Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
FRANKIE
When the white light faded, we were back in the living room of Coven Headquarters.
“TEGAN!”
“T!”
“TEGAN!”
Her name was shouted in chorus, their voices thick with relief.
She dropped her hand from Tenn’s throat, then stretched like a cat. “Hey, guys.” The devious glint in those pale-green eyes was such a relief to see, as was the wicked grin.
Tenn let out a ragged sigh and sank onto the coffee table. He dropped his elbows to his knees and hung his head. “For fuck’s sake, babe.”
“I had to protect Sam. We owe her too much. I’m sorry. I didn’t know it would take me down like that.” She ran both hands through his long black hair and pushed his head back to look up at her. She smiled down at him like he was the most precious thing in this entire world, then wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tight against her chest. “I didn’t have enough strength to explain it, I just needed you to know what was happening to me.”
Tenn groaned and wrapped his arms around her legs. But the way her cheeks flushed, I knew they were speaking to each other telepathically.
Hunter stomped across the living room. “Tegan.”
Her gaze snapped right to his and her smile softened. “I’m okay now, Dad. Frankie saved me, and that potion she made for me should protect me from going down from Witch’s Shock again.”
Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose and grimaced. “I can’t take any more of my family going down?—”
“I know, Dad.” Her voice was thick with emotion. She kissed Tenn’s forehead, then pulled away from him to go over and hug her father. “Go down and check on Mom and Uncle Kessler, then see Myrtle. She has something for you.”
He nodded and then turned and slipped down the stairs.
“Where are Easton and Lily?” Tegan’s eyes narrowed on the room until she spotted them lying motionless on the couch. She ran over and pressed her hands to their heads, then scowled. She snapped her fingers and white light flashed. When it faded, they were gone. “Myrtle and Katherine will tend to them. Now, Royce and Willow? Let me see you.”
Thiago was supporting most of Royce’s weight. The poor guy’s throat was nearly as purple as Tegan’s hair. He was gasping for air. In the proper lighting of the living room, I realized his lips were a faint blue. Everyone else must’ve realized this at the exact same time as I did because everyone cursed and jumped toward him.
Tegan got to him first, pressing her pale hand to his throat. Rainbow mist billowed between her fingers and Royce took a deep breath. “Better?”
He nodded and opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“Save your breaths, Poison Roycy.” She pushed more of her magic into his throat until the blue left his lips. “Thiago, please bring him to Katherine?”
“Tegan?” Willow reached out for her with a shaking hand. Her pretty face scrunched in pain. She swayed on her feet, then pressed both hands to her ears. “What happened to me?”
“ I don’t want to lie to you, Willow . . . I don’t know what just happened to you three,” Tegan spoke into our minds so Willow could hear her. She wrapped her hands around Willow’s, which were still over her ears. Rainbow magic swirled. The blood running down the side of Willow’s head and neck stopped. “ The ringing stop? ”
Willow nodded with tears in her eyes. She sniffled and whispered, “ It hurts now. It didn’t hurt before. ”
Tegan’s face fell. “ Go down to Myrtle. If anything, she can help you sleep until we can figure out how to heal your pain.”
We all watched Willow go down the stairs, then turned back to Tegan, but her face was unreadable and that sent a cold chill down my spine. She walked over to where Bentley was leaning against Cooper and pressed her hands to the gnarly wound in his shoulder. She frowned. Bentley winced.
“Yours won’t let me touch it. I don’t like that.” Tegan cocked her head to the side. She tapped on his forearms. “Maybe that will help ease the pain?”
Bentley scowled. He looked down at his body. Orange lightning bolts streaked up and down his arms, his skin turning jet-black around them. When he lifted his head again, those orange crescent moons glowed in his eyes. He sighed. “I don’t like that that worked.”
“Me either,” Tegan whispered.
“Babe,” Tenn croaked. “Babe, you missed?—”
“I know. Valathame has kept me informed while I was down.” She peeked up to Cooper, who was no longer holding Bentley upright but hovered close by. “As Cooper should have informed you.”
