Oh, now she was teasing. Now her mood was light. She was driving me insane with her manic mood swings. One moment, it’s Burn the porch down! and in the next she threatens to bite me. Not that I hadn’t wondered what those canines might feel like raking gently against my skin...
My hands found her narrow waist and clamped on tight. “I won’t let you fall,” she promised. “You have to trust me. Oh, and I forgive you for reading my journal.”
“How’d you know?” I asked guiltily.
“Your scent.”
I knew it!
“So, you know everything now?”
“I didn’t read anything about my brother. I wanted to hear it from you.”
She tensed under my hands. She’d obviously wanted me to read it so she wouldn’t have to speak about it. Well, too bad.
“Very well. If we survive until morning, I’ll tell you. But know that you asked me. The details are more disturbing than you can imagine.”
Whatever happened to William, I knew it was bad. Various scenarios flickered through my mind, none of them pleasant. The fact that he was dead wasn’t in dispute, but I did fear the way he left this world was torturous, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it in detail.
With wind swirling gently around us, it picked us and the broom up and carried us into the sky. My heart raced as we zoomed forward, avoiding the taller trees in the forest canopy. But in the end, flying was amazing and fun, and I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. Throughout it all, I never felt like I would fall off. The wind pressed up and around us, keeping us balanced on the broom. Luna glanced back at me, the moon casting her skin with a pale light. When she saw my face, she smiled and urged us faster.
I held tightly to her and enjoyed every second of it, laughing as she showed me a few tricks and recited the list of ingredients we’d need to gather over the next few nights for her spell. When she twirled us in the air, I panicked and let go of her waist while we were still upside down. I screamed for Luna as the dark earth rushed toward me and closed my eyes. I was going to die.
And then, I came to a sudden stop. Not splattered on the ground, but in Luna’s arms. She was smiling and holding me like a bride being carried over the threshold on her wedding night.
“Gotcha,” she teased.
“Did you mean to do that?” I bit out.
“No, you let go. I did mean to catch you, though.”
Thank God for that.
She giggled.
“I almost died! How are you laughing?” I asked, aghast.
“You’re so dramatic. You weren’t even close to dying. At the very least, I would have sent the wind to carry you to the ground. But it was funny, watching your face. You were positively terrified,” she teased.
“It’s not funny.”
She pursed her lips in a pout and burst into a fit of laughter again, unable to keep her face serious for even a moment.
I shook my head. “I’m glad I could entertain you.”
Mischief glittered in her eyes. “We could do it again.”
“No! No, I’m… not that glad.”
She just smiled and held me as we flew through the air, just above the trees now.
“Your heart is finally slowing,” she whispered, staring at the moon. When the unearthly green orbs of her eyes fell on me, I swallowed, sure she would hear it roar again just from being so close to her, in her arms. Her skin was warm, but it wasn’t burning to the touch.
When the broom started to slow, I knew we were close to an ingredient. None would be pleasant to collect, and some, I didn’t know how we would retrieve them without being killed. For example, a dragon’s egg.
“How will you steal a dragon’s egg?” I asked curiously.
“Very carefully,” she replied solemnly. “And let’s hope that the only female dragon I know of has recently laid one. But that isn’t what we’re here for. I’m here for the spirit.”
She set us down gently in a field beside a small village. Just beyond was a cleared area with pile after pile of stone. “It’s a boneyard,’ she explained. “I need you to stay here. Ghosts can be frightened of the living.”
“But you are one of the living,” I pointed out.
“I am also fae, which they love,” she gloated with a smirk.
I held the stick of her broom and waited as she walked among the stones and bones. Never looking down, she rifled around in the bag tied to her waist and withdrew something, but in the dark, I couldn’t tell what it was. As she slowly crept closer to a cluster of grave sites, I noticed the stones on one of the graves were fresher than the others. No moss grew on the north-facing sides of them.
Like a predator, she stealthily and quietly prowled forward, muttering something I couldn’t make out. A spell, no doubt. Holding out a small glass bottle, I watched a spirit manifest before her, white and translucent. It was a young woman wearing a dress with skirts that fluttered around her. The ghost smiled at Luna, who urged her forward toward the bottle.
When she came close enough, Luna used her power to suck her into the glass, corking the top before the woman’s spirit could escape again.
But Luna lost her smile. As she returned, I saw that a cold mask had clicked into place, one filled with regret. I saw it every time she mentioned my brother’s name, as well as when she spoke about what she had to do to Prince Terigon of Ringsted, and of the dark fae she met last night. The one who marked her.
Malex, she’d called him.
Malex, who was deceitful. Did he lie to her about some of these ingredients being necessary? Was he trying to get her killed?
Was giving up part of her soul and happiness worth all this? Because every time she hurt someone or something, a piece of her chipped and fell away. It hurt my chest to watch her wage an internal war with herself. Inwardly, she was shredding herself to ribbons. Outwardly, she was stone.
She tucked the spirit back into her bag and grabbed the broom from my hand without looking at me. If this was the simplest ingredient to obtain, I worried how she would handle the most difficult.
LUNA
“Luna?” he asked tentatively.
“I’m not sure what you saw, but I retrieved a spirit.”
He nodded. “I saw.”
Of course he did. He always saw too much. My fists tightened around my broomstick. “Are you ready?” I said curtly. “I have a long list, and the night is always too short.”
He pursed his lips together. “I’m ready.” Holding tight to my waist, he settled on the broom behind me. I ignored the way his hands felt, the warmth that radiated from him, and the concern that rolled off him in waves, threatening to drown me.
I didn’t want his pity or concern.
And something else was bothering me. I couldn’t get it out of my head. Just now, he was worried for me. But back at the cottage, he was angry. He was barely able to contain whatever it was that he felt, accusing me of using magic on him. I didn’t, but I wondered if something in the spell I worked to heal him had gone awry.