Chapter 29
Sylvia
“Promise you won’t disappear again.” Hazel’s whispered plea made me tighten my hold around her. She was trying to sound brave, but the wobble in her voice betrayed the tears she was undoubtedly blinking back.
I smoothed a hand through her hair as I cradled her. “We’re free now. No one is here to banish us ever again.” Kissing the top of her head, I gave her a final squeeze. “Nothing will tear us apart. This is just a physical change. Nothing more.”
Sniffling, Hazel gave me a solemn look that was beyond her years. “I… I’m glad Father won’t have to be alone in being human anymore.” But fresh tears continued to pool all the same.
Mother alighted on the table and gently pulled Hazel away. She cupped my cheek, her thumb brushing against my traitor mark. As I met her eyes, there was so much buried within. Warmth, yes, but an equal measure of grief that was reserved for whatever outcome of this transformation.
“I love you.” Her voice shook nearly as much as Hazel’s. “But I will never approve of this.”
The words punctured me. After everything, her lack of approval lit a bitter fire in my chest.
Nonetheless, I forced myself to understand her sorrow. Of course she could never come around to the idea of losing another loved one to this transformation. She would make no effort to hide her desire that I choose my fairy form in the end.
If I weren’t worried about inspiring an argument, I might have curtly wished she would encourage me to choose my own happiness, no matter which form it took. But there was no changing what she thought. She was here, and even if she didn’t approve, she wasn’t standing in the way of my decision.
“Will you stay?” I asked instead.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Mother promised, and comfort seized me despite everything.
Another buzz of wings approached. Ben was the only other fairy left in the room. Zia and Rowan had vacated to give me privacy. Although Zia had quite sweetly wished me luck before leaving, I wasn’t surprised that Rowan still eyed me like I was a madwoman.
As Ben landed before me, he didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. Then he haltingly stepped forward and buried me in a hug. I stiffened, then wrapped my arms around him in return.
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” he murmured, and a shiver ran through my body as I recalled how it felt to allow my energy to flow into his ruinous glamour attack. “If you’ll allow me to stay, I can help if the gem magic isn’t enough.”
My eyes stung. “You’re allowed to stay with or without your magic.”
When we released each other, I found that Delilah had finished laying out a vast silken sheet for me on the floorboards.
I steadied my breath and looked around the room, nearly overwhelmed by the sight of everyone who insisted on remaining by my side.
My family. Jon and Cliff. Delilah, Lee, and Ben.
Trancelike, I followed Delilah’s instructions to lie bare under the sheet. The floorboards were cold against my wings and back. I stared across the fabric, trying to wrap my mind around the understanding that I would soon fill out so much more of it. If I survived.
If.
Delilah knelt, dragging a piece of chalk across the floor to form the rune.
As each drawn line brought me closer to the start of the transformation, I sensed a faint buzz from the piece of chalk, like it had been forged with her power.
Anxious as I was, Delilah’s spellwork spoke for itself.
She was capable. She would take me through this.
But it could still go wrong, this cobbled-together thing.
Icy fear snaked through me like the scrape of the chalk. As I scanned the room once more, my eyes settled on Jon and Cliff, who stood back and observed me with reverence. My heart swelled with love for them. This was happening. It was happening.
My trembling worsened, but not from sheer terror. Even if something went terribly wrong, I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful end than being surrounded by the people I held dearest in my heart.
But I’m not going to die. I’ve fought too hard for this to die today.
I would make it through. I would see my loved ones again shortly.
Delilah finished the rune with a resolute stroke of the chalk, then sighed in satisfaction. “Ready for this?”
Swallowing hard, I nodded. “I am.”
Jon approached, careful not to smudge the chalk.
He reached into his pocket and produced the ruby.
It pulsed like a heart as he handed it off to me.
Settling back, I hugged the gemstone to my front.
I nearly forgot where I was for a second, focused on the tidal wave contained in my arms that begged to be released.
