25. TWENTY-FIVE #2
“Great. And what the hell does that mean, exactly?” Dante’s voice rises to a snap.
The fairy’s sharp eyes shift onto me again—at my neck. “That would do. I can feel the emotion imbued at its very core.”
My hand jumps to the glass-bead necklace resting over my collarbone. No. Not this. I wrack my brain for something else—anything else we could offer them—but I come up short. I doubted these delicate creatures would appreciate the day-old bread or flasks of holy water buried in my satchel.
A childish part of me wants to protest. But I promised I’d return it.
As my mind races with memories of Chiara, I feel as though these creatures are asking me to sever the final thread holding my heart together.
Shortly after Charia first arrived at the Order, I’d taken the blame when she’d killed a patch of vervain through overwatering.
I bore her punishment for her—halved meals for three days.
Chiara never left my side since then, my shadow.
There is no one else who can share a simple look with me and understand what I’m thinking. No one else who bites back chortles of laughter during what should be the most monotonous lessons in the abbey.
To think she guarded this precious treasure all these years, even from me…
Precious and irreplaceable. A true sacrifice.
My heart aches horribly as I unfasten the necklace and hold it out, sending a silent apology to Chiara.
Our friendship is built on far more than a single sentimental trinket, yet I feel the gaping distance between the two of us all the stronger in its absence.
Still, I know that if she were here now, she’d fervently praise me for doing whatever was needed to survive.
A slender vine stretches up from the ground at my feet, coiling around my offering and whipping it up for the fairies’ inspection. The green one runs a hand over the pink and white glass beads, making an approving noise. The steady hum of their wingbeats fill the silence.
“The contract is sealed,” the violet fairy calls down to us. “Follow us closely.”
I exchange a relieved look with Dante, though there’s something nervous building in his face. I can hardly blame him. My heart is pounding, too.
Before I can take a step forward, Laelia lunges to pull me into an embrace. I grunt as her lithe arms crush the air from my lungs with surprising strength. Though I pray for it to be brief, I awkwardly pat her back with a strained smile. With a few key exceptions, I’m not really keen on hugs.
“This is where I leave you,” the nymph says, stepping back, elegant hands clasped before her. “Thank you again for your kindness. Both of you. I hope our paths cross again someday—this time, when I’m regalling the highest powers with my voice.”
With a wide smile, she departs with nimble movements that soon have her melting into the dark stretch of underbrush.
“Not if we can help it,” I mutter under my breath—though I do hope she avoids further altercations with bandits.
Dante’s bark of laughter echoes in the clearing, and a half-guilty smile tugs at my lips.
Our small guides fly overhead, their soft glow guiding us through a stretch of woods that steals my breath. I’m urgent not to lose sight of them, but it’s difficult not to have my head turned as the forest around us transforms more with every stride.
An ethereal kind of beauty unfolds, like stepping into a sanctuary.
It’s utterly ancient here, unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
The oaks that line our path easily stretch fifty feet high, their gnarled branches wider than dinner plates.
The damp forest floor, peppered by dead leaves and jagged stone, is replaced by stretches of waxy grass and soft moss that act like a carpet under our boots.
The late evening’s heavy mist gives way to an otherworldly breeze carrying faint sparks of light.
I give a soft intake when I spot their source—luminous flora of various hues that cascade down the oaks’ staggering trunks.
Soon, I find my lantern unnecessary, allowing it to hang by my side limply.
The radiance around us is nearly as bright as day—dazzling golds and soothing, deep blues.
All the lights of Calendimaggio combined could not compare.
A faint gurgling sound overlaps the chirrup of midnight insects—a stream cutting through the rolling landscape.
It’s serene here in such a way that feels as holy as a cathedral—a place neither of us deserve to have seen.
I feel that deep in my bones. With the blood on each of our hands, we are as out of place as foxes amongst hens.
I spot movement off the main path we’re guided along. Wolves and deer are laying side by side, passive as lambs. One of the deer raises its head to regard us with unblinking eyes.
More fairies come into view, emerging from distant structures set high in the skeletal branches overhead. Their curious whispers and watchful stares build as our path twists and turns.
