“I can’t believe you stole from me.” Shocked, he held his ripped half up.
“Borrowed,” she corrected indignantly.
“When were you going to give it back? After you ran away from the ceremony and killed one of the Fates’ Reapers to save a fugitive? I bet you were coming right back to give it to me, weren’t you?”
“Um, okay.” She bit her lip and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Borrowed with the intent to not return…right away.”
He crossed his arms and held the damaged book in front of her. “If you wanted it that badly, I would have given it to you.” His hand glowed, and he waved it in front the damaged book. It began reknitting itself. He did the same to Mina’s half, and her front cover and few pages filled out into a completely separate book.
“Now we both can have one. See?” He flipped his open, stopping to stare at the image of the ogre on one page and the Reaper locked in battle of scythes with Mina on another.
Mina held her half of the Grimoire tightly and eyed the one Teague held. She started to shake. It couldn’t be. This wasn’t how it all started, was it? Was she the reason the Grimoire had been split in the first place, creating the two books? Could all this really have happened before? It was too much for her to take in.
The sky spun and she felt light headed. She could barely make out Teague dropping the book and running for her as she slid to the ground in a faint.
Chapter 27
It was a maze.
The final test was a maze and Mina was horribly lost.
She’d awakened the following morning back at the Fae palace in her own bed, weak and a bit disoriented. Her head literally pounded.
No wait. It was the door. The brownie girl came in and helped Mina get dressed for the final test. The rules were simple. They would each be placed on different corners of the maze. Teague would be waiting in the middle. The maze was enchanted and would shift and change. Whichever girl made it to the tower would be worthy of being Princess of the Fae and would marry Teague.
The brownie overlooked not a single detail as she curled and pinned Mina’s hair to befit a princess. Mina’s dress flowed from her hips in swaths of lavender silk that resembled flower petals. Strips of the same lavender silk wrapped around her torso creating a fitted bodice. She had no jewelry, nothing to adorn the beautiful dress, but it really didn’t need anything else. She looked like a beautiful chrysanthemum.
“You did a beautiful job—not just today—but every day that you’ve helped me.” Mina felt sad that she hadn’t spoken to the brownie before this.
Her deep tanned face grinned, making her eyes sparkle with pride. “My charge will be on equal playing ground with the others. Doesn’t matter if you’re not from here. You belong with the prince.”
Mina’s stumbled in her borrowed shoes. “How do you know I’m not from here?”
The brownie smiled knowingly and pressed her finger to her nose. “We brownies are smart.” She waited a moment before adding, “Plus, I found something in your coach when you first got here. I was looking for your trunks, but all I found was this.” She handed over the seam ripper.
As Mina felt the cool silver tube in her hand, she wanted to cry. “How? Why are you giving this to me now?”
“I had to make sure it wasn’t dangerous, so I brought it to my brother who studied it and took it apart. We had to make sure it wasn’t a weapon.”
“You took it apart? What if it doesn’t work now?”
The brownie looked offended. “He wouldn’t have broken it. See? It looks as good as new.” She paused and looked eagerly at the silver object in Mina’s hands. “But he didn’t know what it does. What does it do?”
Mina lied. “Nothing. It’s just a good luck charm.”
Now the Fae had the schematics to make a seam ripper. All because of her. Things were getting stranger by the minute. She tucked the seam ripper in her pocket next to the Grimoire.
“Thank you.” Mina answered, unsure about what she was supposed to do next. Captain Plaith, wearing his sun and moon emblazed armor, was the one who appeared at her door to escort her to the final test. He seemed on edge, worried. Similar to how she’d seen him when she and Nix snuck into the palace before. Though this time, he had less gray hair.
Everything was a daze. She barely registered walking the halls. One minute she was in her room, the next she was outside being led across the dew-covered palace lawn. There was a slight chill in the air, and a morning fog crept along the ground which only added to her dismal mood. The fog hid the maze until she was almost right on top of it.
Green. Walls of twisted green bushes rose out of the ground, ten feet high.