Page 99

Atta reached out and took one step forward. The trees around her were on fire, Fae of all kinds screaming. Atta covered her ears, but one of the Fae got through, screeching at her, pulling her hair until she thought her neck would snap.

“Mine! Mine!” it hissed in a tongue she somehow knew but had never heard.

The buzzing invaded her skull and she covered her ears, gasping back to the present. “Cover your ears!” she shouted to Sonder, but he was already ripping up a portion of his shirt, shoving twisted bits in her ears. She clamped her hands around his until he was through and shoved pieces into his own ears.

Everything was muffled, but Atta could still hear the screeching, the buzzing. “Mine, mine,mine,” on repeat until she finally understood.

“He’s not yours!” she bellowed, dousing Mr Whelan with bits of iron-infused moonwater, but a vine coated in black blood and dislodged viscera was snaking out of his nose, his mouth. He arched his back, writhing on the bed, gagging.

“Syringe!” Sonder shouted, and they both moved. “Sing, Atta!”

And she did. In a language she’d never spoken until she was a ghoul in the corner, a spectre on the ceiling, a woman outside her body.

A mist lifted off the vine, like fog off a lake in the morning, and Sonder bound it with black salt while Atta solidified it, shoving the needle toward its tiny jugular. The faerie twisted free, only a fraction of the Yarrow and iron fluid making it into its body. But it was enough for Sonder to reach out and snatch it.

With his teeth bared, he gripped the writhing, gnashing faerie with his gloved hand. “Jar!”

Atta already had it open, and he shoved the creature inside. Instantly, the hornets dropped dead, falling in small heaps in Whelan’s bloody eye sockets.

Hot. She was too hot.

Sonder fastened the lid on with no embalming fluid to kill it this time. They wanted to study it alive. Moving.

Dizziness washed over Atta and she sank to the floor. She heard Sonder say her name, but it was muffled by more than the strip of his shirt shoved in her ears.

The next thing she knew, he was crouched in front of her, ripping off her blazer, shoving a bottle of water in her hands.

Something pulled his attention away and he stood, his face marred with indecision, looking from Mr Whelan on the bed, to her. In the end, he chose her. He pulled her to a wall and propped her up. Took her water and doused what was left of the hem of his shirt in it and pressed it to her forehead, taking the strips out of her ears.

“Atta.” The fear in his voice pierced her heart but he was a mirage and she couldn’t answer. “Darling, please talk to me. What is it? What’s wrong?”

She didn’t know. But there was a shimmer clouding Sonder, making him blurry, and all she could hear was, “Mine,” hissed in that ancient Fae tongue.

“No,” she managed. “Not yours.” The fire in her bones roared and she stood up, finally understanding what was happening. “Not yours,” she growled in its tongue at the shimmer above Sonder’s head. “Mine.”

It popped, like a soap bubble, and everything returned to focus, Sonder’s terrified eyes, his heaving chest, Mr Whelan moaning on the bed.

“Whelan!” she let out, rushing to his bedside.

Sonder followed, opened his medical bag, and set to work, but he kept watching her, question in his eyes.

“I’m all right,” she told him gently, and he took a shuddering breath. “I’m all right.”

“Jesus, you scared me.” His tone broke her heart and sealed it all back up in tandem.

She stepped to him and put a palm to his face. “Focus on Mr Whelan. I’m all right. I promise.” But it was the second of too many lies she knew would come.

He kissed her forehead hastily and poured all his attention into Whelan.

The hornets had vanished with the spray of Yarrow water, but Mr Whelan’s eyes were gone—gaping black holes of blood—but it wouldn’t kill him.

“He’s in pain,” Sonder announced, “but his vitals are good. Go get his brother.”

Atta donned her mask and did as instructed, trying her best to prepare Whelan the Younger for what he was about to see.

“He’ll need to go to hospital to ensure there is no damage to his organs. And”—she halted him outside the bedroom door—“you should know that his eyes are. . .gone.” Fuck, her bedside manner was not what it should be. “But he’s going to be okay.”

If the sight of his brother frightened him, he didn’t let it show, but rushed to his side, gripping his hand.