Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
HOOK
“Smee? Do you see that ball of light over there?”
She undoes the bindings on my wrist and looks over her shoulder. And when she glances back at me, she’s frowning. “No. Did they hit you on the head?” She pokes at my face, checking my eyes.
“No. Stop that. You don’t see it?”
“No.” She crouches in front of me and slices through the bindings on my ankles, freeing me from the chair.
I rub at my arm, keenly aware of the absence of my hook.
I’m not sure if I’ll be able to recover it now, but I do have a spare at home, thank god.
When I stand, the light rises as if following my movements.
Smee still seems unaware of it.
Did I hit my head? Maybe I’m still fuzzy from the poison?
I don’t feel fuzzy.
“Sounds like your boyfriend is taking out his rage on the Gutter Snakes,” Smee is saying, but I’m barely listening to the cries for help coming from the other room.
I take a step toward the light.
It zips upward, frenzied now.
There are myths of tiny fairies, but no one has seen them in centuries, if they were ever real in the first place.
The closer I get, the more I have to squint, the light is so bright.
When I’m just a few feet from it, the light starts vibrating and I have a moment to wonder if it’s some kind of magical bomb about to blow, when suddenly it careens toward me, hitting me in the chest.
The force of the hit sweeps me off my feet and I fly backwards, arms pinwheeling.
But before I land on the stone floor, I’m out again.