He grimaced. “I haven’t been ready to talk about those dreams, but I was warned to stay out of yours.”
“And not so subtly either,” Savannah grumbled.
Tegan held her hands out in front of her. Savannah grumbled a string of words in such a thick accent that I had no idea what she’d said, but she held her hands out to mirror Tegan’s. Her skin was still raw-looking, super red and blistery, but they weren’t actively bleeding anymore.
Cooper’s eyes were tense and locked on Savannah’s hands. His face was pale. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Myrtle did what she could.”
Tegan took Savannah’s hands in hers and stared at them. The air pulsed between their fingers. “Your magic will be weaker because of this?—”
“WHAT?” Savannah yelled and sat upright.
“You’ll need to use your wand for now,” Tegan said softly. “Or the dead.”
Savannah’s face scrunched up like she was going to cry but she turned and buried her face in Cooper’s chest before we could see the tears. Not that we blamed her, or anyone.
“I’m hoping Thorne and Sage can offer some insight into these injuries we can’t heal.” Tegan closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then she opened and turned to face her twin who hadn’t moved from her spot on the ledge in front of the hearth. Tegan hurried over to sit in front of her. “Hi, twin.”
Em let out a strangled cry, then fell forward, collapsing into Tegan’s chest. Tegan looked up to Cooper and nodded. Cooper was rubbing Savannah’s back with his hands, but he lifted one and a purple-blue magic spilled from his fingers. I almost smiled remembering that his magic always matched the sky wherever he was.
Deacon appeared out of thin air next to Cooper. I knew he wasn’t really standing there, he was just in his astral projection form like before, but we hadn’t seen Deacon even like this in a bit. Deacon arched one blond eyebrow and glanced around, like he was confused why he was summoned. He opened his mouth like he was going to ask when his gaze landed on Emersyn sobbing into Tegan’s chest.
His violet eyes widened. “Emersyn?”
She jumped up and spun toward the sound of his voice, but that bandage was still wrapped around her head. “Deacon?”
“ What happened to you ?” He rushed forward and reached out for her, but he wasn’t physically here, so his hand swept right through her. He whimpered. “Butterberry?”
She cried. “You’re not really here?—”
“Bring her down to me. Please?” Deacon’s eyes were panicked as his aura, which said a lot since he wasn’t here. “Cooper, please?—”
“I’m coming.” Cooper kissed Savannah’s forehead, then hurried to his sister. He reached out and took her hands in his. “Come on, Em. Let’s go see Deacon.”
Tegan snapped her fingers and her siblings were gone.
Deacon’s projection lingered. “Is she blind? Her eyes?—”
“We don’t really know,” Bentley answered softly. “Her eyes are . . . there but . . . we don’t know. She is currently blind though.”
“Go to her, D.” Tegan stood and brushed her hands over her black, ripped jeans. “I fear for her soul locked in that darkness.”
Savannah shuddered, which didn’t make me feel better.
Once Deacon’s projection faded, we all just stared at Tegan like we were all praying she’d return with the answers we needed. But then she just cursed violently. The vibe in the room grew dark and tense. I glanced around, there wasn’t a whole lot of us left on our feet. Tim sat on the couch as close to Tenn as possible, with Jackson two feet away. All three of them were barely hanging on. And by the way Tegan walked back over and gripped Tenn’s shoulder like he was about to float away, I knew he wasn’t coping too much better than he had been before Tegan returned.
Lennox and Warner sat on the other couch that faced them, but their normally jovial smiles were replaced with grimaces. Mei-Ling and Tai were sitting at the dinner table next to Landreia, Kenneth, and Daniel. None of them spoke. They just stared. Constance paced the pathway between the table and the kitchen while she tugged on her bottom lip. Movement behind her caught my eye, which was when I noticed that Tyce and Dace were sitting on the counters in the kitchen, eating food quietly.
Tegan let out a deep breath. “You’ve all done so well with everything while I was down. I’m proud of you. Especially Frankie with those potions.”
I groaned. “I don’t even know what they all do, but I’m sick of waiting for them to be ready.”
