60. Isla
60
ISLA
M y poor mate hardens to ice beside me.
I try to offer him comfort. “From what I’ve heard, it’s actually very relaxing once you’re inside.”
The side-eye he slants me would’ve made me chortle had tension not nibbled at my heart. Yes, I lied. Shoot me. I take that back. I never want to get shot again.
Why am I nervous? Because the last time my father went inside it, it stripped Mádhi of her magic.
Do not go there, I chide myself.
Konstantin has never acted against the Cauldron’s wishes. Even when he removed its present from his neck, he did it to save his sister and me.
My mate’s heart is pure and noble. I look over at Mimi, who stands between Bisnonno and Agrippina. She wears a smile. If she smiles, then nothing bad is about to happen. Right?
“Should I go inside as well?” I ask, still gripping Konstantin’s arm.
“No.” Taytah pushes her long pink braid off her shoulder. “Just Lore and Konstantin.”
My mate’s chest lifts with a fortifying breath that fortifies neither him nor me, then slips his arm out of my clammy grip. “After you, Ríhbiadh.”
“By all means”—my father uncrosses his arms—“you go first. It’s your big day, after all.”
My mother shakes her head as she parks herself at my side and twines one hand with mine, resting the other on her rounding abdomen. “For two ruthless leaders, you’re acting awfully squeamish.”
My father arches a brow before dematerializing and reappearing on the Cauldron’s mirror-like surface. Green tints Konstantin’s spectral complexion as he steels his spine and steps onto the hard surface, stopping a foot away from my father.
Suddenly, they sink.
My lungs burn from the rapid flux of air sluicing through me. “Do you know what’s about to happen?”
“No one knows,” Shoshair murmurs, coming to stand beside my mother, dark eyes refracting the metal-tinge of the Cauldron.
“All it showed Behati was that our mates had to head inside together,” Mádhi explains. “And all it told Amma was that it was a present.”
“A good present or a bad present?” Izolda asks, stepping up beside me, rubbing her collarbone.
I reach out my free hand to clasp hers. Her icy fingers fold over mine and squeeze.
We hang on to each other as time crawls by like a cursed hourglass with forever-regenerating grains of sand.
Konstantin? I rasp into the bond.
Silence.
What feels like a whole hour ticks by before a ripple forms on the surface of the Cauldron.
Then another. And another.
And then the source of all magic is buoying my father and mate up. I scour them for physical alterations, but their features are unchanged—my father, still all dark, rugged angles; my mate, still all pale, bladed ones.
Remembering that I share a bond with Konstantin, I all but scream into his mind: What gift did you receive?
The corners of his mouth edge upward into a smile that catches on his lashes and sinks past his pupils, giving his stare the patina of polished silver.
At least he can still hear me. I think. Right, you can ? —
Yes, Little Witch. I can still hear you.
Relief swerves through me but so does curiosity. Please tell me before I expire!
You’re immortal. You will never expire.
This is not the time for ? —
So am I now . Immortal. He speaks the word with great reverence.
“What?” I whisper-croak-shout, tearing my hands out of Izolda and my mother’s to cover my mouth.
“What?” Izolda hisses, complexion rivaling Konstantin’s upon hearing about his summons for an enchanted dip.
My mother’s mouth rounds around a trembling, “ Oh .”
“What?” Izolda repeats, shrilly this time.
My father nods to Konstantin. “Why don’t you show them?”
My heart beats out of my chest as I picture him asking one of the Crows to try and behead him with an iron talon.
“No! Please! N-N-No demonstration.” Dread coils around my neck, suffocating me. “I d-don’t think my heart c-can…”
The contours of Konstantin’s body begin to glimmer, to blur. And then like a snowball tossed at a glass wall, he explodes into a million flurries that swirl toward me before reshaping.
Into him .
“Holy Gods, Kostya!” Izolda gasps. “What—what was—The Cauldron transformed you into a…a…a yeti?”
He cocks a black eyebrow. “A yeti ?”
Phoeppa coughs a chuckle into his fist that wins him Zia Syb’s elbow in the ribs and a hissed, “This is a solemn moment.”
Instead of quieting him, his head falls back on booming laughter that Lachlano and Agrippina reciprocate.
“Just so we’re clear”—Konstantin spins on himself to make eye contact with all—“I am not a yeti. I am a literal Ice King. I can now freeze someone’s internal organs and carve them up—no chisel required. I can also stream through the air for as long as I wish in flurry-form .” He slides one of his fingers beneath my jaw until it’s aligned with my chin and bops it.
