“Let me see the wound.”
She doesn’t protest. How very unlike her. I reach for my sister’s arm and carefully unwrap the purple bandages wound around it. The bite happened only days ago and already, it’s basically destroyed her entire arm. Who knew a demon’s bite could be so potent?
Well, demons, apparently. Why else would they hunt fairies?
“It hurts,” I say. It’s not a question. Of course it hurts. It’s a fucking demon bite.
“A little,” Tulip lies.
“I’m going to Dark Falls,” I tell her.
“Don’t do it.”
“I don’t have a choice, Tulip.”
“There’s always a choice.”
I smile. “Now you sound like Mom.”
“Well, she was a smart lady.”
“If I have a choice, then this is the one I’m making, Tulip. I just came to tell you goodbye.”
“I don’t want this to be the last goodbye,” she says. “I don’t want to die without you here, Rose.”
Suddenly, it’s as though I’ve been stabbed in the heart by a thousand tiny daggers.
“I don’t want this to be the last goodbye, either,” I tell her. “So, it won’t be. I’ll come back to you, Tulip. I pledge my life on it.”
Chapter 2
Rose
It’s with a heavy heart that I leave Tulip’s room and go back to the living room of our tiny cottage. Since there’s only one bedroom, Daisy and I have been sleeping in the living room on the floor. We’ve let Tulip have the room to herself so she can be as comfortable as possible. Sometimes one of us will sit up with her, but today that all changes.
“The amulet,” Daisy says. She hands me our mother’s heavy gold amulet. It offers protection and will help ensure I’m undetected as I roam through the city to find the potion that I need to save my sister. There are a lot of different creatures in Dark Falls and none of them are friendly to fairies.
Especially not fairies like me.
I look at the amulet. It’s heavy in my hand. Daisy lifts my hair up so I can hang it carefully around my neck. Then I tuck it under the top of my camisole so it’s undetected by the naked eye.
The reality is that the anquan potion should be easy to find. The dark wizard I spoke to, Martin, told me that his teacher, another wizard, holds vials of it in Dark Falls. Martin gave me a token of worthiness to bring with me to prove that he gave me his blessing in getting it. Once Luther gives me the vial, I can come home and administer it to Tulip.
I just have to make it through the city.
I have to make it to the wizard’s home.
“May the light guide
you,” Daisy whispers, looking at me. She has tears in her eyes and for just a brief second, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing. Then I hear Tulip groan with pain and I steel myself. The sun is rising. It’s time to go.
“The light will guide me,” I tell my sister. “I’ll be back as soon as possible.”
“She has seven days, Rose.”
“I’ll be back before then. Hopefully tomorrow, unless something goes wrong.”
We both know that something always goes wrong with stuff like this. Anytime someone’s life is on the line, everything that can possibly go wrong does. It would be just our luck, too.