“Valathame told me you’d updated the Book of Shadows, but I haven’t seen all the runes yet. I’ll look.” She held her hand out and the crystal necklace lifted off Tenn and into her open palm. The book opened to the list faster than my eyes tracked. She scanned the pages while nodding. “These are intense. Dammit.”
“Why dammit ?” I walked over to her and tried to see what she saw. “What’s wrong?”
“I was really hoping once you got to this point, I’d be able to figure out what each was for, but . . .” she cursed again, “it’s gibberish still, even for me.”
“They are done, right?” I tapped on the page. “We put all the ingredients in and they’re brewing but none of the others have done anything. Yours glowed and did all this magic shit the second we put the Heavenly ingredients in, then I saw the main symbols tell me it was done. None of the others did that.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that,” Tegan grumbled.
Lennox threw her hand up in the air and snapped her fingers. “We’d love for you to jump in and do that thing you do.”
Tegan arched one black eyebrow. “By which you mean everything super-fast?”
“YUP,” Lennox and Warner said at the same time with grins.
I shrugged. “Ya girl Leyka basically said as much.”
“I love Leyka.” Tegan chuckled softly, but then she sobered. “I saw the note. Thanks for the picture, Frankie. My brain is a little . . . overwhelmed right now. Give me a minute to sort myself out and I’ll figure out what we need.”
Tenn sat up straight, his mismatched eyes narrowed into little slits as he looked up at her. “ Overwhelmed? ”
“I’m not in danger. It’s just a feeling . . . an emotion.” She cupped his face with one hand. “I’m . . . feeling a lot of . . . magic . . . and energy . . . and it’s all at once. There’s a lot happening, things I can sense that y’all can’t. Every time I go down, I have to . . . re-adjust. I just don’t usually worry you with that?—”
“Tegan—”
“I’m okay, babe.” She pressed her lips to his. “I just need a minute to let my magic settle.”
“What exactly feels overwhelming?” Constance stopped pacing and moved closer. “What’s bothering you most?”
“How many of us are not in this room right now.” She glanced around. “Too many of us are down. I can feel the Unseelie magic clinging to the injured, and it’s quite jarring.”
“Like the Seelie Tunnels for you?”
She nodded, then frowned. “Yes, but not quite physically.”
“Because you’re too much of this realm, the other realms affect you, right?” I asked. When Tegan nodded, I cursed. “Do we need to move the injured away from you?—”
“No. No, I need to keep them close. For their protection. I just . . .” She closed the Book of Shadows and shook her head. “The Unseelie are up to something. We need to figure out what.”
Tenn groaned. “I’ve been trying.”
“You’re not the only one.”
We all jumped at the sound of Thorne’s voice suddenly right behind us. When we looked over, we found him and Sage standing in the foyer with their white angel wings still fluttering at their backs. Normally their outfits were the epitome of a fae fantasy character, something out of a book or movie with all its cliches, but right now they wore simple white sheath gowns that dragged the floor.
I gasped. “Saffie said you went to Heaven.”
“ What? ” Tenn hissed and jumped to his feet to face them. “What happened?”
“We told you before, Heaven isn’t playing by the same rules this time. We’re actively trying to find answers for you. That’s why you haven’t seen the others. The children of Lucifer, and Chloe, have gone down to see him. I dare not ask what he’s scheming.” Thorne held his hands up and smirked. He strolled into the room. “Sage and I went— what’s that? ”
“What is that?” Sage narrowed her eyes and prowled into the room like a jungle cat on the hunt. Her face fell. “The Wild Night should not linger here, Bentley.”
Thorne’s gaze snapped right to our Hierophant. “They touched you again?”
Bentley spoke in a language I did not know but recognized as Seelie. Thorne and Sage spoke it back in hushed, rushed tones. None of those vibes were calm or easy. Something was not right. Thorne snarled and pressed his hands to Bentley’s wound. Sage took both of his arms in hers. Golden-white light spilled out of the angel’s hands for a moment. When Sage pulled her hands back, Bentley’s had returned to their normal fair, very human complexion. He sighed and the tension left his shoulders.
