Page 34 of Faerie Fate (Fae Academy for Halflings #7)

Chapter Twenty-Three

I knew enough to understand that I was the stupidest person alive.

I’d gone too far, shrunk myself past the point of no return?—

And if I were in the right frame of mind, I’d have leaned into the incredible dumbness and chastised myself to within an inch of my life. Trapped in the form of the gun, there were only half-remembered sensations of shame and worry. Nothing else.

Nothing more.

If I’d known the rules of my power, if I’d understood the limitations a little better, then I’d have seen how unsafe it was to turn myself into something with pieces to lose. I’d just wanted to protect Poppy.

If Poppy died, there would be no Mike. It had been the only thought in my head. I’d needed a weapon capable of great destruction against a fantastical beast.

Had I ever had a real classroom lesson to learn about the transfiguration powers?

No, I hadn’t. The academy had been focused on teaching me the limits of my cognitive manipulation because they hadn’t seen the second symbol during my inherent power test. And because they wouldn’t know about me being half werewolf, I’d kept the second symbol to myself.

Safety trumped knowledge. At the time, anyway.

If I had been sure a sword could take down the burrendigger, then I’d have changed into that. Or kept with my jacked-up halfling warrior form. Anything was better than a gun .

What the hell was wrong with me?

Stupid girl indeed .

I dozed in and out of consciousness, useless. Paralyzed. Without my power, and without a way to restore my magic, I couldn’t speak anymore. I couldn’t help them figure out a solution to the problem I’d created.

Something detached inside of me. The spark of consciousness left from the shift unhooked from my physical body, free from any confines. The images I saw in the scrap of consciousness left were detailed and beautiful. Distressing and alluring. Real but not.

My dream was a world made of sand.

Every building in the distance had the intricate spires of a sandcastle sculpted by a master builder.

I walked the streets with my hands in my pockets, as easy as Sunday morning, staring around at the odd scenery with a sense of detachment at the wonders.

The heat of the sun caressed my skin with just enough warmth for my hair to prickle, as though I’d somehow been transported into an alternate reality where the amazing became real.

A humanoid figure lifted a hand in greeting at my approach, waving wildly. The movement shook the leaves growing from its fingers. Its skin was made of bark with several extra branches stretching out of its body and searching for the light.

Wherever I was, I wasn’t a stranger, but a curiosity. Something for the inhabitants to study the way I studied them. No one seemed surprised to see me.

The humanoid figure who waved wasn’t the only one on the street. The more I walked through the land of sand, the more tree people came out to watch me.

“Tavi, hold on. You have to hold on.” Mike’s voice. “We’re going to find your pieces. We’re going to make you whole again.”

Hmm. He wasn’t in this sand world. He was somewhere else, far away. A different place and time. I smiled as though he might somehow be able to see my thoughts and assure himself that I was okay.

It was peaceful here. Unique and alien enough to keep me on my toes but the tree people were friendly.

They were living the same as anyone else, going on with their busy lives and haggling with vendors on the street.

They greeted each other with friendly conversation in a language I didn’t understand but somehow accepted.

Even their leafy smiles brought an answering grin to my face.

The sun glinted off the sand buildings, and in the distance the spires of a palace reached higher than any of them, growing larger the closer I walked. I knew those spires.

The palace from Poppy’s vision was larger than I’d seen in the glimpse. The empty holes where windows should have been were the same. One of the tree people leaned out from a window on the second floor and shouted something unintelligible to the courtyard below.

“Do you think she can hear us?” Bronwen’s voice . “I’m not getting any sense of her awareness when I tune in.”

“I don’t know.” Poppy sounded helpless . “This is an entirely new situation for me. Now keep looking. We have to find every missing piece.”

“I’m doing the best I can!” Bronwen again .

“Your best isn’t good enough if we’ve only found two bullets.”

Even Mike’s voice was strained, exhausted. “You’re the all-powerful witch with the sight. One of the greatest seers in history. Why don’t you use your powers to find all the bullets?”

The peach-colored sky behind the castle darkened suddenly, dark clouds like spectral entities reaching out to grab the sun and extinguish it.

The storm arrived without warning and battered the sand city.

Tiny green buds were stripped off the nearest tree people under the ferocious howl of the wind. It ripped down the street and scattered particles of sand, eating away at the walls until they crumbled into nothingness.

The humanoids screamed. The taller trees bent low over the smaller ones and hustled them along but there was no safety, not when the rain began. Driving needles washed away streets and dunes and buildings.

No! This wasn’t the way things were supposed to go. These poor creatures, whatever they were, didn’t deserve the storm or the devastation. Their entire kingdom was ruined by the harsh rain and the tree people sank beneath the surface. Their limbs reached up for a salvation that never came.

I grabbed the nearest tree person, cold water pushing hungrily against the crook of my knees. The cold seeped through my skin as my fingers latched with the limb.

Come on, you have to fight! I clenched my jaw and pulled.

“It’s just a little bit of blood.” Poppy. “You’re telling me a wolf like you is worried about blood?”

“First of all, it’s not a little bit. It’s a gushing river of absolutely putrid blood and guts that smell like I’ve just stepped into a vat of chemical waste.” Bronwen .

“Maybe if you’d cut it open a little bit more, we wouldn’t be forced to—” Mike .

“What?” Poppy’s voice, daring him to finish the sentence.

“I’m just saying, if we’re going to search the innards to find the bullets, the least you could do is open it up more and make it easier on us.”