But the sight of Jon drew me back to this moment. He stayed knelt over me for several moments more, eyes brimming with countless words that couldn’t seem to find their way to his lips.
“When I finish up with this,” I said softly, “what’s first? Teaching me how to drive, or how to shoot?”
He gave a startled chuckle before finding his voice. “Let me decide which of those scares the shit out of me more, and we’ll go from there.”
I grinned. “Sounds like a deal.”
A storm of emotion built on his face as his stare traced over my form, like he was memorizing every inch of me.
“I love you,” he said quietly.
When he followed that with a smile, all the darkness was pushed from my heart. There was no room left for anything but the soft radiance of hope. I grinned back, tender and tremulous. “I love you, too.”
Reluctantly, Jon pulled away, standing clear of the rune.
Delilah remained the closest, clutching her notes. “You’ll have to repeat each verse exactly, no matter what. You need to push through. Understand?”
With my final, affirming nod, we began.
I did as Delilah told me. Although I had read through the verses several times beforehand, the words still felt foreign on my tongue.
Transformation magic. Untouched by most fairies for generations and generations.
The rumble of the gemstone caused even more distraction, flooding my senses as it poured out at my will.
My pulse quickened, matching the one within the ruby.
But I forced myself to listen to Delilah’s voice, forced myself to repeat as clearly as I could.
It started off as an ache that raced through my entire body as though I had been running at full tilt. Then it blossomed into heat, brightening into a sting that made my words falter.
This is nothing. I can handle this. I can.
Oh stars, but the final words of the next verse choked off into a cry that I couldn’t contain. The sting was quickly morphing into a seizing fire. My blood was molten lava in my veins, burning me from within as a pulverizing pain throbbed through my bones. I twisted and gasped.
I was being torn apart.
Mother cried out in the distance. The floor tremored, and Father’s voice seemed to come in crashing waves, an insistence that this was too much. That I was in too much pain.
To stop, stop, stop.
“Get out if you can’t stand watching,” Delilah snapped before the next verse. “It’ll be much, much worse if we stop now. Do not interrupt if you know what’s good for her!” A pause and a sigh. “Sylvia, sweetheart. Keep at it.”
I was vaguely aware of the tears on my face. They seemed to burn as much as my blood, hot enough to carve new marks on my cheeks. But I forced myself to focus on Delilah’s next verse.
This agony was not of this world. Iron couldn’t hold a candle to it. The draining of the Ancients was child’s play by comparison.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I thought about what the other side of this looked like. A world where I could be free, out in the open, experiencing life the way I was meant to.
And Jon. Our hands entwined. The two of us tangled together, feeling each other—really feeling.
Another sob wracked through me, this one lit with fury. I had been through hell and back already. Now this damn pain was the only thing standing between me and everything I wanted. I was stuck, trying to form the next verse, but only succeeding in another pathetic cry of pain.
I tempered my breathing when I heard Hazel whimper.
“I’m…alright,” I gritted out.
And I forced myself to continue because the only way was forward. I refused to have gone through this much pain for nothing.
It can’t get worse.
It can’t.
But it did.
The pain took me to a faraway place where I couldn’t be sure if the words were reaching my lips or if they were only in my head. I couldn’t quite tell if my eyes were open, either. The brilliant, blinding agony wrapped me in a colorless haze.
For a moment, there was almost relief, until I realized that the pain wasn’t leaving. It was traveling, gathering in one spot. Before I could make sense of it, my back arched sharply, and I let loose a terrible scream.
My wings.
They were coming undone, unraveling in a manner that insisted I feel every bit shredding apart.
The words.
Delilah was saying my name, urgently reminding me that I needed to keep saying the words. Meanwhile, I was on the brink of begging her to end this, prepared to cast the ruby aside and toss it off the tallest mountain I could find.
But I didn’t waste my breath on begging.
I resumed the verses.
This was the cost of the destiny I had forged, and if that tore me apart at the seams, so be it.