Chapter 24

24

T hey outvoted me.

No matter what excuses I tossed out, between the two mothers—powerhouses on their own and unstoppable together—there was no way for me to stand against them.

Even when I wanted to.

Even when I wasn’t sure why I had to.

I looked over to Mike and met his gaze, imploring him to do something. But it seemed even he wasn't immune to the argument or the validity of our next steps. Just as it was clear he didn’t really want his mom to go with me.

He wanted to be the one to stand at my side.

All I wanted was to reach for him and find some time and place to be alone, to be in his arms and close my eyes. To pretend like there was nothing and no one else in our world and we were alone somewhere desolate.

Livvy nodded, the decision settled. “We head out as soon as possible, then. The next thing to do is get out of the city. It will be safer than remaining. Those shifters will still be on our trail.”

And what would stop them from finding us in the next one, I wondered. There was nowhere safe in this world. Not with Dorian Jade out there determined to see his goals realized.

I leaned heavily on Noren and Bronwen moved up to my side. Her thin smile lacked any real confidence but I appreciated her attempt.

Words failed me and my tongue shrank back to half its size. On leaden feet, I followed Livvy, leaving Mike and Laina to help Onyx on our way out of the city. The countryside wasn’t any safer but no one would listen to me if I spoke.

Laina drew on her witch magic to weave protections after us, to erase our tracks as we made them.

What did I expect, really? The thought of going back to the human realm filled me with something similar to repulsion. It had been my home, the place I grew up, back when I didn’t know how dangerous the world actually was.

Then my horizons expanded and grew even more dangerous and suddenly here we were.

I tried not to fight against what felt like a tide but there was no stopping my mind from conjuring up the worst-case scenarios and worrying about them like they were already real.

A savior? Me? I’d never heard such rubbish.

The sun arched overhead and the space between the buildings grew yet again. From the seaside to the city’s heart and out the other side, we traveled in near silence. Watching our every move and scrutinizing the crowd for signs of shifters.

Every set of eyes that turned in our direction was a potential enemy.

Livvy and Laina navigated. As though now that they’d decided on a direction, it was only natural for them to be the counselors with our group of wayward children. Even Noren fell into line.

None of this had turned out the way I’d thought, the way I’d planned.

Things had twisted from bad to worse.

I thought being accused of Madam Muerte’s murder was the worst thing to happen to me. Or being kidnapped by Kendrick in the middle of the Wild Hunt.

None of it compared to the trek out of Yelaine and the nagging worries of what would happen once we made it back to the human realm. It wasn’t a question of if . The moms would find a way.

It also didn’t help not knowing exactly what kind of change would happen inside of me once Livvy unlocked my so-called witch powers.

Or the lingering fears that Livvy was entirely insane.

On one hand, I wanted to believe her. On the other…it would mean accepting that I was special in a way I’d never understand.

“We’ll stop here.” Livvy drew to a stop outside of a low rising hill. Boulders ringed the base. A pulse of magic maneuvered the stones out of their current positions and left a small black opening visible. “A faerie ring, built around a thin spot between the realms.”

“How did you know this was there?” I asked, my lips numb.

“The land speaks to me. I know its secrets and I know where it wants me to go. Our way has been guided.” Livvy stepped aside and once again motioned for us to head inside the cave. “Come. It’s safe here.”

The opening was small enough that I had to get down on my hands and knees to scramble inside.

The granite scraped the top of my head and my knees and for a tense moment I forgot how to breathe. Claustrophobia pressed in close and the walls tightened around me, my heart clawing at the inside of my throat.

Finally the tunnel opened up into a cave large enough for us to move about freely. The ceiling expanded so that even the tallest among us wasn’t able to rise on the tips of their toes to touch it.

The constriction in my chest eased somewhat but not enough for me to rest easily.

Noren remained outside and I didn’t blame him. If I’d been able to fend for myself, then I might have done the same, but then again there was safety in numbers too. I felt better with my friends and family beside me.

No matter how really fucking weird this was.

Laina nodded decisively. “We’ll rest here for a few hours and then we’ll leave.”

Mike turned to her with his jaw slightly open. “ Mom . You can’t be serious.”

