Page 35 of Boundless
“Well, it’s Iyandra, which literally meansthe endin Verenthian, and it’s basically death in liquid form. Golems growthe flowers that make it. Back in the day only royalty had the right to it. They make a big deal, throw a last feast and everything, when they decide to go. It’s supposed to feel like a dream. It doesn’t hurt. The fae don’t feel it at all. They just drift into a dream and then die.” Arez shrugged. “It’s how they’ve done it for centuries.”
“Holy fuck, that’s actually insane,” said Betty because I still couldn’t speak.
A drink to end an immortal life. A feast. Holy shit, it made so much sense.
“It is. Fae are really intense in their ways,” Arez said.
“Butwhythough? Why would they want to die? I mean, I’d give up my left arm to be immortal?—”
“Don’t say that. Believe you me, it’s not what people here think,” Arez cut her off. “They get bored. They get tired. After centuries and centuries of the same games, the same life, they just don’t want to bother anymore. And the royals had to eventually step down and give way to their offspring to take the throne—thrones demand it themselves after a while. No fae ruler can sit on one permanently. My momma used to say the fae could never handle loss of power properly. They legit picked death first.”
Something about what Raja said in that cave, about how the Midnight Court wasn’t the same anymore, how the Midnight King had destroyed it. I was finally beginning to understand what that meant.
“Anyway, now any fae can get it. They do kill each other a lot, and only a handful of children are born every dozen or so years, but there are those who choose to buy Iyandra for an early end. It’s pretty standard stuff,” said Arez, her eyes on me still. “Something you should have known, considering you were obviously in Verenthia, up close and personal with the actualMidnight King. I still don’t get why you have magic, though. I saw it with these eyes—how?”
“It’s complicated,” I said because I didn’t want to tell her just yet. I couldn’t handle thinking about it myself without freaking out so it wasn’t just because I didn’t trust her. “Where is this key line you told us about?”
“Oh. I see how it is,” she said, and she didn’t even try to hide how annoyed she was right now. “It’s just outside Prain, possibly an hour away. By car, that is.”
Prain was the town closest to Lavender Hill. It was bigger, with more residents, much livelier than here. We used to go with Dad and Fi before, for movies and shopping, and to just get away from familiar people. I’d always liked Prain.
“What does it look like?” Betty said, and in my mind, I was shifting gears, testing my feet against imaginary pedals, just to make sure that I remembered how to drive. I wasn’t the best, but I did have my license, and Dad had no trouble giving me the car for rides back when I was still excited about driving.
Until he grounded me to never again take his car after one trouble or another Betty and I caused around town. Can’t say I really missed it, but I thought Iwouldknow how to drive. Especially in the night when the roads were mostly clear.
“You can’t actuallyseeit. It’s just like a river of invisible energy. You can tap into it with magic, but I don’t really have much, so I haven’t been able to test anything out,” Arez said, and her eyes moved up to the light over her head. The fae light thatI’dmade with my own hand.
But I’m not fae though,a voice in my head mocked me. I swear, sometimes I was my own worst enemy.
“So, how do you know how to find it?” I asked.
“I already have. I’ve used satellites to pinpoint the locations of the strongest sources during the years, then I’ve double-checked them personally.Thisone is the only one I can tap onbecause it’s closest to the surface. So far, I haven’t found a better location,” she said—and her every word rang true. I was finding it hard to stick to suspicion because she didn’t hesitate for a second.
Betty looked at me, and in her eyes was the question painted clearly for me.
Unfortunately, I already had the answer she was looking for.
“In that case, let’s go.”
eleven
The golem drove,too.
She drove a Smart, one of those tiny things that you could fit pretty much anywhere, and though she promised she would make room for us to join her in there—she had boxes full of paper, others with glitter, and a jar full of feathers that made no senses at all—but I insisted we take my dad’s truck. It was still not even four in the morning, and we could be back before he even woke up. And if we weren’t, I could just text him from Betty’s phone and tell him I would be back home soon.
It was important that we had our own ride back, just in case, and Betty actually agreed.
I didn’t even bother trying to tell her that it was safer if she stayed back—she wouldn’t have let me even finish speaking. So, I saved my breath, got in the car, and drove behind the golem’s tiny car.
Betty kept me distracted, and luckily I hadn’t forgotten how to drive. It was plenty scary at first, but Dad had taught me how to drive in this very truck. Within minutes, I could switch gears without really thinking about it, half my mind on Betty’sconspiracy theories about Arez and the reason why she had been banished from Verenthia.
We arrived in Parin a little before five a.m., and just like I expected, the streets were pretty much deserted. We saw a handful of cars passing by, but nobody paid us any attention. I followed the small car through the wide streets of the town, and toward the trees in the distance. The sky was slowly becoming lighter by the minute, so I could see that we were headed toward a forest up a low hill. It was quiet in Parin and we drove with the windows down, in silence that last part of the ride. Lost in our own thoughts.
So many of them ran through my mind, but I couldn’t help but feel somewhat at peace at the same time. I couldn’t help but appreciate the calm surrounding me. The quiet. Arightkind of quiet—not like in Verenthia, in those fae towns. A normalquiet. A town that was asleep and full of life. No magic and no curses anywhere in sight.
Then the golem signaled left and parked her car just at the mouth of a narrow road between large trees that looked deserted. I parked my dad’s truck behind her, too, and when she got out of her car, Betty and I got out of the truck.
My magic buzzed underneath my skin. I imagined a thousand scenarios on the way, in which she was luring me here to trap me or something, that she was working for Lyall and thathewas here just waiting for me to show up so he could kill me.