”
Her friend swallowed. Dryden called her, and she bolted for his side, looking relieved for the excuse.
Heart heavy with disappointment, Greta watched her go. She didn’t blame Siona for feeling sad about Isaac. Maybe she should lay off the talk about bringing him back, as it seemed to upset her more. If that’s all that was bothering her. Unfortunately, Siona hadn’t opened up to her since before they joined the faeries, and Greta herself had been preoccupied with her own problems, but it seemed like there was some heavy stuff weighing on the goblin hunter’s shoulders.
“We have to talk.” Wyatt didn’t even look at her when he spoke. He continued to stare straight ahead at the faeries’ backs.
She groaned. “Do we really have to?”
Now his gaze jerked to her, anger and disappointment warring for mastery over his features. “So I should just shut up like the good little human and ignore the fact that you’re killing yourself?” His forehead creased.
“I’m fine.”
“That’s bullshit,” he snapped. Yep, he was definitely pissed. “Do you think because I don’t wield a sword like I was born with it that I’m helpless or stupid? Maybe if I had some magick powers, too, you’d listen—”
“Be glad you don’t.” She stopped in her tracks. The prospect of the same overwhelming darkness being forced into someone good like him scared her stupid. She’d already seen him change so much, harden in a way that put sharp little chips and cracks in his optimistic confidence and sweetness. She hated to imagine those cracks continuing to spread. “Protect your humanity, Wyatt. Don’t ever let anyone take it from you.”
“Don’t say shit like that.” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Every bit of you is human. Every bit of you is worthy. Whatever got hold of you is just a kind of sickness. We’re on our way to making you better, and then we’re going to get the hell out of here, okay?”
He was so fiercely determined. “No more crazy eclipses. No more human persecution. No more demon magick and black portals. We need to go back where we belong and live normal lives.” He shook her gently. “Lives with safety and sunshine and baseball, where camping is just for fun, and the only scary monsters are the ones in movies.”
Tears pricked her eyes. Not for her, but for him, because it was obvious that he needed all those things. This world was close to breaking him. He’d been so strong for so long, but without the boys to focus on, he was wearing down.
The urge to tell him a lie that would make him feel better was overwhelming, but he deserved better. “I want to say you’re right and we’ll get through this. That we’ll find the boys, find a portal, and be completely happy far away from Mylena.” Her voice was reed thin. She cleared her throat. “I want to make you all kinds of promises, but…I can’t. I can’t do that right now. Do you understand?”
“Just don’t say no altogether, okay?” The determined light in his eyes didn’t even flicker. “Don’t do something stupid to save everyone else just because you think you’re already on borrowed time. I’m not giving up on you, and you’d better not give up on yourself.”
She lau
ghed. “Since when have I ever done anything stupid?” She raised her hand at the look on his face. “Don’t answer that.”
He smiled and dropped his arms from her shoulders. They started walking again, but movement was agony for her, and she bit her tongue trying to keep in the cry of pain.
He noticed the stiffness of her gait and pulled her back again. “That gash in your side should have knitted together by now.”
She pressed her arm across her midsection. Waves of heat radiated from the wound, but she didn’t think she was coming down with fever.
He put an arm around her shoulder. “I don’t like this. The more often you use that magick, the stronger it is, and the more damage it does to you.”
“It couldn’t be helped.”
“How do you know for sure? The faeries have to know what it’s doing to you, too. They could even have purposely looked for ways to bring that magick out of you, to make it stronger.”
“They couldn’t have known Isaac would follow us and attack, or about the blood wraiths.”
“How can you be sure? They knew about the bjer and still insisted on taking that route. They could have known about the pack of blood wraiths, too, and purposely led us there. They could have engineered everything that’s happened from the moment we met them.”
“I’m the one who flipped my lid at Solem’s Bridge. I’m the one who started that fire,” she reminded him. “And they offered to help put it out.”
“Yeah, by putting you in more danger.”
“The entire forest could have gone up if we didn’t do something quickly.” Her head ached. A thick, pulsing ball at each of her temples.
Wyatt’s frown deepened. He didn’t like that answer, but he couldn’t very well argue with her, either. The choices had been unequivocally clear: either risk her life to put out the fire, or risk losing hundreds of other lives, innocent lives, in the resulting carnage. She’d made the only choice she knew how to make…the only choice she knew how to live with.
“I don’t trust them,” he said, flexing his hands open and closed as if he didn’t know what else to do with the tension inside him.
She knew how he felt. That kind of helplessness was the worst. “I don’t trust them beyond a point, either, but they’ve saved our lives more than once now, and they haven’t given us a reason to believe their agenda is anything but what they say it is.”
“I still think something isn’t right. And don’t forget that I was there when Lazarus tried to kill you. He was merciless and brutal. How can you trust any of them when they’re capable of such violence?”
“You think they’re the only ones who are ready and willing to do violence?” she asked, stomach clenching. “Jesus, Wyatt, have you got any idea the kinds of things I’ve done in the last four years? It isn’t being faerie or goblin that makes people monstrous.”
“You were fighting for survival. That doesn’t make you a monster.” He looked up the path where the rest of the group had all but disappeared from sight.
She shook her head. “Listen, if Siona trusts these faeries, then so do I. Unless something happens to challenge that, I have to.”
“And what if I can’t?”
She ducked her head. “Then maybe you should go.”
Her chest hurt just thinking about sending him away, but maybe it was the best decision for both of them. There was a decent chance that he was right about the faeries. She might be putting his life in more danger with every step they got closer to the Glass Kingdom.
