Page 66 of Faerie Trials

“Hello, Tavi.”

I jerked at the familiar voice. I spun around to find Selene staring at me, her black hair gleaming under the light of the chandeliers.

“Have some time to talk to little ol’ me?”

“Isn’t that the reporter who bothered you during the Spring Games?” Mike asked under his breath.

I patted his arm. “It’s fine,” I assured him. “I’ll only be a minute. She probably just wants to talk about the Trials, I’m sure.”

I knew she didn’t. I’d seen that look in her eyes too many times during our meetings. My skin prickled as dread settled beneath my sternum.

“What’s wrong?” Selene and I kept our footsteps purposely slow and normal on our way out of the dining hall. “What’s happened? Is it about the latest student victim?”

She waited until we were alone to answer. “It’s not about the student. I’m sorry to pull you away from the celebration—”

“It’s fine,” I interrupted with a wave of my hand. But she hesitated. What didn’t she want to tell me?

She was clearly nervous, her normally flawless makeup smeared in places, and lines where there had never been any lines before.

Her next words chilled me to the bone. “It’s Bronwen. She’s been attacked.”

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Selene took hold of my hand and the moment we were sure we didn’t have an audience, we took off.

What had happened to Bronwen? When?

Was that why she didn’t show up to cheer me on for the Trial?

Worry gnawed at my gut as we transformed and flew over the treetops. I followed Selene’s lead, waning afternoon light glinting off of her midnight-dark wings. She flew faster than I did. Panic pushed us both and I struggled to keep up, following Selene’s swooping motion in her owl form down through the trees, away from the city center of Eahsea.

We landed with Selene already talking, striding forward on killer high heels sinking deep into the forest floor, morphing from owl to normal form seamlessly. “This is a safe space,” she told me. “It functions as a half-shifter hospital for those of us who need to remain under the radar.”

“I don’t see anything.”

“Of course you don’t. It’s hidden from the eyes.” Selene waved a hand and a burst of magic revealed a doorway with a gleaming brass knob in the middle of a tree. “It’s not safe for those like us to use Fae hospitals or health centers, in case they want to do any in-depth testing.” Her hand twisted the doorknob and she pushed it open. “It might reveal our true nature.”

“I understand.”

My hands trembled and the rest of me was ready to burst. I knew the feeling wouldn’t go away anytime soon, at least until I knew Bronwen’s condition.

Selene held the door aside for me, waiting until I’d stepped through before closing it smartly behind us. Magic pulsed once before the doorway disappear. The inside of the shifter hospital opened up into a large room more than likely connected to a separate pocket of space because no way would all this fit inside the tree itself.

Whatever magic anchored the room to Faerie must have been heavy-duty powerful, I thought as I stared. The ceiling soared up into an intricate knot of what looked to be intertwined tree branches. Lines of hospital beds were pressed against the left and right exterior walls, some of them filled but most of them empty. I spotted a familiar face three beds down and rushed forward without thinking.

“Oh God. Bronwen!”

My own aches and pains disappeared the longer I looked at her. A small part of me thought:This is my fault.This has happened to her because of me.

“I knew you would want to come as soon as possible,” Selene said, stepping closer. “It was a close call.”

She’d lost too much blood was my second thought. Though she was awake, staring at me with wide dark eyes, her skin was pale as snow. “Tavi?” she said softly.

“I’m here.” I knelt down at the side of the bed, still wearing my clothes from the Trial, and grabbed her hand as gently as I could. “Are you okay?”

She tried to shake her head and winced. “I thought I could do it alone. I thought…I don’t know what I thought.”

“Don’t talk. I’m here. Save your energy to get better.”

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