She turned to him with her hands on her hips. “Any longer and we are wasting time. You will stay behind with the others.”

Mike shook his head. “I’m sorry, but no. I’m coming with you.”

The idea of being trapped in this space with Onyx and Bronwen seemed to weigh on him. And to be honest, it didn’t sit well with me, either.

“They’ll need your protection.” Laina glanced at Onyx, her expression softening. “You’ve been raised with strength and dignity and I expect you to use them to protect those who cannot protect themselves, Michael.”

I shifted from foot to foot with my stomach an uneasy mass. “It’s not a good idea for you to come, anyway.”

“Why?” he pressed. “Why won’t it?—”

“Enough, Michael,” Laina cut in. “This isn’t part of your journey.”

His eyes narrowed. “Why can’t it be? I should be with Tavi.”

“Tavi is going to be absolutely fine.” Laina’s insistence felt misplaced.

All this effort just for me, and I would never in a million years deserve it. I always made it out of these scrapes but what if I didn’t this time?

Part of me didn’t think Mike would agree. A mottled flush had crept up the base of his neck and turned the tips of his ears pink. His shoulders slumped forward. “Tavi, I hate this,” he muttered.

His whispered truth was too vulnerable for me. “I’m not keen on it myself.”

“Let’s go outside and talk. Take a second for ourselves.” His gaze darted to the cave opening.

I twisted with him, sucking in a breath to agree.

“No,” Livvy interrupted. “We stay out of sight. Rest.” She slid down the wall until she sat cross-legged. Regal despite her surroundings. “My word is final.”

There were too many things left unsaid between me and Mike and they were getting closer to the surface with every moment. We’d have our time. We have to .

I swallowed hard, my throat constricting, the rest of me tense and aching.

After several hours where no one rested, Onyx, Mike, and Bronwen remained behind in the cave for protection, while Noren prowled around the outside.

The word clanked around inside of my head and lost its meaning along the way. Protection felt like a joke.

There was no safe place anywhere.

Especially not when we were going right back into the raging bonfire of shit I’d been desperate to leave behind.

Livvy and Laina crawled back toward the mouth of the cave to travel to the human realm. Livvy paused to greet Noren, who bumped his head against her outstretched palm.

“How do you propose we travel?” My hands went to my hips. “I lost my key.” And I doubted, in her mad rush, that Laina would have remembered to grab hers.

Noren whined but a sweet word from Livvy had him falling silent, crouched between us and ready for action.

“I have mine.” Livvy reached beneath the collar of her shirt and pulled out a golden chain, linked through the scrollwork of an antique key with its sharp point honed to the same glistening gold. “This will work.”

My questions died on the tip of my tongue before I had a chance to ask. Livvy removed the chain from around her neck and sketched the pattern of a door in the air.

The shimmering outline of it pulsed, real and solid, for an instant before she slid the key into the emptiness. The lock glowed like the inside of a forge before she twisted the key and the air split into two distinct pieces.

Here, it was night. The dying twilight showed the first hint of diamond-bright stars in the clear sky overhead.

But the opening in front of us showed daylight.

It was way too weird, and my first instinct was to tell Livvy to close the door.

When I’d come here the first time, the time of day had matched.

Why did it change now?

My first glimpse of the human world I’d grown up in felt wrong. As though some sort of poisonous gas trickled in from this doorway unnaturally.

I took a step back but Laina rested a soft palm on my forearm. Her smile was calming; it assured me we were going to be fine, as they all said.

Livvy was once again the first one to walk toward the door and she stopped before she stepped through it.

“I have to lock it behind us,” she said by way of an explanation. “To make sure no one accidentally walks through.”

I halfway expected Kenrick Grimaldi’s acidic smile to greet me. Laina took the choice out of my hands and stepped over the glistening threshold. Noren gave me a gentle nudge at the back to get me moving, then huffed out a small lupine growl, like goodbye for now .

The first thing I noticed was the heft.

The human world didn’t feel the same as Faerie. The lightness was missing, the sense of energy in the air. This was a dead place. This was a world where the air hung like anchors and wedged itself into the bottom crevices of my lungs.

