Page 72 of Faerie Gift

Except I’d damn near knocked myself out by walking through walls to get here. I couldn’t come this far only to fail.

I summoned up a spell that should allow me to penetrate the first layer of wards but nothing happened. Had I used up all my magic just to get to this point?All right, Tavi.So close.Think.

Scratching my head, I stared at the Imperium, not sure what to say or do. I stopped where I was and closed my eyes, folding my body down onto the floor more from necessity than anything else. Crossing my legs, I drew in a deep breath. Held it for five seconds released it.

So close, my mind said again.

Okay, so I was stuck in a room with no power to crack the wards. No power to steal the Augundae Imperium and good luck getting out of here in my current condition. What were my options?

Center yourself.

That’s what Nurse Julie had tried to teach me when we went over the ingredients of the potion designed to hide my shifter half. It had been a day of many lessons, things she’d learned over the years to aid her in her journey, similar to my own, lessons of knowledge she now passed down to me.

I heard her voice in my head.

You have to learn to push past the fatigue. The dizziness. Your shifter side makes you inherently stronger than most halflings. Fae magic comes from the earth, from our blood because we are a part of the earth. That’s why it takes such a toll on your energy field when you work big magic. Let your wolf guide you through the exhaustion; let her strength become your strength.Meditation will help you.

I wasn’t any good at meditation.

You had to have a certain amount of patience with meditation. Patience required time, which I didn’t exactly have in abundance either. But recalling the memory raised a good point. My shifter halfwasstrong, the combination of my Fae and wolf genes making me more powerful than your average bear.

Too bad I couldn’t drop my glamour to see if I could harness more power from my shifter half. I didn’t exactly have a clove of garlic in my pocket, did I? Meditation wouldn’t help me there.

Still…itwasnighttime. A stray beam of light from the full moon would break the glamour in a snap. And I remembered seeing a window in the previous room.

Nothing in this one. There were no windows, and wards I couldn’t break barred the door. What I was contemplating was a gamble. Ahugegamble. What if I couldn’t make it through the wall to break the glamour in the first place?

But I clearly wasn’t able to get to the Imperium this way. It left me little choice.

Struggling to my feet, I walked to the wall and went back through with the remaining dregs of my faerie magic. The moment I regained my real form on the other side I slid to the floor, stomach heaving. My throat burned as bile rose and I had to force myself to swallow it down, to get my muscles to work when they wanted to give up.

My arms struggled to raise me, my elbows trembled with fatigue, and with a groan I dropped. My cheek hit the floor.

Terrible idea. This had been a terrible idea, especially when I glanced up to see the window boarded shut. Meaning I’d have to break through.

It normally wouldn’t be a problem for me. Tonight, I fought for every inch I moved forward, dragging myself toward the window and using those boards to haul myself up to a standing position. I only needed a little bit of light to break the glamour.

The wood was solid and strong, two layers keeping the window blocked, the first layer straight across and the second crisscrossing over that.

No spell in the world would work for me right now, not with my energy at zero. It didn’t matter how strong my bloodline was.

My fingertips scraped against the wood until splinters slid into my skin. Tugging the first layer of wood, I managed to pry a single board off the iron nails. The second layer was worse. At first the boards didn’t want to budge. I worked hard at the corner of one piece, the one closest to the sill, leaning back and using my body weight as leverage.

Nothing happened.

Judging by the age of the wood and the length of the nails, these planks had been in place for a long time. But I didn’t remember seeing any windows boarded up from the outside of the castle. It begged the question: Why do this? Perhaps someone had spelled the castle to look normal from the outside as another layer of precaution with the Augundae Imperium hidden inside?

These were useless questions and none of them helped me open the window.

Finally, sweating and annoyed, I managed to pry one of the boards loose, giving myself enough room to twist my hand through. I angled my wrist outside into the moonlight shining from above the school.

Success!

A wave of cold washed over me, chilling me to the bone, and I didn’t need to have my eyes open to know how my skin rippled and shifted. The feeling had me bending at the waist against a slight hitch of pain, muscles twitching, my insides rearranging themselves.

I hated this part.

The moonlight destroyed my glamour and I felt my wolf rise to the surface, once again in control, my vision sharp and my hearing better than ever. She brought with her a surge of energy. Enough so I went back through the wall, still dripping blood and basically crawling, but I harnessed the strength coming from my shifter half and I could stand without help.

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