Page 33 of Faerie Fate (Fae Academy for Halflings #7)

Chapter Twenty-Two

P oppy called up a glowing fae light on her palm. “Run!”

Her yell came at the same time as the force of her push, magic propelling me towards one of the black tunnels.

“Wait a minute!” I hesitated, confused. We had witch magic and fae magic. Why couldn’t we just fight whatever this thing was? Or I’d do as I said and shift into a big bird and carry Poppy out. The change tingled in my veins.

The sheer terror in her eyes landed like pieces of ice in my stomach. “We don’t have time! Run! ”

No time to argue , either .

Instinct took over and the magic that would have changed my form now added an extra boost of speed to my sprints. The two of us took off down the tunnel with only the globe of magic light in her hand to illuminate the way.

A massive crash rocked the earth behind us, the ground shaking like a second earthquake, this one much larger than the one that destroyed the cabin.

The ripple effect sent a shockwave underneath us and we lost our balance at the same time. I fell forward, the air lost from my lungs, and ducked and rolled to avoid crashing my skull into rock.

Shards scraped my cheeks. I recovered quickly enough to glance backward just as a massive stone crashed into the cavernous space where we’d fallen.

But it was nothing compared to the size of the shadow beyond it, something extremely large and black moving among the fallen debris.

“Get up, get up !”

Poppy yanked me by the hair until I scrambled to my feet and we ran.

The pain in my scalp matched the agony in my legs, the strain of pushing myself over debris and stalagmites rising up from the ground and the ache from where the beam had fallen on me.

The tunnel stretched into infinite darkness. The glow of her fae light caught the dark snags of scratches in the stone. Those weren’t made by weapons or machines.

They were made by claws.

Don’t look back .

Don’t look ? —

The rumbling crash of the beast in mad pursuit made it impossible not to steal a glance behind. A large black beast, shapeless and terrifying, caught up to us easily. Except it wasn’t so shapeless now. Not this close.

My lungs seized, my muscles screeching in protest as the flight or fight adrenaline urged me faster than I was capable of going.

The thing moved effortlessly, burrowing through the tunnel as if it were underwater. Thick stone was no barrier for it. The creature left dust in its wake rather than rubble. Tentacles rotated seamlessly around its body and its mouth was a huge gaping maw taking up the entire front of the body.

I saw nothing but row on row of sharp spine-like teeth.

The creature spun as it burrowed. And it was much faster than we were.

When I forced my gaze away from it finally, Poppy was already several paces ahead of me. Her mended bone didn’t hamper her agility any longer and she leaped over stones and boulders like a sprinter on a track. Her fae light bobbed, growing dimmer by the second.

Run. Faster.

There was no more looking back. Not when I knew exactly what was behind us now and could imagine in awful detail how those teeth would feel chomping down.

My magic took on a life of its own. Reacting to gut instinct, the change tore through me. Limbs contorted as my physical body sought the halfling form that would make me much bigger than in my ordinary world.

Still not enough.

I needed more. I needed everything.

The creature wasn’t going to be intimidated by a halfling warrior who barely came up to its shoulder. Still sprinting, I pumped fae magic into the change to make my wolf bigger, faster.

I ducked low to avoid hitting the sharp decline of the roof of the tunnel and nudged Poppy in the back, catching up to her. The creature let out a roar at the distance between us now.

Don’t stop .

Poppy, to her credit, swallowed her screech of surprise at the Herculean wolf I’d become. I growled and dropped my head in a clear indication for her to hop on. Half a beat later, she grabbed hold of the fur at the base of my neck and jumped, wrapping her legs around my torso.

Her fae light bobbed in front of us as if with a mind of its own. The light only illuminated a scant few feet but I followed it. Or rather, it kept pace ahead of me.

A burst of speed put some much needed distance between us and the creature.

I wove in and out of tunnels to outrun it, the huffs and roars and terrible screech of claw on stone growing muted. A little further and maybe we’d be able to lose it. Although these tunnels were its home. How many more of them were out there?

The wolf thing I’d become might consider taking on the creature but the terrified human inside knew better than to press my luck.

Poppy wrapped her arms tighter around my neck. “Go, go, go !”

Her grip threatened to choke the life out of me but if it got both of us out of these fucking tunnels, then?—

The next turn brought us against a solid stone wall. I pulled up short with an exhale, my lungs straining. My clawed feet dug grooves to stop me from outright crashing.

Shit, what did we do now? Where did we go?

Did we blast through the wall? Did either of us have the strength for such a feat? Not knowing how thick the stones were, was it smart to waste energy on that?

Or should we kill the burrendigger?

Once again, magic decided for me.

I bucked Poppy off my back to get her out of the line of fire and with a burst of power, I delved even deeper into my transfiguration powers. Not just shifting . I had two innate powers for a reason, didn’t I?

The magic decided the form for me, the form I felt would have the most destructive power against the creature.

The picture formed in my head and the magic took root, changing me in a way I’d only tried once before. The pen. The pen had been an awful transformation, into something without a mind, something cold and unfeeling and still. Something that trapped the life within me and smashed it down.

Changing to inanimate objects wasn’t smart. I’d told myself not to do it again. Made a solemn promise. But my subconscious folded into tiny portions, pushed back into the box in my mind. The small shred of Tavi still left maintained the image with the necessary magic.

I didn’t know the rules to these powers. There were so many rules to my fae gifts…but it was possible.