Livvy locked the door behind us but the last thing I saw before Faerie disappeared was Mike’s head popping out of the entrance of the cave as he came to stand beside Noren. Like he’d somehow find his own way to us.

I swallowed twice but it wasn’t enough to combat the dryness in my mouth.

“We—” I broke off and coughed. Everything felt weird, tasted weird. “We have to wait until night. It’s Friday, right? Uncle Will always heads out to the bar after work on Friday nights.”

Unless the day of the week had also changed on me.

Had time in Faerie somehow gotten ahead of the mortal world, or behind?

Will had his rituals the same way I used to. Even before I began to intern at his law firm, I’d abided by the same routines as the other pack members my age. School and social niceties. After classes, there was work, and then dinner.

Sometimes there were parties when connections needed to be strengthened or milestones celebrated.

Like my eighteenth birthday.

The schedule had to be adhered to. Uncle Will was a stickler for those kinds of things. I didn’t know if that would have changed in the time since I’d run away.

I blinked, the landscape coming into clarity although the edges were still a little unfocused.

I’d run away from this place, and the only time I’d come back had been when Kendrick kidnapped me.

What would Uncle Will even say if he saw me now? And we had to break into his house.

My house .

I was gonna be sick.

“We’ll scout around for a place to lay low until then.” Livvy stared determinedly at the asphalt in front of us.

They were dull too, I realized with a start. Both fae women had taken on the muted tones of this world, like the deadness seeped inside their bodies. I no longer saw the points of their ears, and Laina’s hair showed an ordinary sandy shade of blonde rather than dazzling gold.

They’d glamoured themselves on instinct. Of course.

Only there were no passing cars on this stretch of road to worry about. Maybe our luck was holding. The private gated community had always seemed cut off from the rest of the world due to our need to access the forest. The national park backed right up to the place and the gates and high walls kept our pack safe.

Outside of the neighborhood, the tree-lined streets would slowly become a city, the traffic increased, and the buildings crowded each other.

Not here.

I hadn’t appreciated it before.

You’re marked for greatness. It is destiny. It is fate . And therefore, it is out of my control .

That’s what Will said to me once.

Had he known, then, what Livvy knew about Faerie?

I trembled and bent down to re-tie the laces of my old Converse, one of the only things I’d asked Mike to help me magic at the bed and breakfast. The slippers Dorian Jade made me wear were a not so distant nightmare

Now, we had to sidestep the guards patrolling the community.

“We can’t use magic here. We’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.” Livvy rolled up her sleeves and buttoned them at her elbows. “We’ll scale the wall.”

“You really think that’s the best course of action?” Laina questioned.

“We need to get inside, don’t we? This will be the fastest way as long as we do not get caught.”

Which was the name of the game.

Our superior strength allowed us to climb the wall and scale the metal points atop it with ease. Those kinds of things were mostly a deterrent for humans, while the guards made sure those like us were kept at bay.

There was no stopping us, though. No matter how my knees turned flaccid and my mind wavered, I hopped down on the other side of the fence and braced.

“I know where we can hide.”

The community was vast but there was a place I’d always gone to get away from everything. Even when it felt impossible to escape myself, I’d known how to disappear. This time I led the way through the familiar streets.

For the first time, my unease shifted into anticipation.

The community green space had felt like a home away from home even when the mansion should’ve been large enough to accommodate my uncle’s ego and mine. During the day, the pack members and rich moms walked the trails there and complained about the minutiae of their lives. It would probably be packed right now.

I’d always waited for night to go.

Still, we kept to a methodical march up to the black iron fence around the park and slipped through the gate. Up ahead, willow trees marked the entrance to the walking trails and beyond were swing sets and jungle gyms and meadows strategically planted.

Beyond the park, a secondary gate led out to the forest.

My heart skipped a beat.

Would she still be here?

“You’re looking for someone,” Laina put in.

“You’re too perceptive for your own good.” I pointed ahead to the sound of wheels over cement. “Will you guys give me a minute, please? There’s someone I have to talk to.”

And I hoped she would still be around, still willing to talk to me.

Tension kept my shoulders notched up to my ears as I walked further into the park alone. I stepped between large oaks which kept the path shielded during the day, and slipped unnoticed through the shadows.