He can freeze people! Freaking freeze internal organs! I am a trillion percent certain that if he lets go, my mouth will go slack once more. Does it kill them?
If they’re human and half-blood, yes.
And the others?
They remain ice sculptures until I decide to thaw them.
Even Crows?
Yes.
Ho. Ly. Skies.
His throat bobs. I can now protect you, Isla. I can now protect my people.
You could already do that.
“I can do it better,” he rasps, drawing my hands off my mouth.
“Do you also transform into a yeti, Lore?” my grandfather deadpans.
“ Not a yeti,” Konstantin grumbles, which makes a startlingly wide grin flock to my grandfather’s mouth.
“Is your father about to laugh?” Elio whispers to Naeva from right behind me.
“I think he might be,” she murmurs. “I’m alarmed.”
“Don’t keep us hanging, Lore,” Bisnonno chides him. “What present did you receive?”
My father ambles atop the Cauldron’s now-impenetrable surface. “Crows were granted a new—as my mate calls them— party trick .”
When all he does is stare adoringly into my mother’s eyes, I snap, “My love for suspense is only equaled by your appreciation for snow, Dádhi.”
He grins…just fucking grins.
I’m about to hiss at him when Shoshair asks, “What did the Cauldron give us, mach ?” It might very well be the first time I’ve ever heard her call him son in public.
“We can now transform willing participants, or unwilling ones, I suppose—let’s just call them deserving participants—into Crows.”
Gasps and low, awed murmurs surge from the many observers.
“How wondrous…” Shoshair’s chest dips, while her gaze takes on a faraway gleam.
Is she thinking about my grandfather, my mother, or about the lines of volunteers that will form once Dádhi’s new power is made public? Will there be volunteers? I suppose Taytah did have a few. And then I wonder if my mate can make more Ice People?
The Cauldron didn’t tell me, but I’m guessing I will need to earn the gift of making others, Konstantin says. I imagine that our children will possess my power, though.
The Cauldron told you that we’ll be able to…to…? I lick my lips.
His palms, that are marvelously cool now, settle on the small of my back, atop a sprinkle of rhinestones. I’m no longer just a Faerie and you were never just a Crow.
“How do we do it? How do we make others?” Jaytair is no longer grinning like a sprite with an unattended treasure hoard. “Tell me we don’t need to lick anyone…”
Agrippina rolls her onyx eyes. “We lick because our tongues have healing properties, Cathal. Not because we have a passion for lapping blood.” With a smirk and a toss of her long blue hair, she adds, “Well, most of us.”
“Who the fuck has a taste for blood?” my grandfather growls, seemingly primed to pitch that Serpent out of Taytah’s den and possibly into the Cauldron.
“Agrippina…” Taytah sighs, wresting a startled Cruaih out of Jaytair’s arms and setting her down. The feline scampers straight toward her second favorite person—Naeva. “Must you always rile him up?”
Oh, the joy that seizes Agrippina’s face…
“So, how’s it done, Mórrgaht?” Imogen asks.
My father’s initial happiness declines. I only understand the reason for this when he says, “By mixing our bloods, once a person’s heart has stopped. Blood and heart must remain in the body, though.”
Since Shabbins can only expire when stripped of blood, my hopes that he could remake my mother into a Crow wither.
“You can make Crows, Lore.” The quiver in Mádhi’s voice jostles the apple in Dádhi’s throat, crimps my ribs, and hardens Jaytair’s jaw. “What an honor.”
“What a responsibility,” Dádhi intones, cupping my mother’s cheek and bending his forehead to hers.
A whistling sigh escapes Bisnonno. “There go our pretty blue skies…”
While the courtyard erupts with excited chatter, I hear my father whisper, “We’ll find a way.”
“I’m perfectly content with my lot, ah’khar .”
“Want to become a little Crow, Pet?” Imogen asks Borat, who traveled in a satchel strung across Vance’s chest.
In truth, I haven’t seen him flitter out of it, but a glance in their direction shows he’s perched on Aoife’s broad shoulder, giving Imogen hefty side-eye. “I like your younger sister so much more. I vote to trade you for her.”
Imogen and Aoife both laugh. Vance smirks. Even Mestyla, who’s guarded most of the time, smiles.
Who would’ve ever thought a Crow and a sprite would become friends?
Who would’ve ever thought a prophecy would lead to such a diverse family?
Who would’ve ever thought a new supernatural race would be birthed, and an ancient one would be granted additional power?
Sun blades slash across the Cauldron’s smooth surface, splintering into shards of blinding light that stab my corneas.
Of course …
The source of all magic knew.
It knows all.
Whose life is it about to upend and reshape next?