“Is that what you want?” he said. “It would be easier for you, wouldn’t it? After all, if I left, you wouldn’t have to choose.”
She frowned. “What do you mean, choose? I want you safe.”
“That’s not what you’re worried about, and you know it.” He stepped closer, his gaze moving across her body like a physical touch that left her feeling breathless and uncertain. “If I leave, you don’t have to keep pretending that you haven’t already given up.”
“I haven’t given up on anything.”
“Oh, I know you want to protect Mylena, find the boys, and save the goblin king from his own madness.” He touched her cheek. “But you’ve given up on the idea of having a life that you choose for yourself.” He leaned in and whispered in her ear. “And that’s why you can’t allow yourself to think of me as anything but another responsibility you have to manage.”
“That’s not true,” she croaked. “Who says this isn’t the life I wanted?”
“Is it? Or is it just the choice that’s become easiest to bear? Believe me, you’re not the only one who wonders if they’ve changed too much to ever fit in at home. Do you honestly think it’s going to be easy to return to high school and contemplate life as an accountant after all this? That’s what I thought I would be, you know.” He laughed harshly. “You think you’re alone, but you’re not. I know you. I know you better than your long-Lost boyfriend, and as much as we both have doubts, we can find our way back together.”
“You don’t know me as well as you think you do,” she muttered.
“Want to bet?”
That was a bet she’d win, hands down.
“I know you have nightmares every night. Not about the monsters of Mylena, but about being turned away by your own parents. I know you think loneliness must be better than that.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she scoffed. “Those nightmares are exactly about Mylena’s monsters…because I’m one of them. Come talk to me about change and loneliness when you’ve done something so bad you can’t get the blood off your skin for days, or when you’ve done something that haunts you even when your eyes are wide-open during the light of day. Something you can’t ever take back.” She shook her head. “You haven’t crossed the line between good and evil, Wyatt, so you can’t pretend to know what it feels like.”
“And you think that you have?”
She knew she had. If not in the desperate years when she’d been willing to hunt and kill any poor Lost creature for a bag of coin, then surely what was inside her now was evil. That dark, oily magick couldn’t be anything else…and the worst part was that, even knowing it, she wanted more.
Before she could move away, he slid his hand to the back of her neck and held her. His fingers delved into the fine hairs at her nape that had come free of her braid, making her shiver.
She put her hands on his arms, but she didn’t know if she meant to push him away or hold him close. She was confused by all the feelings choking her. “Are you going to leave?”
“Do you want me to?”
She refused to make a decision like that, but as he stepped into her like she was a doorway he could walk through, she wondered if maybe this was the real reason she’d told him to go, this topsy-turvy apprehension in the pit of her stomach whenever he got too close.
And he was getting closer more often, becoming bolder, as if he was trying to force her to acknowledge that he had just as much of a claim on her heart as anyone else.
He didn’t wait for a real answer, maybe because he didn’t want to know what she would say, either. He bent over her, and his breath teased her skin, his lips grazed her temple. Then he tipped her chin up and pressed his mouth to hers.
Everything stopped, even her heartbeat, as she held her breath and clenched her fists in the fabric of his coat.
She didn’t know how to respond. Didn’t know what to do. But as he pressed his hard body against her and his tongue slipped into her mouth, instinct took over. She pushed him away so hard that she knocked him off his feet.
It wasn’t fair to compare him with Isaac, but she found herself doing it anyway. In her old life on Earth, Wyatt would have been perfect for her. He knew exactly who he was and accepted it with a grace and patience she truly admired. Maybe in part because she had no such patience, and was short on trust and optimism as well.
But she wasn’t part of that life anymore. And it wasn’t fair to lead him on. Her heart was spoken for, even now when everything was spinn
ing down the drain and it hurt so bad she could barely breathe through it. But in their darkest moments, Isaac hadn’t given up on her, and so long as there was the slimmest possibility of saving him—real or imagined—she wouldn’t give up on him, either.
She winced. “I’m so sorry, Wyatt. I don’t know what to say.”
He stood up and straightened his shoulders. “You don’t have to tell me. It was clear as soon as I saw you in his castle.” He paused. “You love him. Maybe I just didn’t want to accept it until now.”
“It’s not that I don’t care for you—”
“I know. But it’s not the same.” He looked down, considering, then said, “But don’t think this means that you can get rid of me.” He smiled, and to his credit, it seemed genuine. “We’re still friends, and I’m not going anywhere.”
Siona’s voice rang out. “If you’re done, we’ve got bigger things to worry about.” She sounded impatient.
Greta looked up to see her coming back along the muddy path toward them. Her gaze was shuttered, as if she’d seen Greta and Wyatt together.
“What is it?” Greta said.
“We are nearing the gates of the Glass Kingdom.”
Chapter Nineteen
Siona seemed nervous, wringing her hands together, her expression drawn tight. This was her first time returning to her mother��s home since she was just a kid, right? It wasn’t hard for Greta to imagine what that would feel like.
“It’ll be okay,” she said, taking Siona’s hand. It was cold. She was reminded of Dryden and what she’d learned about his connection to Lazarus. “When did you know that you had some faerie magick?” she asked, suddenly curious.
Siona seemed to catch her breath and hold it, then glanced at Wyatt nervously.
“We don’t actually have to talk about it now if you don’t want to. I didn’t mean—”
“No, it’s obviously not a secret any longer.” She gave Wyatt a shy smile before turning back to Greta. “Truthfully, I didn’t realize I had any ability at all until I was able to help suppress the portal magick that I sensed in you. Before then, I simply believed I would never manifest any faerie magick of my own.”