chapter nineteen
PHILLIP
Ember padded toward the door, but she looked back when I spoke. “Ember, wait. I’m going with you.”
I knew Luna needed a rose from Aura’s garden, but there was no need for Ember to die since I had already been poisoned by them. The damage was already done. I could pluck one and bring it back, and if I became too weak to make the return trip, Ember could bring it back to Luna without being subjected to the toxins the blooms could expel while on the vine.
I prayed I was right about that, and that they couldn’t hurt Ember once plucked. Malex told me there was a way I could help Luna, and a way he could help me. He’d handed me a vial of his blood…
“This is my blood. If you feel like you’re dying and you decide you’d rather live, drink it.”
“What will happen when I do?”
“You’ll become fae.”
I digested that for a long moment. “But I’ll live, right? I’ll be able to come back to her?”
He nodded. “You won’t have power, but you’ll be alive. Immortal.”
“How do you know this’ll work?”
“Because I’ve done it once before. The transformation will be excruciating, but you’ll survive it.”
“This sounds an awful lot like vampyre lore.”
Malex smiled. “Vampyre lore was born from fae fact.”
“Does Luna know?”
“I told her before she left. She wants to try to kill Aura and see if that works to kill the toxin in your body, but in the end, she’ll leave the choice up to you. I just wanted to give it to you early in case that choice is stripped away today. I know what you’re about to do.”
“How?”
“You have a determined gleam in your eye; the gleam of a man who’s about to save the day or die trying. You love her.”
“I do.”
“Then help her. This’ll help you if you need it.”
“Why are you helping me?” I asked shrewdly. “I know you want her.”
“Luna will never want me if she knows I had the chance to help you and didn’t. Besides, she still owes me a favor, you know.”
Of course I knew. And I knew that Malex would have her if he truly wanted her. She’d blindly given her word in exchange for his help.
“Besides,” he added, “if she kills Aura and decides that being queen isn’t for her, someone will need to see to Virosa’s people.”
Malex was strange, but Luna trusted him, I reminded myself. And he was right – I was determined. If this would help Luna, I would retrieve the bloom. Apparently Malex couldn’t cross the barrier he and Luna made to trap Aura inside of Virosa’s palatial grounds, but I could.
And if worse came to worse, I could turn into a faery.
I couldn’t believe I was really contemplating changing into a faery, but there it was. It wasn’t the life I would have wanted before coming here. I would’ve thought it a curse, but now? Luna meant everything to me.
I tucked the vial into my pocket, patting it to make sure it was secure.
“Don’t break it,” Malex warned. “It’s your only chance if Aura finds you. And know that if you use it inside the barrier, inside the garden, my blood will change you, but you’ll be bound inside as well.”
Two things I knew for certain: One, I didn’t want to die. I would drink Malex’s blood and turn into a fae if it meant staying alive and being with Luna. Two, there was something I didn’t trust about Malex. Maybe it was how he vacillated between wanting Luna & wanting the favor she owed—the one he never let her or anyone else forget about—or how he admitted to wanting Virosa now. His motivation for helping Luna just didn’t seem to add up. Also, there was the predatory way he watched everything. Maybe it was a trait all the full-blooded fae shared. I wasn’t sure since he was the only one I knew, but it made my hair stand on end.
I shook my head and stepped onto the porch, the sun warming my face and skin, and Ember and I set out for Virosa. “I need you to lead the way to Aura’s garden,” I told her. “Stick to the woods for as long as you can.”
The walk would be long, and I already felt the effects of a fever coming on, but Luna needed the rose. Without it, she’d never escape Aura. I pushed my body forward, through the heat of the day that still left me shivering. Through brush and trees and creeks and bogs.
By the time we arrived at the edge of the woods surrounding the palace, it was midday. The sun was high. I needed to pluck a rose and get out of there as quickly as possible. “Stay here, Ember. If I need you to take the rose, I’ll yell for you. Be on the look out for Pieces.”
Ember rubbed her face into my hands, a peculiar sadness in her eyes. I stood up from where I crouched and wiped the cool sweat from my brow. At first I was worried I wouldn’t know where the original barrier was that kept Aura inside these grounds, but upon seeing the palace I noticed a stone fence surrounding the manicured yards and the roses from the forest. That was where Luna would have separated her sister from the world. With the additional barrier spell, Aura was trapped inside the palace now, unable to roam the grounds. But she’d know I was here if she bothered to tap into my mind or whatever she did.
But this was a risk I had to take.
For Luna.
For us.
I jumped the stone fence and entered the palace grounds, sweat pouring from my head and body. My legs felt wobbly, but I pushed forward and into the roses just past a stretch of lawn that was already turning brown with the autumn season.
There was no sign of Pieces. No sign of Aura.
No indication that anyone knew I was there.