“Burrendigger hide is notoriously thick. It’s what makes them so dangerous. I’m lucky to have killed this thing. My magic alone isn’t going to slice and dice it into neat fillets for you.”

When the tree people got wet, their weight doubled.

I locked my knees and tugged with all my strength but I couldn’t pull the creature out from underneath the waves.

I couldn’t help it when it sank low, its grip slowly loosening.

A circle of bubbles released from its open mouth before even those disappeared.

My heart sank. Goddess, what had I done?

I reached for another tree person, its arms waving furiously and ineffectively. The weight of its sodden roots dragged it to the depths of those hungry waves.

No one was spared. There was just me.

Alone.

Untouched.

Crying.

“I think I’ve got the last one.”

“You’ve certainly dug the deepest. You’re up to your elbows. A natural.”

“I’m no stranger to shifting through innards, I guess. Is that what you want to hear me say?”

Their conversation sounded flippant and unimportant, though, with the floodwaters raging. Didn’t they know these humanoids needed our help? Didn’t my friends hear them all dying?

I stood alone in the water, steadily rising, taking everyone but me away. The cold seeped deeper inside of me. Why wasn’t I taken? Why spare me?

Why bring me here if only to leave me helpless?

I drew a breath, sparing a look toward the space where sand spires had speared into the sky. There was nothing now.

Something cracked in my chest and warmth flooded through me instead. A sense of rightness I hadn’t felt in some time. Squeezing my eyes closed, I let the flood fade away. I let the dream disintegrate and followed the voices calling me home.

Mike swiped the hair off my forehead. “She’s awake.”

“Then why isn’t she moving?” Bronwen asked.

I couldn’t, not yet. Weakness kept me leaden and I swallowed, relishing the movement of muscles I hadn’t been able to control before. The rise and fall of my chest, the sense of warm fingers trailing over my face to push my hair aside.

“I’m here,” I grunted. “I’m back.”

“Can you walk?” Poppy was all business.

I kept my eyes closed as I shook my head and for good reason. The dizziness was back but this was different from the blood curse. I was empty. No magic left. “Nope.”

“That’s fine. I’ve got you.” Strong arms looped behind my shoulders and knees before Mike’s warm scent filled me. “I’ll carry you.”

“You got her?” Bronwen shifted nearer.

“Of course I do. Lead on, Poppy.”

Mike carried me through the tunnels with Poppy directing us back to the surface. Noren greeted us at the lip of the crater, his nose a wet press against my limp palm. I scratched him softly and cuddled closer to Mike. Burrowing my own nose in his chest.

They’d saved me.

Now what could we do about the haunting images seared into my brain?

“It’s this way,” Poppy urged, “and watch your step. We don’t need another cave-in.”

“Another meeting with a burrendigger, you mean,” Bronwen joked.

“You know what I mean, girl.”

Eventually I managed to open my eyes again, hungry for sunlight. Poppy marched ahead with her head thrown back and streaks of blood turning the tail end of her braid red. Noren kept pace with Mike, always near enough for me to touch.

The crunch of gravel shifted to the softer thud of moss and dirt, the rows of fruit fading into the distance, replaced by neat beds of flowers like zinnias.

Poppy refused to slow as she led us toward the main house at the center of the pixie village, then wasted no time before she knocked on the door.

The size of the place was a feat in itself because the pixies were slight, minuscule things made of pure magic. Their houses weren’t normal size, reaching no higher than my knees and those were the ones with multiple stories.

We stood in front of a two-story dollhouse with gingerbread trim in a cheery dandelion yellow and wafts of fluffy smoke curling out of a chimney.

“A little longer, Tavi,” Mike murmured. “Hang on. We’re going to get you fixed up.” His breath ruffled my hair.

I wanted to tell him not to bother because any discomfort I felt was entirely my fault. No words came out when I opened my mouth.

“Keep your wits about you. They’re small but mighty and you do not want to mess with the pixies,” Poppy warned under her breath.

Bronwen’s blood-covered hands found her waist. “I thought you said they were your friends.”

“They are. It doesn’t make them any less dangerous.”

The front door swung open and a figure only inches high filled the space. She hovered in midair, carrying a sword. Not a small one, either. The sword was as long as my arm and tipped by a point prepared to carve bone.

How in the world had she managed to fit it through the doorway?

She flew up and leveled the sword at Poppy’s forehead.

“Get away,” the pixie snapped. “You’re trespassing.”

What the hell was up with people greeting us with a weapon? My head spun with the full-circle moment: Barbara pointing a gun to my face the moment I stepped onto her porch. Now I was here, with her, being threatened by a pixie for coming onto their property.

Undaunted, Poppy equally snapped, “Take me to Elfhame.”

“Elfhame is unwilling to take visitors,” the pixie continued.

The sword remained steady and pointed between her eyes.

“Tell her Poppy is here, then, and judge her reaction for yourself.” Poppy tapped her foot. “I’m not leaving until we speak to Elfhame.” She made a shooing motion with her hand.

Did all pixies’ names start the same way? Elfwaite was one of my best friends. Maybe it was just a strange coincidence.

We waited for the sword to lower.

Eventually the sword disappeared. The door slammed.

“Seriously? How rude.” Bronwen lifted her hand to knock and Poppy stilled her with narrowed eyes.

“Wait.”

A few moments later, the door reopened and another pixie greeted us, her glow a warm violet color and her wings fluttering fast.

“Poppy. It’s been a long time since you’ve visited,” the pixie said.

My stomach dropped, then soared. “ Elfwaite! ”