26
CERRI
This was dumb. I knew better, but here I was, still marching my way through Beryl’s restaurant with purpose in my step. My breath trembled and there were nervous butterflies in the pit of my gut, but I had to do this. My determination remained steady, as did my arcana.
The only plants inside the restaurant were the rose buds placed on each table. When my arcana met the little flowers, I felt a twinge of shadowy magic. With a wave of my hand, I cast sunlight over the shadows and shoved them away so I could take over the roses and turned them into all-consuming vines that smothered the tables.
Patrons screamed and leapt back from their tables. While chaos erupted upstairs, I found the door that led down into Beryl’s underground court. My feet knew the way like I’d been here before even though I’d never set foot near Beryl’s overpriced restaurant.
This was the kind of place that flaunted tiny plates and expensive ingredients as if that meant anything. It was the antithesis of my style. I wanted to fill plates and leave my patrons brimming with contented joy rather than with a starving emptiness.
But this restaurant used to belong to my parents. The Seelie Court had existed here, too. It wasn’t like Beryl had built this up around herself. She’d snuck in like a foreign bird overtaking another nest to make it her own. That’s how my feet knew the way down into Beryl’s dark court.
This deep into the earth, I couldn’t smell the dirt or even the nearby lake. Instead, the smell of blood permeated my senses. Cold rushed over my skin and chased away the warmth of my sunny arcana. For a moment, I paused and gasped for air like it’d been forced out of me.
My arcana came back, but slowly. I gripped the railing and wondered if this would be a good idea. There was no going back. I could walk in-between, using each step down as a moment between. But if I did, then nothing would ever stop.
Beryl would continue to harass my friends. She would continue to hunt me. This needed to end now. I would give her what she wanted today, but I would make it insanely hard for her. I would put up the fight of a lifetime, even with my timeline horrendously split.
The moment that I realized the version of Rhoan standing in the kitchen with me was a glamour, I’d sent a quick text off to Addie. I warned her that I was going to do something stupid and that I needed her to give my fate threads the Duct Tape treatment. If she could hold them together for a short while, then there was a chance that I would survive this.
Addie hadn’t asked questions. We were all a little foolhardy. If one jumped, then the others would follow. When I’d left, Ness had still been defending me. I had more people on my side than I’d wanted to believe. My friends were like sisters to me. They were the family that I never got to have, and they would have my back no matter what stupid stunt I pulled.
Right when I should have reached the bottom of the staircase and stepped into Beryl’s court, the scenery changed. Magic rippled over my skin, but it wasn’t beryl’s flavor of Unseelie magic. This felt more familiar.
I stepped into a hedge maze with tall, green walls on either side of me. I scowled up at the hedges and the sliver of sky above.
“What the heck?” I asked under my breath.
No one answered.
I guess I hadn’t been expecting an answer, but disappointment still made my stomach heavy. I’d wanted someone here, someone to guide me forward. There was no golden thread here. There wasn’t even an exit.
When I turned, the staircase was gone. There was no hint of where I’d come from at all. I groaned and faced forward. Though my feet seemed to weigh more than a ton of bricks, I still pushed forward.
The hedges slowly changed. Their green foliage glimmered like emeralds. Tiny flowers blossomed on the surface while sharp thorns wounds into tight knots underneath. I reached out and grazed the rim of a flower only to jerk back when something pierced my skin.
Thumb in my mouth, I glared at the savage landscape. It shook at me in warning.
“Don’t be such a prick,” I snapped.
The hedge seemed to laugh at my pun. Could I make friends with the plant-life around me?I reached out with my arcana only to have it kicked back at me. I recoiled.
“All right. Fine then,” I grumbled before moving on.
Rhoan
“That little—”I cut myself off before I said something offensive about my princess.
Ness covered her mouth and laughed, but the corners of her eyes soon pinched with worry as the reality of the situation settled in. Together, the three of us and Feri stood in the kitchen where Cerrishouldhave been.
But she wasn’t anywhere to be found. The woman had taken off, using the very trick that I’d taught her so she could throw herself at Beryl’s feet. What had she been thinking? There was no way that Cerri stood to gain anything from a head-to-head battle this early.
We needed more allies, more plans, more everything!
Glancing to Ryder and Ness, I quickly crossed them off my potential ally list. This wasn’t out of spite or anger. I’d learned that Ness was pregnant. Even if she wanted to help her oldest friend, there was no way that Ryder would let her get involved. I was inclined to agree with the Pack Alpha for once.
That meant I needed to find the other allies on my side. Cerri’s friends were out of commission. One was pregnant. One was sleeping off the drunken stupor of fae wine, and the last one knew too much about what lurked inside me.