Thorne cursed and stepped back. He turned to the group. “Unseelie magic is . . .” He let his words fade as he just shook his head, his gaze locked on nothing.
Sage reached up and put her hand on her brother’s shoulder. Then her purple eyes landed on me with a darkness in them. “Let us hope Everest has answers for us.”
My heart sank like an anchor in the sea, causing a wake that rippled through the rest of my body. I shivered against the cold chill slithering down my spine.
Tegan watched me for a moment, wringing her hands together. “May I ask a question . . . that might offend you?”
My pulse quickened. “Me?”
“Sorry, Frankie, no.” She shook her head and turned to the angels. “You two.”
Thorne arched one fiery eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest. “The fact you feel the need to preface your question concerns me.”
“That means yes, you may ask .” Sage rolled her eyes. Her mouth was set in a firm line.
Tegan smirked but the humor did not reach her eyes. “Why is it you two don’t know? I mean, you’re King Fuckface’s children. The children of the very male who banished half of Seelie from Seelie . . . I am not judging, I am just curious why you don’t know. Or perhaps I should say, curious as to why you think Everest would know more? Aren’t you much older than him?”
Sage’s face fell. She closed her eyes and turned away from us.
Thorne stared for a long moment, long enough I was wondering if he was offended, or if he was even going to answer at all. Finally, he just hung his head. “That is a fair question, queen of darkness. We are not offended that you asked it.”
“But you’re not going to answer it,” I heard myself say. When everyone looked to me, I just shrugged. “Every time I asked Everest a question he couldn’t or wouldn’t answer, he made that same face. The aura was the same.”
“Everest is a child in our eyes, in terms of age. He is significantly younger than us.” Thorne rubbed the back of his neck. “When Everest joins our side, there will be things we will be free to discuss. Until then we must protect him in any way we can.”
Bile shot up my throat, but I swallowed it down. I buried my face in my hands to hide the emotion I was sure was written all over my face.
“But let us remind you that Father Fuckface had put us and our mother under a curse, one that altered and controlled us . . .” Thorne’s voice was much softer now. “It is difficult to accept the lives we lived prior to our awakening after the One Hundred Years’ War.”
“And while seven centuries is a long time for your mortal minds, it is not for ours. It has flown by even while it dragged on.” Sage began braiding strands of her blue hair nervously. “We are not being coy when we say we don’t know?—”
“We need Everest.” Thorne’s voice was soft but urgent.
“So let’s go get him,” I cried. “What are we waiting for? What is he waiting for?”
Sage crossed the room to me, then wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “Everest has been at this game a long, long time. Longer than us. If he’s not here with his soulmate, then he has a reason.”
“ Seek the one who paid the price, Change the name, she won’t play nice. Release the son, betray the vice. Deep in the Lore they’ll feel his bite.” I chewed on my thumbnail. “That’s what the prophecy said. The second half of that is about Everest. We all know it. But we don’t know who this female is. The one who paid the price. We need to find her.”
“And the Angel of Tides,” Lennox added softly. “We need both of those people, and I fear we’ll need them before we can set Everest free.”
Warner snapped his fingers. “Tegan, that face. What?”
Tegan just shook her head once. “I have a theory on the Angel of Tides, but I need to confirm it before I speak it out loud, for their safety.”
“Seek the one who paid the price, change the name, she won’t play nice.” Tenn spun his silver rings around his fingers. “Could that be Cassandra or Pippa? Both of them could fit that description.”
Jackson pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll text Mum.”
Tenn looked to the angels. “You two . . . you know things you’re not allowed to tell us about this?”
They nodded but their expressions were grim.
“We came to check in with you, but we need to get back to hunting for answers for how to rid our world of them.” Thorne cracked his knuckles, which was such a human movement it was jarring to see on him. “That tome has a magical barrier we’re going to have to break, so we’re trying to find those answers ahead of you.”
Tegan narrowed her eyes on them but said nothing.