I steal a look at Dante as we weave through the trees and under massive branches.
He looks as stunned as I feel—bewilderment pulling a crease between his eyes, which dart from point to point like he’s trying to make sense of it all.
More than once, he nearly walks right into a low-hanging branch simply for gaping.
The look of awe on his face is oddly endearing, almost childlike.
I wonder if, like me, he’d been expecting Callistia’s Grove to be more akin to a treacherous blood-soaked labyrinth.
But beauty doesn’t counteract treachery; more often, it’s an enticing mask. My right hand strays to the hilt of a dagger as energy cloys the air in deep, undulating waves, overwhelming my senses.
“Wait here,” the green fairy commands, veering to a halt in front of us. I catch sight of the others peeling off in flight. “If she grants you an audience, she will find you here.”
“How long will that take?” Dante demands. It can’t be long past midnight, but dawn is steadily approaching—that eternal, ticking clock that controls a vampire’s every waking moment.
The fairy departs without answer, leaving us alone in the center of the clearing.
“Shit,” I mutter.
I glance back the way we’d come, already anxious about the prospect of picking our way back through the forest before sunup. Perhaps there’s a cave we missed—somewhere we can shelter without Dante burning alive.
Despite the beauty surrounding us, the wait is suffocating. We could be mere minutes away from the salvation of his soul. Minutes from the vampire beside me transformed into a mortal again—from finding a cure to the blight of all such creatures. My chest squeezes at the thought, pulse racing.
Dante’s knuckles ghost against the back of my hand, sending a quiet jolt through me.
His gaze is flighty, not quite fixed on me.
I glance over to see his jaw is squared, expression schooled into a stoic mask that hides everything else—his hope, his terror.
Moistening my lips, I lean into the contact, pushing back against him with silent invitation.
With a delicate, almost hesitant slide, our fingers lace together.
“Do you want one more taste?” I smirk, tipping my neck to the side to expose his fang marks under my unbound hair. “It may be your last chance.”
Dante gives a shaky grin, his stormy gaze flickering over all of me. “Tempting as sin. But there are other parts of you I can taste, long after this curse has been lifted.”
I bite my lip, sharing a soft grin with him at the promise in those words.
A deep, resonant groan shudders through the earth.
We jump apart, hands whipping toward our weapons.
The largest of the oak trees before us begins to fissure along its trunk, gold light seeping through the interlacing pattern of the bark that panels it.
The sound reminds me of bones cracking, but the trunk doesn’t just split down its center—it unfurls.
The two halves pull apart with a slow grind like the opening of thick, heavy pages. Inside, more radiant florals and moss pack the hollow, along with a single, pulsating light.
After exchanging a wild look with me—and a wary glance toward the excited chittering of the fae perched in the branches overhead—Dante tentatively treads closer.
The light breaks away, ebbing somewhat so I can make out the features of a single fairy clad in sheer, opalescent clothing.
Blue-white hair tumbles down to her ankles, gleaming and pure like its woven of moonlight itself.
The wavy locks are flecked with tiny gems that catch the light, creating the illusion of dewdrops cascading down.
She comes to hover before us, altogether angelic, and I find myself fighting the urge to kneel in reverence.
Several other fairies descend to flank her like silent guardians, glaring warnings at Dante and me both. Out of the corner of my eye, I see two wolves standing at attention in the shadows, tracking our every breath.
Protection befitting a monarch.
“You have traveled a long way, child,” the fairy says. Her voice is smooth as silk, and it’s impossible to tell how old she is. She might be thirty or three-hundred.
“You,” Dante breathes, horror rippling through every word. He recoils slightly. “It can’t be.”
“You expected different?” Her expression is amused. “You bear fangs and wade in bloodshed, yet you carry disdain for those of us with wings?”
“Sorry. It’s just—the stories didn’t mention you were…” Dante’s stumbling over his words, brow furrowing deeper as he sizes her up. “Shit. You’re Callistia?”
She chuckles, much to my relief. I half expect Dante’s prior derision toward fairies to rear its head again, even to her.