Chapter 46

Chapter 46

F or the first few seconds, nothing happened. For one brief, blissful moment after drinking it, all Fey felt was a pang of disappointment, a sliver of embarrassment that she'd expected something, anything at all, to have happened. That a part of her had maybe wanted something to happen.

And then pain filled her entire body, and Fey felt nothing but searing agony.

I'm dying , she thought as she screamed. Her body arched painfully, and she collapsed, writhing on the ground. She's poisoned me, and I'm dying, truly dying.

The golden liquid burned through her veins, and Fey's whole body was on fire with it. She felt it in her blood, pulsing through every part of her, nothing but burning, agonizing pain.

Fey tried to call Water to calm herself, tried to counter this sudden power coursing through her with her own. And her power responded, even stronger than usual, rushing to fill her veins and displace the poison inside her. But this other power, whatever it was, smothered it immediately. The Water she called evaporated into nothing, and the pain surged, stronger than ever .

She was screaming, but through the sounds of her own torture, somewhere far away she could hear Alice.

"You have to embrace it, Fey," she was saying, her voice panicked. "Stop fighting it, you have to let it in. Please, listen to me."

But the pain made the words incomprehensible. Again, Fey called to Water, and again it rushed to answer her like a torrent of raw energy, a world-shattering level of power far beyond what she was capable of. It crashed through her, filling her. And again, that burning in her veins flared in response, smothering every morsel of power she had called, turning it to nothing but vapor.

It was getting worse. She was going to die of this. She was burning alive from the inside, her very bones melting from some invisible heat. This was worse than her fall from the cliff, worse than anything any Witch had ever lived through before. There was no way anyone could survive this.

Something was touching her face, something cool and soft, cradling her cheeks. Hands. Someone was holding her face in their hands, gently. With love.

"Please, Fey." Alice was crying. Her hands were so cold against Fey's skin, like ice. Why was she so cold? Didn't she feel the heat in this room, couldn't she feel the burning? "Please don't fight it. Goddess help me, listen to me Fey, you need to embrace it. I can't lose you again, please ."

Fey tried to summon Water again, but it felt so distant now, so far from her grasp. Air, then. The world outside her became a whirlwind, her secondary power swirling around her like a protective cocoon, buffeting against Alice as she struggled to hold on to her.

But it did nothing to relieve the pain inside of her, and again Fey screamed, her throat burning from it, like fire was raging up her lungs and out her mouth. The floor roiled beneath her back, moving like it was alive. A living, angry thing, a serpent curled in the ground waiting to strike.

Alice was swearing, but her hands remained steady and cool against Fey's skin.

"Please," she whispered, one last plea. And she sounded so lost, so small, that Fey stopped fighting for a moment. Alice always knew what to do. Alice had never sounded lost, never sounded that scared …

As soon as she stopped fighting, the burning inside of her changed. In that small moment she had stopped calling Air, stopped trying to fight the fire inside of her with Water, the power inside Fey surged and overtook every cell in her body. But it didn't hurt as much, suddenly. The fire licked against her skin from inside her, pulsed inside her.

Let me out, it hummed to her, in a voice that sounded just like her own. Let me free.

And with one final scream, Fey did just that.

Fire flowed from her skin. Fire came to her call, answering her call stronger than Air ever had. Almost stronger than Water.

Alice finally let her go, stumbling back and swearing, beating the flames from her clothes, as Fey's eyes opened and she called Fire.

The flames coated her skin, but they didn't burn. Didn't hurt, not anymore, not now that she controlled it. It didn't even singe her clothing.

Fey watched in wordless fascination as the fire danced around her, covering her. A part of her.

"Fey!" Alice warned. "Fey, pull it back!"

But why? A part of her thought, watching it grow around her like a second skin. Why would she ever try to stop it when it was so beautiful? So powerful? How could she ever stop something that felt so good ?

But another, more rational part of her understood the danger. If she kept this up the building would catch fire. The bedroll she had been sitting on was already nothing but ash. She could inadvertently kill everyone in the factory above them, everyone here… including herself.

Including Alice.

Reluctantly, Fey pulled the Fire back, closer to her skin, and it hummed happily in response to her demand. She reigned the power in until the flames were nothing but a single blaze, a dancing ball of white-hot power that fit in the palm of her hand.

"I was right," Alice said in amazement, her eyes wide as saucers. "It works. "

With effort, Fey pulled her eyes from the flame in her hand to look at her.

The flames may not have hurt Fey, but Alice hadn't been so lucky. She held her hands palms up, in her lap, the hands that had held Fey and brought her back into her own body. They were blistered and burned, the skin inflamed and already starting to swell.

The fire in Fey's palm died immediately.

"Alice," she whispered, horrified. "Your hands."

Alice shook her head, with a reassuring smile. "I'm fine, really. Perks of being a Fire Witch, myself—it never hurts me as much as it should. We have healers here, upstairs, anyway—Demons that can draw the burn out, and I'll be as good as new. Honest."

Fey stared down at her own hands. They looked the same, even when she turned them over to look at the backs. Exactly the same. Shouldn't she look different? It seemed impossible that she could be the same Witch on the outside, not with this power roiling inside her.

"Try to call Earth," Alice suggested.

Fey looked over at her like she was crazy, but Alice just smiled. "Just try it, Fey. Trust me. I felt you shift the ground earlier."

So had she. Taking a deep breath, Fey reached inside herself and tried to call Earth.

It was harder. Harder than calling Air, and infinitely harder than calling Water. And it felt… different. Where Fire had been a pulse, and Water a torrential flow, Earth was drum.

But she felt it, felt it in her body just as clearly as she had felt the others. And when she called it, the floor around her shifted, turning liquid and flowing like water for a moment before stilling and returning to its solid state.

"I thought you might have all four," Alice admitted, but she still sounded shocked. "But seeing it? That's something else. That's… wow."

"But…I don't understand," Fey said, staring down at her hands in amazement. "How can I control all four elements? Am I… am I a royal?"

"No," Alice answered instantly, shaking her head. "No, you're not from the royal family. At least, I don't think you are. You've been lied to, Fey. We've all been lied to. The royal family aren't the only ones who can command all four elements," she explained. And she pulled another vial from her pocket—this one silver grey. Fey recognized it instantly, her stomach twisting in horror as she looked at it. She'd been dreaming about that elixir for years, after all. Dreaming about when she drank it during her Awakening.

"They've been poisoning us, Fey." Alice continued. "The Queen's White Priestesses have been poisoning young Witches for generations, making sure no one was ever powerful enough to challenge the throne. What I just gave you? It wasn't Allium.

"It was the antidote."