Tenn shook his head. “I just don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing right now.”
“I feel that too.” Tegan pressed her fingers to her temples. “I have this need to do something . . . but . . . what? ”
My rune stones flashed, drawing my attention down to my bracelet. Light seemed to roll across my bracelet like a wave, lighting up one stone at a time. Then it began to vibrate. Little pulses of electricity buzzed into my skin and up my arm. I wrapped my fingers around them and cursed. “Dammit, Tegan.”
“What?” She scowled. “ Frankie ? —”
But her words were lost . . . because my rune stones sucked me away again.
At least I was finally understanding what was happening to me. I knew this was just an astral projection, so it didn’t scare the life out of me. That being said, I still had no idea where I was or what I was seeing. I frowned and looked around. What the hell is this place?
This was a marshy riverbed with water that was as aquamarine as the beach where we’d found Leyka. A forest towered over me, surrounding me on all sides. Trees grew wild here. Roots and branches were sticking out in every direction and connecting with each other. I couldn’t see the sky through all the leaves and branches, but the rays of light poking through were the same turquoise color as the river. Everything else was cast in shadow.It was some kind of wild forest. If this was a fantasy movie, I’d definitely have called this the dark forbidden forest— Wait. I basically do live in a fantasy movie. Okay, maybe keep moving so we can see why the stones pulled me here.
With a deep breath, I started forward, weaving a path between the trees cast in shadow until a cloud of glowing gold specks swarmed around me. I gasped and stopped short. These were fairyflies. I’d seen these before.
“Saffie? Last time you brought Saffie—Wait.” Then it clicked. “ This is Seelie .”
The fairyflies swarmed around me in tight circles, then darted forward in a diagonal pattern. My gut told me to follow them, so I did. They led me out of the creepy dark forest and into an open meadow with brightly colored wildflowers and lush green grass. It looked normal, like home, and I’d just started to wonder if I’d guessed wrong, but then I looked up and saw a bright purple sky. The trees around the meadow had leaves that glistened in various shades of the rainbow. We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto. When my Coven-mates brought me into Seelie last time, I remembered how similar it looked to Earth in some ways but boldly different in others.
I was so caught up in the colors Seelie nature provided that I’d dropped behind the fairyflies. It wasn’t until they swarmed around me again that I realized I’d stopped. With a curse, I skipped to chase after my glowy friends around a few more trees until they stopped me just before a narrow trail cut a path through the forest. A line of people raced by me without saying a word. They were all dressed differently but not a single one of them had pointed ears. That’s a red flag, right? These are humans. Humans shouldn’t be in Seelie.
“Hey!” I leapt onto the trail in front of them, expecting the next girl in the line to stop, but instead she walked right through me. Then the next did, and two more after that. My heart sank. “I’m not really here. They can’t see me. Shit.”
I stopped and watched them hurry by me and my bones turned cold. Their eyes were blank. Distant. Completely robotic and not present at all. It was like they’d been hypnotized. I skipped along with the line, waving my hands in front of their faces yet got no reaction whatsoever. A cold chill slid down my spine. This isn’t okay. Something is very wrong here. And then I saw a face I recognized, and my breath caught in my throat. I’d seen this guy’s face on the news when I couldn’t sleep . . . They’d been showing picture after picture of a bunch of missing people and this guy was one of them. I stopped and watched the line of human robots go by only to realize I’d seen many of their faces. There were a few dozen of them and I recognized at least half of the ones I’d seen. These people were all missing. Their families and loved ones had reported them missing . . . and they were somehow here in Seelie.
“This is why you’re missing . . .” My stomach turned as the pieces started to click into place. That first night when Sam had warned us to get to Orlando, I’d spoken to a girl who couldn’t find her boyfriend. I’d sent her away toward the Knights assuming they’d gotten separated in the chaos, but that was him walking toward me still wearing his Harry Potter Hogwarts cloak from Universal Studios. “Oh my God . . . That’s what they were doing. They were stealing people to get here— oh Goddess. Tegan. TEGAN!”
