Chapter 28

Chapter 28

S he was in a dream.

No, Fey thought, panic surging through her. Not again. Please Goddess, no, not again.

The steps to the temple entrance stretched before her, an endless staircase of cold white marble leading up,

up,

up .

She tried to turn around, tried to go back—wherever back was, here—but there were too many people. Too many girls crowding the steps, too many bodies moving upward, pushing her up the stairs. She was caught up in the stream of bodies, unable to move against them, unable to get away.

This isn't what happened , something inside her was insisting. A voice, her voice from somewhere deep inside herself, but it was distant and growing more distant with each step she was forced to climb. It was fading to a whisper, a plea from somewhere far, far away, until it finally faded to nothing.

When she reached the top of the stairs, the other bodies around her vanished, the stairs at her back vanished, and it was just her and the White Priestess standing in that room, once again .

"Water," the old woman demanded, extending an aged finger toward her. She said it with a voice full of scorn and anger, a voice completely unlike the one from Fey's memories.

Fey didn't understand what she wanted, what she was asking for.

"Water!" the woman shouted, pointing. Her face contorted with rage, her mouth an open sneer revealing age-blackened teeth.

Fey opened her mouth to protest, to beg for some sort of explanation, but no words came out. Instead, water flowed out from between her lips and down her chin, and Fey brought her hands to her mouth, horrified.

She closed her mouth tightly, clasping her fingers across her lips, but the water continued to flow from her, spilling down her front and pooling on the marble floor.

It came from everywhere. Water spilled like tears from her eyes and flowed from her ears, from her nose. It seeped from her very skin, and when she screamed, it was nothing but a strangled gurgling against the flow of water.

Fey's eyes snapped open, her heart pounding against her ribcage. She tried to sit up, but she couldn't move her body. She was heavy, far too heavy, and Goddess spare her she hurt .

For several long seconds, there was nothing but the pain. No thoughts, no awareness, nothing but the oppressive, suffocating pain that filled every inch of her body.

Slowly, oh so slowly, she became aware of the world around her.

She was in a bed—she could feel that much. But she couldn't move her head to look around at her surroundings. Couldn't move anything at all. Her muscles were heavy and leaden, and just thinking about moving them hurt.

Fey tried to speak, instead, but her throat burned like fire, and all she managed to make was a terrible, strained croaking sound.

Someone was next to her, curled by her side near enough to be touching, and when Fey tried to speak again, the person stirred.

"Fey?" a voice asked, heavy with sleep .

Willow's face appeared above her, eyes red-lined, her hair unkempt and messy from sleep. Seeing Fey awake, her eyes widened.

"She's awake!" Willow shouted, not taking her eyes from Fey's face. "Guys? Guys, come here, she's awake!"

Fey made another pained sound, and Willow winced.

"Don't try to talk," she insisted. "Your throat was damaged from the fire. You could hurt yourself."

Fire? Fey's head was spinning. Memories were jumbled together, hazy and indistinct. Then she remembered the ambush, the Shifter, the desperate leap to the water below…

She opened her mouth again, but Willow just shook her head frantically.

"Don't talk!" she insisted. "You're going to hurt yourself. You have to be still while your body heals, you're?—"

A door opened somewhere in the room, and suddenly they were all there. Her sisters. Joy and Lilith joined Willow above her, staring down at her.

"You're alive," Lilith whispered in astonishment.

"Oh, thank the Goddess," Joy sobbed, tears streaming down her face.

I am alive , Fey realized.

And then she closed her eyes and tumbled back into the void of unconsciousness.

Fey spent the next few days slipping in and out of sleep. When she was awake, her sisters helped her eat, giving her healing elixirs left by the Med Witch who had attended her before she woke. They soothed the constant ache in her throat, but still, she couldn't speak in those first few days.

Bit by bit, she returned to her body. She'd been hurt badly. Whether from the fight or the fall, they weren't sure. She'd been found near death, her body broken and burned, washed up on the shore of the river. She'd lost her mask in the water, but the civilian who'd found her had recognized her uniform, recognized the mark on her forearm: a member of the Queen's Blades, hurt and in need of aid.

