Page 92 of The Fallen Kingdom

I reach up and touch my shoulder, feeling the absence of his wee body there like an ache. I wish I could stroke his wings one last time. I wish I could hear his voice. “He sacrificed himself for someone who is going to die.”

“Don’t be foolish,” Catherine says gently. “He sacrificed himself for you so you would live.”

I wished for you. I spent two and a half months wishing for you.

Derrick was probably the only creature on this dying, godforsaken earth who still believed that wishes held power. He might have lost his city and his family, but that didn’t make him bitter. It didn’t change the fact that he still had good in him. He was the one who taught me that not all fae were evil.

I’ll never get to thank him for mending all the coats I ripped, the trousers I destroyed. For the silly dresses he made with their flounces and lace and ribbons, which I wore not because I give a damn about those things, but because he enjoyed making them. I’ll never hear him sing bawdy jigs in my closet.

He saved me so many times and now I’ll never, ever get to repay him for it. I’ll never stroke his wings or listen to his stupid jokes. He’ll never sit on my shoulder again.

It’s empty.I’m empty.

“Catherine.” My voice cracks. “I miss him so much.”

Then her arms are around me in a crushing embrace and I’m sobbing into her shoulder. My tears are hot and wet and my body is shaking.

“We’re all going to die, aren’t we?” I whisper. “What do we have that’s worth saving?”

What do we have left? A world full of monsters we have to hide from. An endless war. Nowhere that’s safe. We’ll worry the people we love will go into a battle and never come back.

This is our truth. This is what remains: a colorless place that’s beginning to split at the seams; a life where we wonder how we’re going to die and who will be next.

What’s left?

“Us,” she tells me. “We have us, and when we find the Book, we’ll return everything to the way it was. We can end this. We can bring them all back.”

“I don’t think we can bring Derrick back,” I whisper. When the fae die, there are no second chances. No coming back. Their souls aren’t like ours.

“Maybe the Book can,” she says, but I don’t think she believes it.

I don’t believe it either.

Catherine and I stay like that for a while. Quiet, lost in our own thoughts. The pain of losing Derrick is so raw. I’ve lost a part of myself and I don’t have time to adjust. I don’t have time to mourn him. I have to save my broken world and reverse all of this.

I’m going to give Catherine and everyone else their lives back. Everything stolen by the fae.

And for Derrick, I’ll make the Morrigan pay. She’ll wish she had never taken him away from me.

“I need to go back.” I shove the blankets off my legs.

Catherine grasps my hand. “Rest first.”

My time is running out. “I can’t. Not until I’ve killed the Morrigan and used the Book.”

“Aileana,” Catherine says firmly. When she gets like this, it’s difficult to argue. Catherine is every bit as stubborn as I am. “You’re in no condition to go back into battle, and if you do—” She looks away sharply.

“What?”

“If you do,” she whispers, “I’m afraid I won’t see you before the end.”

“I won’t let that happen.”Tell me you believe me. Catherine voiced my own doubt, my fear that I won’t be able to defeat the Morrigan.I need to know that you trust me. “But I can’t just lie in bed. Not when we don’t have much time left.”

She looks away with a sigh. “All right. Then I have to show you something. If you won’t listen to me about resting, you need to see it before you leave.”

When I get to my feet, the pain is so intense that I almost collapse. I’ve never felt so weak. Not even when Lonnrach stole my blood and my memories. Or even when Catherine had to nurse me back to health after being attacked by will-o’-the-wisps and I was bedridden for several days. Not even then.

It’s not the same kind of hurt. This is the deep ache of my last breaths. The pain of knowing that I’m running out of time.

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