Page 118 of Fae Reckoning

More sneakles, feethles, parvnits, some numenits, and even a trio of arboramuses, whose leaf-like wings and twig-like bodies didn’t achieve great speeds, ran and flew toward the monsters all together, relying on the fact that they couldn’t catch them all at once; while bowmen, including El’s friend Reed, shot arrows at the monsters. Their swirling silver substance parted, leaving gaping holes through which the arrows passedunimpeded, lodging into the mirrored walls, where they disappeared when, in normal circumstances, the glass would have surely shattered. Whatever enchantment was affecting the mirrors was altering their very nature.

The chaos of fae scrambling to survive, along with their panicked screams, masked the monsters’ unnatural silence. My heart thumped wildly while Xeno’s dragon breathed fire upon two approaching monsters. Their bodies again dissipated wherever the flame would have touched them, allowing it to pass through to the other side. Shrieks sliced through the panic, and Xeno ceased his fire breath right away.

“Whatthefuckarethey? Howdowestopthem? Whatdowedo?” West asked in an alarmed, rapid rush, glancing at me and El.

He wasn’t the only one to be looking to us for guidance. We had, after all, just announced ourselves as their new queen and king. We were supposed to be protecting them, dammit!

My tattoos surged uselessly as someone threw an ax at one of the monsters to similar effect. The head of the ax glanced off an ornamental pedestal and hit Jolanda, dowager countess of Etherantos and Lennox’s mother, on the shoulder. Though it was the blunt end, she stumbled to her knees, her copper hair tumbling in messy sheets around her face.

“Stop trying to hit them,” I yelled. “Physical weapons don’t work.”

“By a dragon’s veins,” El uttered under her breathas she glanced desperately to all sides. “Whatdowe do?”

“Ivar!” I barked, though the male wasn’t in my sight.

Almost immediately, he appeared beside me, his usual disdain absent from his stricken features.

Quickly, I repeated West’s and El’s questions. Ivar only shook his head, his bloody cutlasses useless at his sides, his eyes churning with a conflict I imagined reflected my own. His words were concise and clipped.

“Best guess? A spell Talisa or Braque wove into the mirrors. Conjured a new kind of creature not of this world.”

“How do we kill them?” El pressed, while fae ran, screamed, fell, and huddled together. Her head whipped around constantly as if trying to register the myriad threats at once. “Talisa and Braque are both dead. Shouldn’t their spells have ended too?”

“Only if the spells were tied into their essences to work. So no.”

“Fucking great,” I muttered.

“Then what do we do?” West asked again, his head, along with Ry’s, Hiro’s, Roan’s, and Reed’s, who crowded beside him, swiveling to anticipate from which direction the monsters would first reach us—in a minute at most, I figured. If not for those valiant fae so intent on escaping the room despite the horde of monsters standing between them and any exit, they would have reached us already.

“Magic?” Ivar suggested, holding up Braque’salchemist satchel, the strap of which he wore looped around his chest. “I know just enough about these to know whatnotto throw at them.”

“Good, do that,” I said.

Ryder leaned across me to look at Elowyn. “Do your light thing, like with Talisa.”

I looked at her too. My mate’s face was marked with the juice of the morand berry in battle lines and streaked with blood and grime. In contrast, her eyes were bright and clear, a softly glowing violet that suggested her power never left her now. Though her magic was so new to her, my love—so incredibly brave and so terrifyingly selfless—didn’t hesitate.

She sheathed her daggers, which led me to store my own blades, and clasped my empty hand. She gazed up at me. “Together?”

Though I’d been taught to use my powers since my earliest memories, I’d never done what she had. I’d never faced down darkness with no greater weapon than my light.

But if my mate could be courageous despite her own lack of knowledge, so could I.

As if the Mirror World weren’t caving in around us, I smiled warmly. “Of course, my beloved. Just tell me what to do.”

“Uh…” She shrugged and chuckled darkly, her face the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen. “We wing it?”

Then, far before I was ready to do something I’d never done before when it counted most, El spun around to face the greatest number of approachingmonsters, squeezed my hand hard—hers so much smaller than mine—and bellowed, “Hey, you murdering assholes! Over here.”

I hadn’t believed them to be intelligent beyond a rudimentary sentience. But every single one of them looked up at her call.

As if they were ensorcelled to seek out Elowyn specifically—something both Talisa and Braque would have done. My heart squeezed with renewed fear when it was more urgent than ever that I banish it. Where was that insistent faith I’d experienced earlier? I knew: on the other side of seeing Elowyn safe, just out of my reach. My heartbeat thumped noticeably.

Their blank faces froze in mid-motion while the surface of their bodies rippled and flowed like water cycling through a fountain. If they already held someone in their grips, without turning to look, they tossed them into the mirrors. The surfaces shivered as if the monsters had plunked their victims into a still lake, the fae fading rapidly into their depths, then disappearing. The mirrors settled back into their unnatural, constant shimmering.

“Leave everyone else alone,” El yelled. “It’s us you want, isn’t it? We’re the king and queen of the Mirror World. Cease now and we’ll let you return to your mirrors unharmed.”

They could return to the mirrors’ depths and still be sealed inside them forever. Clever, my El.

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