Page 82 of Fae Reckoning

“Uh, ‘cause there’s a murderous false queen out there who wants to suck our blood and eat us while we’re still kicking and screaming? Duh.”

I longed to laugh and tell her what an absurd notion that was—the false queen isn’t gonna eat us, silly!But when it came to Talisa fucking Zafira Tatiana of Embermere, I wouldn’t put anything past her.

“Uh-huh.And?” I pressed the MISO. The threat Talisa posed wasn’t new; Zafi’s behavior was. “You’ve been invisible since the parvnits arrived. Why?”

A buzz told me she’d flown closer to my ear. She whispered but our friends would likely still hear. “I already told you.”

“Mmhmm.”

“What? It’s true,” she protested, a little too fervently as the road grew smoother, now lined with tall, ornate, stone pillars—capped with fading, long-deaddragon heads. I gulped at the shockingly gruesome sight I’d seen only once before, when Dougal abducted me.

Zafi continued: “I just like being invisible, that’s all.”

“Really…” I deadpanned.

“Really. Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I? It’s a cool skill, isn’t it?”

“That it is, lassie,” Roan answered, proving they were hearing her just fine. “Wouldn’t mind making the whole lot of us invisible right about now.”

“By the Ethers, I’d be down,” Ryder said in that same wary tone we’d all been using for days.

I glanced back at where I guessed Zafi was and, around Saffron’s knobby arms, narrowed my eyes in her direction. She didn’t cave. I looked forward at the road, then back again with an even squintier stare.

She groaned. Next came a slap as if she’d thrown her tiny arms in the air then let them fall against her thighs. “Fine, okay? Fiiiiiine.”

Scanning the long road up to the palace, I waited.

Another quick buzz put her so close to my ear I felt her breath tickle as she hissed, “So they didn’t kick me out, okay? Is that what you wanna hear?I left. But only ‘cause they were really mean to me ‘cause I’m not special like they are. They don’t want me around, so why should I be? You’ll let me live with you at the palace once we kill the false queen, won’t you? So I don’t ever have to see any of them again?”

“Parvnits live at the palace,” Rush pointed out.

“But none from the Nerotti Forest, I’ll bet.” But the little fairy didn’t sound so sure. “It’s too far away.”

His attention scouting our surroundings, Rush shrugged. “Don’t know about that. There’ve alwaysbeen more pressing things to worry about whenever I’ve talked with any of them.”

“Well, I don’t want them to see me,” Zafi announced with finality, sounding so petulant I had no trouble conjuring an image of her with her arms crossed over her chest, her diminutive wings buzzing behind her in a blur, her acorn hat threatening to topple. “And you can’t make me,” she concluded, though she didn’t sound so certain about this either.

“I was a servant in Nightguard,” I told her, fully aware of the many ears listening in. “I know what it’s like not to be appreciated. To feel lesser because of how others treat you.”

“You weren’t a servant, Wyn,” Xeno said.

I smiled at him. “To you I wasn’t. To Zako I wasn’t either. But tell me that’s not how Malessa saw me?”

Xeno only frowned.

“Exactly.” Then to the area above my left shoulder, I said, “Stay invisible as long as you want. Just let me know if you want me to back you up when you kick bully ass.” How I might back her up without becoming a bully myself when the parvnits were as slight as hummingbirds, I had no idea. But for her, I’d figure it out.

“Us too,” Roan said to some murmured agreement from the others.

Zafi didn’t say another word about it, though I didn’t miss her quiet sniffle.

All at once, the incline became steep and the land to either side of the road lush and verdant in sharpcontrast to the grays and browns of Embermere’s neglected outskirts. Vast fields of grasses crawled toward the palace, stretching wide as the land climbed, until a moat carved a circle from the earth, which those of us who lacked wings would have to cross via the single bridge that offered passage to the structure’s main entrance. On the other side of the moat, precisely manicured gardens covered the rest of the distance to the palace, which with its many stories and cantilevered towers squatted ominously atop its steep hill. Its many cheery blue roofs and the red and blue banners that flapped gaily from every turret weren’t enough to detract from the true nature of what the palace concealed.

Evil awaited us. It watched and plotted. The knowing skittered across my already crawling skin as our army climbed steadily up the road, exposed on all sides.

Thanks to fairy messengers who’d come and gone during our trek, I knew that every other drake and drakess, from each of the Mirror World’s eight clans, had sent all of its warriors. Everyone in the Mirror World seemed to understand that this was our last—and only—stand. They awaited our approach on the other side of the palace, the side I’d not yet seen. We were the distraction meant to pull the false queen’s attention away from their numbers, far greater than our own.

Rush clasped my hand while I reached out toEinar, who’d only left us once to feed, and even then his absence had been brief and he hadn’t traveled far.

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