Page 83 of Pixie Problems

"But just her?" Torian wanted to know.

I turned in time to see Hawke nodding. "I was focused on avoiding his sword, but yeah. He kept talking toher."

Those words made Torian go still. "The Hunt doesn't talk - except to announce their verdict."

"Or," Aspen added, "to claim those powerful enough to survive."

"Shit," I grumbled. "Does this mean he's going to come back for her?"

"Yeah," Torian said. "Considering the Wild Hunt just saw how many of us? That the Huntsman talked to Rain? Doesn't really matter why, but they will be back. They fucking know we're here now. Not a fae lost in the world, but a group of us!"

"Ok," I said, easing Rain back. "Can you walk, baby?"

"She's not a child!" Torian growled.

"He doesn't mean it that way," Aspen assured him.

But Rain was nodding. "I can walk," she breathed. "Thanks, Keir."

"Yeah," I said, refusing to touch on her use of the T-word this time. "I'm going to carry Aspen back. Hawke, can you help Torian?"

"Always," Hawke replied.

Together, we got the pair up and on their feet. Since Aspen weighed next to nothing, I swept her into my arms just to have Rain press in beside me, clasping her hand. Hawke wrapped an arm around Torian's waist, heaving him up, and together the group of us staggered back.

"Bracken wants Rain to spend the night with him," Hawke told Aspen. "Ms. Rhodes suggested a drink for nightmares."

"I'm fine," Rain insisted.

"You won't be," I warned her. "Trust me. The drink helps. A few of us will get one tonight."

"You?" she asked.

So I nodded, deciding it sounded like a good idea. "I think so, yeah."

"Me too," Aspen said. "I thought I was dead!"

"We hurried," Torian told her. "As soon as I realized you were scared, I left class, and Wilder followed. Mr. Greene was pissed, but then the alarms went off."

"Fuck," Hawke said. "How'd you get out of the building?"

Torian huffed in weary amusement. "The protections are mine."

I almost stumbled. I would've if I wasn't trying so hard to be careful with Aspen, but that? While Rain didn't seem to hear him, I was speechless. The protections were his? The ones that kept the Hunt out?

The same ones Ms. Rhodes had created with the founding members of the school's faculty? With people who had gone on to start other schools in other nations? The ones that had wiped out all of them for months because they were so intense? He was talking about the magic Ms. Rhodes had merely repaired, knowing they were weakening, yet she wasn't sure she could make them again?

But they'd gotten stronger lately - and I hadn't even noticed until it was rubbed in my face.

Those enchantments kept every student at Silver Oaks Institute safe from the most dangerous things we could imagine, and a fucking high school kid was claiming them? A pure fae - regardless of type - who couldn't lie?

How? No one was that strong. It wasn't the sort of magic a person could do on their own. At least not anyone I'd ever heard of.

But what scared me most was that not even Torian's magic had slowed the Huntsman. A boy so strong he could do on his own what had taken a group before, and the Huntsman hadn't even cared. It had beenRainwho'd chased them off! That she could proved she was so much more than she knew.

But this? Holy shit. I needed to seriously rethink the balance of things, because that one phrase from Torian had just upended everything I'd thought I'd known - and now I was right in the middle of it all.

Chapter Twenty-Four