I scrambled away from the line of humans to hide behind a tree. My heart was pounding in my veins. I wrapped my fingers around my rune stone bracelet and pushed with my magic. But nothing happened. No pink or blue mist. No pulse of energy. No flashing lights.
“ Shit, shit, shit. ” I bounced around and squeezed my eyes shut. “ Tegan! Tega,n get me out! Hurry!”
When no help came, I sprinted back to the line of humans and followed them down the trail about fifty feet until they stopped at an archway. My breath left me in a rush. I knew that archway. It was the same one I’d seen in the Land of the Lore, except this was very much not the Land of the Lore. We were on the other side of it. Inside Seelie. My Coven-mates had warned me that archway would deliver a person to the Seelie or Unseelie realms depending on how the spell was recited. I could have sworn they’d told me Sage put up a barrier to keep the Unseelie out.
The humans pulled strange-looking metal tools out of their pockets and crashed the barrier. They slammed the pointed ends of their tools into the air—color flashed. A brick wall appeared that hadn’t been there before. It must have been glamoured invisible. Whatever those metal tools were, they’d sliced through Sage’s glamour to the actual barrier, which I hadn’t expected to be a brick wall.
“ Tegan! Tenn? ANYONE? ” I shouted. My hands were shaking. This wasn’t good. This couldn’t be a good sign. I turned back to where the fairyflies had just been, but they were nowhere in sight.
When I turned back, I found black smoke seeping through the cracks between bricks. At first it was just little wisps, but then it was billowing like there was a fire raging on the other side. Instinctively, I backed away to hide behind a tree while I gripped my bracelet hoping to be reconnected with my body. The air pulsed sharp and hot, then the bricks burst into dust. Unseelie knights rushed in like a river that’d been blocked by a dam. There was no mistaking who they were with their black hair, black wings, silver body armor, and those soulless black eyes. They rushed in through the archway, then stopped short, their black eyes wide with shock and awe. They yanked their helmets off and looked around like they’d stepped into a fantasy. That emotion lasted thirty seconds, tops, before it morphed into pure rage. Magic billowed in their palms. One by one they screamed and threw their helmets into the dirt, which I only just realized was a dark purple. As each Unseelie knight leapt into Seelie through the archway, the same progress of emotions unfolded.
OH NO. No, no, no, no. I squeezed my bracelet and pushed more magic into the stones, yet nothing happened. TEGAN! TEGAN, IF YOU CAN HEAR ME GET ME OUT! I was too afraid to speak out loud. I wasn’t sure if they’d be able to hear me and I did not like the idea of that.
And then the Unseelie Prince strolled through the archway, his black magic still coiling around his fingers. He wore no helmet and his armor was not the bulky kind the others wore. His were more like a combination of wool and chainmail. He looked the same as the others, with the same pale-bluish skin, long black hair, and black eyes, yet somehow there was no mistaking who he was. He glanced around Seelie and snarled, balling his hands into fists. “You know why we’re here. Hurry.”
The knights fled in every direction, like cockroaches when you turned on the light after a rainstorm. The Unseelie Prince marched away with his head held high and a cocky smirk on his face.
“Tegan! Tegan, can you hear me?” I yelled out. “Get me out of here. Help me.”
The world blurred around me. I cursed in a panic before I realized my projection was moving on its own. When I stopped, I found myself at the bank of a huge lake with water that looked like liquid metal. And standing in the middle of the lake, waist deep in the water, was the Unseelie Prince. His strange armor was gone, leaving his bare, shirtless torso in plain sight. He was thinner than I expected, with barely any muscle definition in his chest or abs. In fact, he was so thin it was easy to see his ribs. He looked like a dog that needed to be rescued off the street and hooked to an IV for a week.
He grinned and dropped beneath the surface of the water. My eyes widened. I glanced around to find a dozen knights on their knees on the shore, shoveling water into their mouths in a panic. It splashed all over them and onto the orange sand. Their hair and faces were soaked. They didn’t care, they couldn’t drink it fast enough. Some of them dropped down and held glass canisters to the lake and began filling them up. In seconds they had dozens of these canisters full of the silver lake water.
