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My veins boil. As iron residue leaks into my blood, visions douse my mind. I’m trapped in a cage plugged with water. Black bars lead to freedom but simmer with heat that singes me each time I touch them. I’m smaller, with fewer muscles, and a human girl is poking her bright eyes at me from the bushes.

Those irises draw me in like whirlpools. And how dare she gaze at me as if I’m something special.

I want to punish her for it. I want to retaliate against the mortals for the dying sounds of my kin and our fauna, and I’ll start with her.

I will drown you.

It feels good to scare her, sending the girl scurrying back into the woods. I relish the sight. But then for some reason, I flatten my palms on the glass tank enclosing me and think,Come back.

Then I’m breaking free, raging toward the stream. A scrawny figure tackles me from behind, and we tumble into the depth. Hands wrestle me down, teal irises swirl with hatred, and salt stings into my pores.

Suddenly, my eyes cloud over. I sink into a void as terror gnaws on my ribs.

Then I’m waking up with a wet gasp, like gills sucking on liquid. I cannot see, only hear my mothers’ voices and smell their combined fragrance wafting over me—lilies mixed with spring water, a comforting brew.

Then they’re screaming, and mortals are firing, and my mothers are falling beside me. And they’re not moving. I’m shouting their names, my eyes are lurching wildly, but I cannot find them. Blackness cloaks me in as I listen to them dying.

A mortal screech yanks me from the past like arms pulling me from the sea. A thud fills my ears, and I come to. The battle clamors around me. At some point, I’d collapsed on the grass. The metallic taste of blood drips across my palate, and its acidic scent permeates the field.

Teal engulfs the darkness. Cove’s frantic gaze swims overhead, and she clasps my face. “Elixir!”

My lashes flap. Warm, cloying fluid dribbles from my side. A limp body is sprawled next to me, the scent of my blood clinging to the human’s lifeless form. The mortal had managed two well-placed slashes before Cove got to them.

I would like to quip that she beat me to it, that I was on my way to her first.

“Elixir, no!”

But I do not mind her being quicker.

“Please, don’t!

The vision of her face is a welcome one.

“No!”

Her eyes pool, but it’s okay. I will be okay now that she’s here. It’s not the first time Cove has saved me, because she does it so well.

My knuckles glide across her trembling chin. “I see you.”

A sob unhinges her jaw. Then Puck’s voice appears next to her. “Motherfucker. Don’t you dare, Elixir!”

I mutter words I cannot hear, then growl in protest as they search my frame. Sadly, they locate the vessel inside my baldric and fish the vial from its encasement. Before I can snarl for them to stop, fluid pours onto the wound, froths like foam, and drains into my skin. A soft wad of cloth is stuffed against my side.

My head clears. The mixture from my den fizzles inside me. It won’t extract the iron, but it will staunch the bleeding and stitch the injury.

I’d had one precious dose. It was supposed to be for Cove.

Her eyes alight, features lifting in relief. Puck sighs, “Thank fuck.”

Already, the wound is sealing. I sit upright, about to bark at them for sparing me instead of preserving the vial’s contents. But their upturned heads stifle the urge.

A shadow passes through Cove’s pupils. Horror bleaches her complexion.

Puck mumbles,“Domisökurer almáttukar.”

Fables almighty.

Whatever they see, the rest of the battlefield is noticing as well. Hundreds of surviving bodies waver, both Faeries and humans. That’s when more shouts mow through the field, this time from a distant ledge of the Solitary wild.