Then I heard a commotion, a bird squawking, and saw the source: a fox was chasing Pieces, its lupine body leaping up into the air to try to snatch a claw or wing.
Standing on a balcony on the highest floor of the palace was a woman in a red gown, her hair the color of spun gold, watching the fox and dove. I darted forward and crouched behind a rose bush, panting from the exertion.
I plucked one of the roses, removing the thorns so that I or Ember could carry it back without injury.
“What are you doing in my garden?” a voice boomed. It sounded as if she were right beside me, but she was still on the stone balcony, her hands braced on the railing. “Did my sister send you?” she asked conversationally.
I stood up and began backing away.
Across the lawn.
“Welcome back, Prince Phillip. I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
I kept backing up. I was half way to the wall.
“I guess you’re looking for an antidote. You don’t look so well, Prince,” she tsked.
Almost there. I tossed the rose across the stone wall and Ember grabbed hold of the stem between her teeth. She hesitated.
“Go, Ember,” I hissed.
“You won’t find a cure in the roses. Only death lies in the blooms. But you already know that. Did Luna need one for her little potion?” She laughed, her tinkling laughter ringing out across the lawn. “What’s the matter, Prince? Cat got your tongue?”
Just then, the ground began to tremble. Roots sprang up from the earth and wrapped around my ankles when I tried to jump over the fence, dragging me back into the garden. I clawed at the ground, at the bushes, shredding my palms.
The vines dragged me on my stomach, further into the walled garden. I managed to flip onto my back and hurriedly reached for the vial in my pocket. I drank it down in one gulp and waited for the change. The liquid was black and thick as tar, but tasted sweet. Sickly sweet. Her roots lifted me to her balcony.
“What do you have there?” she asked, a wicked smile tugging her lips. She tore the vial from my hands and sniffed the inside. “Sorghum?” she guessed. “Yes, it’s a thick, sugary sorghum, tinted with,” she sniffed again, “charcoal.”
“No...” He lied? I felt as if I’d been punched in the gut. But then a worse thought filtered through my mind. If Malex lied about giving me his blood, what else was he lying about? I struggled futilely against the vines that held me. “Let me go! Luna’s in trouble.”
“My sister is always getting herself into trouble,” Aura said with a sigh.
I ticked off the information I knew to date. Malex was supposedly helping Luna make a potion to separate her from Aura’s lifeforce. He was either lying about that, or he actually wanted them separated. But why? Why pretend to help and then lie?
What possible reason would he have for helping to unbind them?
“What is it?” she asked quizzically.
“Do you know Malex?”
“Only what I’ve seen of him with your help,” she gloated.
“Why would a dark fae prince want your life unbound from Luna’s?”
She stiffened and smelled the vial again. “What did he tell you this was?”
“His blood. He said if I drank it, I would turn into a fae and it would save me from dying.”
She commanded the roots to release my legs and I slumped to the floor of the balcony. Blood pooled in every hole made by her thorns. She crouched down beside me. “Well, Prince, it appears that he lied to you. And if you want to live, I’m the only one who can help you now. Tell me what you know, and I’ll consider it.”
It felt like a betrayal, that I was going behind Luna’s back, but Malex was up to something and I needed to protect her. This might be my only shot. Whatever it was, she and Aura needed to stay bound to one another until we figured it out.
“Don’t you already know everything? You’ve seen it through me, haven’t you?”
“I don’t know everything. I sleep at night and can only see through you, and through Pieces, during the day, unless I can hook onto your mind right before I fall asleep. If I do that, I can see things for a while. I can even influence your feelings and manipulate your actions a little. That’s a new trick,” she said with a wink. “It’s how I almost made you throttle Luna that night when you didn’t know why you were so angry or why you wanted to hurt her.”
I growled, remembering the strange feelings coursing through my veins and mind.
“Now,” she continued, “even though I’m terribly smart and can piece things together, I need to know the details about what happened while I was asleep.”
I told her everything. How he promised to help Luna when she woke this autumn, how he marked her, about the stupid favor she promised, the strange list of ingredients…everything.
“Thank you for not making me forcefully loosen your tongue,” she said with a glint in her eye that said that what Luna had done to Terigon would have been child’s play.
“I told you all I know. Will you save me?”
She smiled. “Not yet.”
I should’ve known not to trust her! I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, which sent me into a coughing fit. She sighed, crossing her arms. “But I will slow it down,” she offered.
She waved her hand over me and the pain in my chest lessened. My heart felt strong, steady, and normal.
“Thank you,” I said gratefully.
“Don’t thank me yet. I still haven’t taken the toxin out of you.” She stood and straightened her gown, all business. “Come with me.”
“I need to tell Luna about Malex,” I argued.
“We’ll tell her together.”
“She’s sleeping.”
“Then we’ll go to her in a dream.”
I felt a heavy blow to the back of my head, the sensation of being dragged by my arm, and then darkness took hold of my vision.