Page 76 of Perfectly Charmed Pixie

My head swam, but I could still make out the fact Letty didn’t appear fearful.

“Calm down, Franny. It’s probably just the charm. Once it’s removed, his dust will be just fine.”

“But…” Franny wanted to stare at Letty, but she couldn’t take her gaze off Parsnip.

I wanted to rip her covetous eyes from her head.

“Soon,” Letty dismissed Franny’s concerns. Instead, she busied herself around the room, setting up a litany of cameras. “I don’t intend to miss a thing. I want every angle covered.” Letty gleefully went from one corner of the room to another, stepping around Parsnip’s folded body. One wing looked bent at an unnatural angle, not that Letty cared.

“Van.” Byx sounded like she could drink a gallon of water and it wouldn’t be enough.

I knew the feeling well.

My gaze snapped from Parsnip to Byx, making me a little dizzy. I gave it a fifty-fifty chance that I had a concussion. When the three Byx swimming in my vision finally morphed into a single figure, my stomach settled.

I didn’t know what to say, how to reassure Byx that I’d figure a way out of this mess. I desperately wanted to say something, anything that would ease her fear. But I had nothing. Byx was too smart to be cajoled by meaningless lies.

I knew the instant she realized just how screwed we were. Byx’s eyes widened, their shimmering brown glistening in the artificial light. Her mouth thinned, and her facial muscles tightened. Still lying on that disgusting couch, Byx managed to get an elbow below her, lifting her upper half a little. She looked exhausted, and I could see the beginnings of an ugly bruise on her chin, but other than that, she appeared relatively unharmed. Unfortunately, I didn’t trust that situation to hold true.

“Finally wake up, dear?” Letty stopped setting up her cameras long enough to focus on Byx. “You were asleep a long time.”

Byx’s lips twisted into a sneer. “Yeah? I guess getting clocked in the jaw will do that.”

Letty tsked and replied, “Needs must.”

Byx rolled her eyes, completely unimpressed. I knew the minute Byx tried to teleport. The realization she couldn’t made her shiver, her hand immediately going to the band around her neck.

“We’ll talk later.” Letty held up Byx’s charmed stone, twisting it in the light.

Byx’s eyes impossibly widened, the whites of her eyes far too prevalent.

“It’s amazing. I’ve never felt anything so powerful and yet packed into something so small. I can’t wait to get a taste, and despite what the warlock says, I think you know just how to make that happen.”

Byx shot me a worried look, licking her dry lips. I tried to convey that she needed to keep her mouth shut. Thankfully, Byx picked up on my silent plea.

Turning her back, Letty started shuffling around the room again, checking the angles of her cameras, absently talking as she did so. “Your future is up to you, brownie. I can be gentle, or I can be merciless. The choice is yours. You can willingly allow me to siphon your magic or you can fight me. Either way, I win.”

“Siphon my magic?” Byx was a mix between horrified and mystified. “That’s not even possible.”

“Oh, I assure you, it’s completely possible.” Letty stopped what she was doing and gave me a chiding glare. “Didn’t you teach her anything?”

“Her mother and I taught Byx a lot. We just never thought she’d need to worry about someone as psycho as you.”

Letty momentarily stiffened before her shoulders rolled, forcefully relaxing her body. “You know, my last coven said something similar. They couldn’t understand what I had to offer.”

Oh, they understood, all right.

“We were a small group, but we could have been so much more. They couldn’t see that. Elise couldn’t see it. Coven leaders should be wiser than that. They should look out for the good of the whole and not just themselves. She knew I was powerful, and Elise was afraid of that power. Everyone was. Instead of embracing what I could do, they shunned me. Even when I removed Elise—”

“Murdered her,” I corrected.

“Removed,” Letty insisted, “they still wouldn’t name me coven leader. And now look at them, scattered to the wind, stuck in inferior, static covens with absolutely no goals, no ambition. That’s the problem with the covens. None of them sees the future. None of them sees just what we could be, what we could do.”

My head ached, making it difficult to think. Parsnip was still crumpled, unmoving on the floor. I could make out the rise and fall of his chest, but that was all. Franny hadn’t taken her drug-obsessed eyes off him but was keeping her distance. I had the nauseating fear that if his dust hadn’t been charmed and had the same effect pixie dust typically had, she would have scooped him up, Letty’s protests be damned, and barreled headlong up the stairs.

“And you think fairies would let you get away with that?” Byx huffed. “You really are a whack job.”

Letty turned on Byx, her face flushed with anger. “Fairies only rule because brownies allowed it, because they wouldn’t join the rest of the species and fight for what is rightfully ours.” Pointing a heated finger Byx’s way, Letty growled, “And that is on you and all your kin. You could be so much more too, but you sit by, passively agreeing to everything they say.”

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