Page 16 of Fae Champion

After a long exhale, I faced him. “How do you know it’s not too late?”

“Because it can’t be. I won’t let it be.” His fists bunched at his sides with determination.

The others flanked him as if already in a fight for the future of their upside-down world.

“And why should I care about all this?” I asked meekly, already resigned. “This isn’t even my home. I was abducted from mine and forced to leave it behind.”

Rush was shaking his head. “No, El. This land’s in your blood. What just happened back there proves that. You’re as much a part of it as we are.”

“Maybe more,” West interjected.

“What … what did happen back there?” I asked.

Rush pursed his lips as Hiroshi replied, “We’re still figuring that out.”

“Will you tell me once youdo?”

“Of course,” Ryder said, his face a mask of earnestness.

I scoffed. “Liar.”

Ryder smiled, shrugging. “There’s a bigger game at stake here. We’re just players.”

“And I’m a player too,” I muttered.

“Yes,” West said.

“So why can’t Hiroshi give the queen chicken lips and we call it a day?”

Three of them chuckled, I assumed at the memory of Braque flabbergasted by his new look. Rush didn’t.

Hiroshi said, “If only it were that easy. The queen’s impervious to most magic. The farther up the royal line you go, the closer to the pureblood elves of the Golden Forest you are, the less others’ powers can affect you.”

“It’s a bummer you’re not the queen’s relative instead of the king’s,” West said. “Then you might have a chance.”

I scanned their visages, all of them handsome in different ways, all of them sincere when it came to this grand purpose of theirs. I wondered if they’d been the ones to choose it, or if they’d been forced into the role of savior much as they were doing to me right now.

“Help us, Elowyn,” Ryder said. “We promise, it’s a worthy cause.”

I couldn’t believe the words were about to spill out of my mouth, but they did anyway. “Fine,” I snapped, irritated at the turn of events. At how my hands were bound by invisible ropes held tight by my conscience, a burden the wretched queen didn’t share. “Take me tothe dungeons,butonly if you’re sure the queen can’t have me killed in there.”

Eyes wide and eager, West said, “She can’t. Not so long as you don’t threaten her life or the king’s or that of any of her subjects, and not so long as you’re still part of the Fae Heir Trials.”

“Then what about Lennox? He sure as dragonshit did his best to kill me.”

West rubbed at the scruff on his face and looked to Rush. “He shouldn’t have been able to do that.”

“No, he shouldn’t have.” For a few breaths, his nostrils flaring, Rush appeared murderous. “I’ll make sure he pays for what he did.”

“Us too,” Ryder said.

“For sure,” Hiroshi added.

“So you’re going to lock me in the dungeons where no one can supposedly get to me, but ya know, maybe they still can.”

Rush ground his teeth together so hard they squeaked. “We’re not going to leave you unprotected.” He pinned a look on his friends. “And she’s going in thehumandungeon, not the fae one.”

“Rush, no, she can’t—” West protested.

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