Elfwaite had been the one person in the world who knew about me and hadn’t cared. Well, she cared about my feelings, my well-being, and my safety. No judgment and never any condemnation.

A true friend.

I could be myself around her.

Tears stung the corners of my eyes as I glanced form side to side checking the bay laurel bushes for the familiar flutter of wings.

“Elfwaite?” I called out.

I straightened and stepped out of the way of a frustrated mother pushing a stroller with two squabbling children belted inside. Once they passed, I let out a breath and stepped off the path entirely. Leaves crunched underfoot.

“Elfwaite, are you here?”

Further into the buttery gloam, I saw nothing and heard less, but at least the toddlers’ screams faded. I blew out a breath and almost screeched myself when a tiny purple-skinned pixie flew in front of my nose.

“Tavi! Oh my goodness! I never thought I’d see your face again!”

There was no hugging without squashing her. Elfwaite was only four inches tall and her voice as soft as the hint of a breeze through a flower. But I held up my index finger for her to wrap her arms around and the second she made contact, the tears sprang free.

“I’ve missed you so much,” I gulped out. “You have no idea.”

“Where have you been? You just disappeared on me! One minute you’re here, running away from your own birthday party, and then nothing.” Her nostrils flared delicately and her eyes shone with ire. She slapped at my skin but I felt nothing. “Do you have any idea how worried I was?”

“Do you have any idea how rare it is to see a pixie in this land?”

I shouldn't have been surprised that Laina followed me. But it sure shocked me to hear the awe in her tone.

I cupped one hand protectively around Elfwaite’s madly fluttering wings and glanced over my shoulder. Unsure what to say.

“Your Majesty.” Elfwaite was breathless. She broke away from my finger and sketched a bow in midair, her wings working overtime. “It’s my honor to be in your presence.”

I cleared my throat. “Her family left Faerie a hundred years ago.”

“The great Pixie War,” Elfwaite clarified. “I was born in the human lands.”

“She helped me learn about Faerie,” I added. “We met by accident. A great accident.”

“Pixies and wolves, even half-wolves, have never been friends before.” Livvy stepped up beside Laina. Her gaze remained shadowed. She stared between the two of us.

I scrambled off my knees to face the two moms. “She was the best friend I had growing up and nicer to me than any of my supposed kind .” I’d defend her no matter what happened.

Laina held up her hands to show she meant no harm. “It’s merely curiosity.” She stared at the two of us with her head tilted to the side. “An interesting twist of fate, one might say.”

“I’m sorry I ran off.” I pried my attention away from them, focusing entirely on Elfwaite. “I shouldn't have left you out in the cold that way. I should have found a way to write.”

“What happened?” she whispered, casting furtive glances back at the Queen of Faerie. “Why are you with the queen? And who is that other woman?”

Her little body vibrated against mine as she rested on my palm. As it always did, the magic sizzled and cracked between us, as real as it had ever been, and the constriction in my chest lightened.

“It’s a really long story.”

“As long as the story of why you’re back now? With the queen? ” She’d repeated it for emphasis.

A laugh got trapped in my throat. “Yeah, exactly. You know I have a habit of keeping strange company.”

“But it’s the queen , Tavi. She’s not your run-of-the-mill friend.”

“I know. And I promise I’m going to tell you everything. Right now, we could use your help.”

Elfwaite blinked. “Anything. You say the word and I’m there.”

I’d never been more grateful for another living being in my life. The tears just kept coming and I didn’t want to stop them. Not when they fell from gratitude and happiness and absolute pure love for this little pixie. She’d never backed down from a challenge and she’d always been willing to listen to me gripe even on her own hard days.

She knew how rough it was to be away from your family.

“Would you be willing to watch the house for us? Let us know when Uncle Will leaves. I think we’re too late for him to still be at the office.”

“I’m more than happy to assist. Whatever you need.”

“Please let us know when he’s gone, then.”

She shot me a look that said I was not getting off the hook for disappearing without a trace, then zipped off, leaving a trail like a lightning bug behind her. The after image faded and in the quiet of her departure, I was keenly aware of the moms watching me.