What happens when Poppy shoots?

Too late.

I was winging it again, in a dangerous situation which left me no time to think straight or regret.

The image of the gun held steady in my head. My skin turned to metal, my insides rearranging themselves to form the chamber. My body continued to shrink and compact even though logic protested. I’d gone from a form that was too large to something small and strange.

Poppy only stared at the Tavi gun, hovering in midair.

This is a very bad idea .

“What is that? What did you do?”

Wait…what?

Had she never seen a gun before? I didn’t expect that .

Rocks slid, grinding against each other, the air growing warmer with the creature’s breath. A low growl sounded from around the corner.

The small shred of magical consciousness left allowed me to open the connection between us. “Pick me up. Pull the trigger. I’ll be able to kill this thing. You have to aim for whatever part of it is the weakest.”

Even the small amount of magic that let me communicate took a toll. My reality shrank even further when Poppy picked me up.

The beast came into sight with a flash of those lethal fangs. Poppy’s hands were warm on my handle, steady on the trigger, and she let loose with the bullets.

Without eyes to see, my other senses took up the bulk of responsibility.

So strange. The passage of time meant nothing to me but this was different to blacking out.

I recognized movement when Poppy’s fingers tightened and held me steady.

I heard the gunshots go off, each one of them accompanied by pain ricocheting through me.

Poppy stepped forward, her groan of despair vibrating through me, and I settled into the pain. Waiting until it subsided.

Finally, the beast’s grunts subsided. The gurgles fell silent, my gun body pained and vibrating.

Something was wrong.

I felt Poppy set me down.

“Can you…change back now?” she whispered. “You’re scaring me.”

I sent the magic through me, ready for my skin to stretch and spread and go loose. Ready to feel my lungs inflate again and to work my jaw, tilt my head. Ready for the tang of magic to sear my nose.

The first attempt to shift brought with it a rush of pain so devastating it stopped the magic in its tracks.

Never again. I said I’d never shift into an inanimate object again because it wasn’t worth it.

But trying to shift back to human once more knocked me on my ass, dropping my magic to dangerously low levels.

“Tavi? Follow the sound of my voice. Come on, stupid girl, you can do it.”

Poppy calling my name was distant, too. Someone having a muttered conversation in an adjoining room kind of distant. She had no clue what was happening. She just wanted to draw me back.

I tried again to change back but the agony kept me locked in place. Stuck. If I had eyes, they’d be crying.

Poppy hopefully sensed the wrongness of the situation. She picked me back up, cradling me against the warmth of her chest.

“Okay. Okay, not to worry. It’s gonna be fine. Whatever it is you need, I’ll make sure it’s taken care of,” she said. “The burrendigger is dead, at least. We’ll call that a silver lining.”

Her movement jostled me. We were walking through the tunnels. Moving from one place to another and retracing our steps before Poppy finally let out a rush of air.

“Oh, thank god,” she muttered under her breath.

What had she found?

A breeze tickled against the cold metal of the barrel. Was it fresh air? Maybe she’d found a way out.

She said nothing throughout the rest of the trek.

And then, strangely, “Poppy! There you are! What happened? Where’s Tavi?”

Bronwen’s voice. Poppy didn’t slow her steps at her approach to the others.

“We’re both here. It wasn’t an easy trip, let me tell you. Stop fussing! I’m in one piece, aren’t I? Stop. Oh, gosh, don’t cry.”

“Where’s Tavi ?” Mike’s voice was panicked. “I don’t see her with you.”

Poppy paused for a moment. “A lot happened in the tunnels.” She gripped me tighter against her chest. Her heart beat erratically. “And, ah…”

Trailing off, she held me out in front of her. The open breeze and the sun warmed my metal but it wasn’t enough to ease the agony of existence. Not even a little bit.

“Poppy, where the hell did you get a gun?” Bronwen’s voice was strained.

“It’s Tavi , clearly. She changed into this, what did you call it, a gun, and she hasn’t shifted back.”

“A gun is a modern-day weapon that has small metal rounds called bullets inside of it, fired at very high speeds. The bullets can kill whatever you aim it at,” Mike explained.

What was left of my heart gave a low throb. Mike sounded strange. His voice was a thrum inside me but the reality of him felt teasingly out of reach. I couldn’t picture him. I couldn’t place his emotion.

“Well, there are no guns in Faerie. Maybe you have them in modern-day Faerie but back in my time, guns haven’t been invented.” Poppy’s hand vibrated. “It’s a strange-looking weapon, isn’t it?”

“Why would she do it? Why would she turn herself into a gun?”

Footsteps thudded on dirt. Was Bronwen pacing? I imagined her face, the horror rounding her eyes.

“Because I guess she thought it was the best way to deal with a pissed-off burrendigger,” Poppy snapped. “I admit, it was effective. Never seen the beast go down quite so quickly.”

“Did you shoot the Tavi gun?” Horror dripped from each of Bronwen’s words.

“Yes, many times.” Poppy bit out each word with enough heaviness to make Bronwen understand the stakes. “I had to kill the monster trying to kill us. Get it?”

“Those bullets are pieces of Tavi. If she changed into the gun, then anything you fired is made up of her .” Bronwen’s horror only grew louder, screaming at me, implanting the sensation in the last shreds of my mind.

“In order for Tavi to shift back, we have to retrieve every single bullet and replace them. Otherwise?—”

“She’s stuck like this,” Mike filled in. “Permanently.”