Movement in my peripheral vision made me turn—I gasped. The Unseelie Prince was walking out of the lake . . . and he looked . . . different. That was still his face, except now his cheekbones weren’t as sharp. His nose wasn’t so angular. Hell, even his pointed ears were a little more filled out. His lips had been thin, dry lines on his face but were now plump and pink. His face looked eerily human, or as human as Thorne’s looked. With every step he took, his skin darkened. His body thickened to where his ribs no longer protruded from his body. Muscles began to form. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I knew being in that lake just made him stronger.
Which explains why the others are collecting it. I turned to look at the knights and my breath caught in my throat. Their hair was no longer black. Each of them had long strands of varying shades of the rainbow. No, no, no, no.
I turned. I had to get help. There was only one idea in my head. The fairyflies . I ran until I saw them huddled together behind a tree. They swarmed me in an instant. “Please, go get help. I’m stuck,” I spoke softly, holding my hands up so they could fly around my fingers. “Please. Get Saffie. The Coven. Thorne and Sage. Get help.”
They took off instantly.
The world spun around me. My projection was moving again, bringing me someplace else. I wrapped my arms around my waist and braced myself. When I stopped moving, I stood at the base of the largest trees I’d ever seen. I craned my neck back and looked up. They were basically skyscrapers. It reminded me of the treehouse community the Ewoks lived in in Star Wars . I slid behind a tree trunk and watched in confused horror as knights shoved plants and flowers into leather sacks. Some of them flew down from the village above our heads carrying books, clothes, food, bottles, and anything else they could get their hands on, then shoved those into big satchels that looked like the potato sacks we used to race as kids. Magic fired left and right. Women screamed up above. My stomach rolled. A few knights flew up and over their heads like they’d been thrown. In the distance, I heard people shouting orders, but it wasn’t in English so I didn’t know what they were saying.
A woman with long rainbow hair leapt off a tree and sprinted away from the village, but the Unseelie Prince landed right behind her just as she passed. He snatched her by her long hair and dragged her back against his chest. In quick, easy movements, he tilted her head back and sank his fangs into her throat. Her light-green eyes went wide in fear. Her red-freckled skin paled until I couldn’t see a single freckle. Bile shot up my throat.
“LUKAT, NO!” a guy shrieked from above. “Let her go!”
The Unseelie Prince tossed the rainbow girl aside and she crashed to her knees. “Oh, but she tastes so good,” he purred, looking up with yellow eyes.
I gasped. My fingers dug into the bark of the tree trunk. Yellow eyes. His eyes were yellow. They’d been black. Jet black. Now they were a shining, bright yellow. What just happened?
He threw his hand up and grabbed hold of a wing that looked like a bush, then yanked the guy who yelled down to the ground. I had no idea who this guy was, but his skin was pale-green and his hair was made of flowered vines. The prince sank his fangs into his throat in the blink of an eye. The poor seelie guy screamed. The prince drank from him, then threw him to the ground with a sick grin. A little whimper slipped out of my mouth. The Prince’s skin was tan now, similar to my own. His hair that had been black was now a dark navy-blue color. His strange armor-shirt was back on, but his body filled it out more. He laughed and jumped up to grab a third victim when gold glitter slammed into his face.
He stumbled back a step, dropping his newest meal to the dirt. A horrible grin spread across his face as his yellow eyes locked on something I couldn’t see. The pupils of his eyes were narrow, black vertical slits like on a cat. “Princess Saraphina, it’s not fair to play from the shadows.”
My eyes widened. Saffie. She’s here. The fairyflies listened.
“You’d know that game better than anyone,” Saffie shouted from behind me, but then the trees rustled and her glitter magic flew out from ten feet away. She must have been flying. “So I’ll play fair when you do, jackass.”
I spun on my toes and ran. I had no idea where I was going but I had to try something else to get out of here. I pushed all of my magic into my stones and screamed, “SEELIE! SEELIE! SEELIE! SEELIE!”
Please hear me. PLEASE.