She'd been rushed to a Med Witch, barely alive, and once her sisters had been contacted, they'd brought her here, to one of their safe houses in the city.

"What happened to you, sister?" Joy asked her the second time Fey had woken.

But Fey had just shaken her head. Unable to talk, unable to explain anything. And Joy hadn't asked again.

It was two weeks before Fey could get out of bed. Even with the best Med Witches in the city, even with the constant care of her sisters and the sigils covering her skin that promised strength and fast healing. Someone had repaired her healing sigil, but even with its power, two and a half weeks passed before she could speak without pain.

"It was an elixir," were the first words Fey spoke, the most important words, the ones that had been burning in her mind for weeks while her body rebuilt itself. Her voice was strained, the pitch deeper and huskier than usual. "In the warehouse. Not devil dust. An elixir."

Joy's eyebrows rose in shock, but Lilith's face darkened.

"You're still going after this?" Lilith asked at the same time Joy breathlessly said, "What do you mean, an elixir? Fey, who attacked you?"

Fey shook her head. "I don't know," she whispered, and though the words hurt her throat, the pain of not knowing who their enemy was hurt more. "A Shifter? I didn't recognize them. Panther, I think. Something big, with claws."

Sharp, deadly claws and her arms and shoulders would carry the scars to prove it.

Lilith stood from the bed. "No," she snapped. "No, Fey, this is enough. You can't do this anymore. You can't keep doing this to us."

Joy turned toward her, frowning. "Sister," she said in a soft, consoling voice.

Face twisted in rage, Lilith spun toward her. "No! Don't you dare , Joy. I'm not going to sit back and be quiet about this anymore." Turning her fury on Fey, she shouted. "You could have died! "

The words filled the air between them, and Fey blinked, shocked at the anger, the emotions in Lilith's voice.

While she spoke, Lilith's hands shook. Her face was cracking, breaking with an emotion too powerful for words. Under that anger, that fury… pain. Fear. "You could have died ," she whispered, voice breaking. Her cheeks glistened, and Fey realized with shock that her sister was crying.

She'd never seen Lilith cry before. Not once.

Fey's hand rose to touch her face, and she realized she was crying, too.

"You went out there on your own. You went chasing this, this—" Lilith gestured around her, like couldn't find the words. "This stupid fucking mystery of yours. And you almost died , Fey. Even after you were found, even after we brought you here, we didn't know if you'd make it. No one could tell us if you were going to make it!"

Fey opened her mouth to speak, but Lilith cut her off before she could even think of what she would say.

"No, you don't get to explain, you don't get to talk. You left us , Fey. You left us and you almost got yourself killed." Lilith was openly sobbing now, her shoulders shaking from it. "I told you to let it go, but no. You had to keep looking for problems, you had to question our orders, and you did it on your own."

Lilith rubbed at the tears on her face with her hand in a furious motion. "I told you to let it go. I told you ." She shuddered with the strength of her anger, her pain, before turning her back on them and storming to the bedroom door.

"You're going to end up just like her if you keep this up," Lilith said, stopping in the doorway for just long enough to fling the words back into the room like a curse. "You're going to end up just like Alice. And I can't handle that, Fey. I can't live through that again."

Lilith left them there, and a moment later they heard the front door of their safe house apartment slam behind her.

Joy sighed heavily.

"She'll be okay," she insisted—reaching out to rest a comforting hand on Fey's. "She just needs some time. She was scared. We all were."

"I'm sorry," Fey sobbed. She wasn't sure exactly what she was apologizing for. There was so much. So much she'd done wrong, so much she'd fucked up. Lilith was right—she could have died, could have been torn away from her sisters just like Alice, and her absence would have left another hole in their hearts that nothing could fill.

But Joy just squeezed her hand and smiled that bright smile of hers. That smile that felt like a sunrise after a dark, terrifying night.

"It's okay. It'll be okay, Fey. You're alive, and that's what matters. You're alive, and you're here with us."