Page 32 of Faerie Fate (Fae Academy for Halflings #7)

Poppy shot me a look. “Seriously, can you stop questioning and trust me? I know exactly what I’m doing.” She turned abruptly and stopped just as quickly. “Except for that. I don’t know what that is.”

The object in the road was a strange glowing metal beam lying directly across the path, dropped out of the sky like debris from an airplane, the entire wing.

I sucked in a deep breath resulting in an automatic cough. It didn’t matter how far away we were from the fires. The smoke trailed behind us.

“That was never there before. And it’s too wide to step over,” Poppy added in surprise. “Let’s try to go around it in case the pixies are being overly cautious and laying out some kind of booby trap. Capture those butthole fae, or something.”

“Talk about a welcome,” Mike muttered.

“They don’t like outsiders coming around on a decent day. When the fae are about to launch a war? No doubt they’re preparing in the best way they know how.”

Metal, though? I’d expect some kind of booby trap to be made of wood or stone. Something associated with the earth.

“Tread carefully, there,” Poppy called back in warning.

“I’m sure we heard you the first time.” Bronwen was belligerent, stomping directly in Poppy’s footsteps without missing a beat.

My gaze latched on the beam, the strange, out of place rectangle of metal. “This is weird.”

The ground shifted oddly and I flung my arms out for balance. When the tremor passed, I trailed them, last in line. The next step, however, never made contact with the ground. A loud grind of stone on stone and the ground gave out.

My magic flared instinctively with the fresh flow of panic.

The magic twisted my muscles, shortening and hollowing out my bones.

My bird form kept me aloft, hovering over the sudden fissure that had appeared.

Luckily Mike and Bronwen were far enough away to avoid the cave-in. Unluckily Poppy was not.

She fell through into the pit.

With a roar, she blasted magic beneath her to soften the landing but she was a hair too late, taken by surprise. She hit the ground hard on both legs and crumpled with a surprised grunt.

“Oh my goddess!” Bronwen peered over the edge of the pit.

I flew down to Poppy, my heart in my chest, and shifted back to human form.

“Is she okay?” Mike called down from above.

Noren whined, but with my head spinning and my eyes slow to adjust to the change in light, I had no definitive answer for them.

“I think we’re okay.”

My voice echoed back to me as I bent over Poppy. She didn’t smack my hands away, which boded ill for whatever I’d find when I pushed her dress back. Her legs were twisted at a strange angle underneath her and her ankle was already hot and swollen and turning a reddish-purple.

“I’m fairly certain you broke your ankle,” I said to her in an undertone.

“Certain, are you?” she bit back. “Get my bag. It dropped off my shoulder during the fall. It’s over there. I’ve got a potion in there to mend bones. At least, it’s meant to.”

I reared up, my skin still tingling from the quickness of the shift. The pack rested a few paces away, buried under a slight hill of gravel and debris.

My eyes finally adjusted to the dimness. It wasn’t a man-made hole. Not unless the pixies had capabilities beyond anything I’d heard. It seemed like we accidentally stumbled on some kind of flimsy entrance to an underground cavern.

Beyond the hole, a wide tunnel cut deeper into the earth, with calcite and limestone formations marking the entrance.

“See something more interesting than my potion?” Poppy huffed.

“Sarcasm isn’t appreciated. It’s some kind of cave. We must have stepped into a sinkhole.”

She laughed. “It wasn’t a sinkhole, girl. Take a better look around you if you’re going to lollygag.”

Okay, I might have to amend my earlier opinion. The room where we fell was circular, with six arches leading off from the main space. All of them were equally black.

I bent to grab the strap of her bag, my attention zeroed in on the middle arch.

Poppy dragged herself to her feet and hopped over to the nearest archway. She pointed to a mark in the stone. “Still think it’s a cave? Tavi, these tunnels aren’t natural. They were dug out.”

“How long ago?”

“Long. I have a feeling we were meant to go around that metal beam. It was definitely a trap. A misdirection. A person can easily get lost in these tunnels if they aren’t aware.”

I clutched the bag to my chest. “Maybe it’s like a safe house.”

The lines on her forehead became deeper. Her mouth pursed, lips going bloodless. She held out a hand for the bag and dug out the potion from the recesses. Uncorking the bottle with her teeth, she clumsily poured it onto her bare skin, her hands shaking.

“What’s wrong?”

“The pixies don’t just farm vegetables and fruits and morsana flowers,” she said. “How much do you know about them?”

“Not much,” I admitted.

“Because fae history, the kind you’re taught, glosses over what the faeries have done to other races with magic powers.”

“There’s been no account of what the pixies specialize in, or their magic, outside of the casualties both sides suffered during the Great War,” I replied hopelessly.

Poppy smeared the potion over her ankle. “No, there wouldn’t be, of course.

But something was definitely wrong. If her paleness weren’t enough of a warning, the way her fingers continued to tremble gave away her nerves.

“They also breed and train burrendiggers. Have you?—”

“What the hell is that?”

She smirked at me over her shoulder, and after a pause, said, “You don’t want to know. We need to get out of here.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. The skin on the back of my neck tightened, prickling with alarm. My magic wound its way higher up from the well inside of me, ready to be used, and its appearance after so long was both a balm and a bane. The scar on my neck throbbed.

“I should be able to change into something and fly us out of here.”

“I’m too heavy. My powers will recharge in a second, as soon as the bone knits back together.” She ground her teeth. “I’ll carry myself. Why don’t you head out?”

“I’d feel better not leaving you behind.”

“Trust me, I’m not helpless. I know exactly how to take care of myself. Or in your words, I’m fine .”

She said the last bit in a passable imitation of me and for the first time since the cave-in, I grinned.

“You should really go into standup comedy.”

Poppy straightened and cleaned her hands on the front of her dress. “What’s that?”

A roar rumbled down from one of the six tunnels. Like a freight train barreling toward us and growing louder even as my heart picked up a devastating pace.

Dirt and rocks fell from above.

“Watch out!”

I glanced up in time to see Mike and Bronwen dance away from the destruction of the hole before they fell in too.

Poppy’s terror was palpable. For the first time since I’d met her, she looked as scared as I felt. She met my eyes.

“Burrendigger,” she whispered.