In case Aura caught him and questioned him and he told her about me, I’d sewn other seeds, telling Luna how she could block her sister from her dreams and send her a warning at the same time. She had the power to keep her consciousness clear, to block her sister from invading her sleep.
I was just being a good friend by telling her how to wield her power.
Being alive for centuries taught me to always have a failsafe; layers of plans and deceit in place to account for inevitable changes and turns of events.
I smiled and waited for Luna in the cave. Ready to be her friend, to hold her and tell her all would be well. I would lie and guide her through the spell she would cast with her power, because I had none of my own. She hadn’t realized that little fact yet.
The day faded and twilight descended. By tuning into my mark, I knew she was awake and very upset. The pathetic amount of power I had was attached to her as well, just behind her ear. I would take it back. Soon, I would take everything from her.
She’d awakened and found Phillip was missing from the cottage.
She would be here soon.
chapter twenty-one
LUNA
I woke with a start. Ember meowed loudly, nudging my legs toward the door as I stood and pushing me toward the kitchen. Phillip wasn’t in there. He wasn’t in his chair, either. The fool! Did he go outside?
Ember meowed and jumped up onto the couch, grabbing the long stem of a blood red rose in her mouth and bringing it to me. I fell to my knees. “Did you get this? Where is Phillip?”
Suddenly, I knew exactly where he was. “He retrieved the rose for me.”
She dropped the rose into my hand and I closed my palm around it. He’d even removed the thorns.
“Is he dead?”
I felt through Ember that he wasn’t.
“My sister has him?”
She meowed loudly.
Damn her.
I felt her at my mental wall today. At the time, I laughed when she couldn’t get past the barrier, but now that I knew she had Phillip, the thought made me sick. I knew what she was up to. She would keep him alive and use him as a pawn until I came for her. I knew in my heart that if she made him whole, I wouldn’t use the potion. I would agree to remain tethered. I would give up anything if she spared his life. But if she refused to heal him, I had no other option but to make the potion. I would separate us and kill her to try to release him from her poison.
I laced my boots, grabbed a large sack, and ran to the spell room to gather the ingredients. Then I flew as fast as I could to Malex’s cave, where he was waiting for me. He sensed my distress.
“What’s wrong?” Looking past me, his brows furrowed. “Where is Phillip? Where is Ember?”
“Ember is at my cottage, and Aura has Phillip.”
“How did she capture him?” he asked, eyes wide.
How did I tell him that Phillip had sacrificed everything to get the rose for me? “He retrieved the rose.”
“Ahhh,” he said, nodding his head. “Because he was already dying. It was a very noble thing for him to do,” he said quietly. “Poetic.” He licked his bottom lip and nodded to the bag. “You have everything?”
“I do.”
Malex waved me further into his cave, to a room that looked much like my spell room. On shelves along the cave wall were containers full of various ingredients. In a tall glass jar, a toad tried to climb the glass, sliding back down the sides. A cage of bats hung from the ceiling. No doubt he had plenty of supply in this place. There was a mortar and pestle, larger than any I’d seen. Herbs and liquids. I knew the names of many, but some I couldn’t place.
In the center of the room, on the cave floor, was a stone circle with fresh firewood laid in it. A cauldron sat on stones atop the wood. “You have to light it,” he said. “All the magic we do has to come from you. I can guide you, but I can’t do it for you.”
I nodded. I knew that. He’d said the same thing in the spring. I had to get the ingredients and work the spell, though he could help with the wording if I needed it. “We’re making a potion?”
“A difficult one, but not one you can’t handle. Most potions are meant to be ingested, but something tells me our little Aura would spit it back out. We’ll have to make one that, much like her toxin, can be inhaled. She doesn’t have to drink, but she does have to breathe,” he added with a devilish wink.
“I wish I could break the curse of slumber. I have a feeling this fight will last more than the hour we share just before dawn and at dusk.”
“I haven’t found a spell to break that curse, but I do have one that might be helpful for a few hours. It’s an ancient spell, as old as the original fae Kings.” His tone set me on edge. “It calls for the moon to appear during the day and eclipse the sun. It will cause complete darkness for only a few moments, but you’ll be free from slumber during the whole celestial event, and so will Aura.”
“I want to do it. Do you think she’ll keep Phillip alive that long?”
He nodded. “I do. I think she’ll use him as a shield against you, and she’ll probably slow the effects of the toxin so she can. He’s her biggest weapon in this fight.”
Malex was right. “I want to call the moon,” I decided.
He inclined his head. “After we make the potion,” he promised.
I stared at the firewood and it ignited, flames licking up the cauldron’s sides. The water inside looked dark and oily. Malex grinned, standing across from me. “Let’s begin,” he said ominously.
I untied the twine around the bag, memories fluttering through my mind.
After Aura killed William, I left Virosa, flying into the forest. The only things I saw other than a palace larger than ours was woodland, until I saw the clearing and dipped low enough to see a crumbling, abandoned cottage.
I made it my home. I readied it for summer when I would be sleeping, and for a year lived as peacefully as I could, physically away from Aura’s presence. Last spring, one year to the day that William was killed, Malex showed up at my doorstep and introduced himself as the fae Prince who ruled over this forest and owned every structure in it—including my cottage.
Ember didn’t care who he was. She tried to claw him apart. Her reaction was so violent, I had to lock her in the bedroom. In awkward silence, Malex and I listened as she slowly but determinedly shredded the door.
Malex was definitely fae, but I still didn’t know if I could trust him.
He said that I was welcome to stay as long as I told him why I was there. I told him I’d tell him if he proved he really was the fae who ruled the forest. The fae were tricky and liked to play games. And even though he claimed to be a prince, to me he was a stranger.
Malex invited me to his palace, so I flew us there. It was clear he hadn’t lied about his identity. His servants bowed to him graciously, offering kind smiles. He proved he was exactly what he said: a fae prince. That night, he sat on a throne in a glistening great hall as faeries of every kind came to him for help. Forest fae, fae of the water, fae of the air, and of the seasons. Seelie and Unseelie. He helped them all in exchange for favors and for their pledged fealty.