Page 68 of A Sip of Sin

Adair didn’t seem to notice much, but his excitement faded when he caught sight of Hollen in Munro’s arms. His face fell, exhilaration replaced with concern. “Oh my God, Hollen! Munro, what did you do to him?”

“Adair.” Dara’s voice was sharp, but Adair didn’t seem to notice her, reaching for Hollen instead and touching his cheek.

“Hollen? Baby?” He glared at Munro. “You told me he’d be alright—that you’d look after him.

“Adair.” Her voice cracked through the air this time, and Adair froze, his hand still on Hollen’s cheek. “Get in the house. And get away fromhim.”This time she wasn’t glaring at Munro, but straight at Hollen. “There’s a terrible darkness in his soul. Don’t touch him.”

“Grandma?” Adair snatched his hand to his chest, his eyes filling with sudden tears. “You know Hollen—he’s my best friend. I know it’s been a while since he’s come to visit, and things have changed, but you can’t talk about him like that.”

Munro resisted the urge to tap his foot on the ground. This was no time for a family reunion or to dig into the mysteries of Hollen’s best friend. Hollen had never said a word about it to him, but he probably didn’t know that there were two fleshy stumps protruding from Dara’s back—or that her house was made more of leaves and wood than plaster. There was no way he could break an illusion the way Munro could.

Dara let out a heavy sigh, her shoulders slumped with more than years. “Perhaps it’s best if you come inside.” She looked to the mismatched group on her front lawn. “All of you.”

Adair went quietly, slipping his hand into Hollen’s limp one before he followed Dara while keeping pace with Munro. The porch shifted beneath Munro, one of the loose logs rolling underfoot. Adair hardly seemed to hesitate before he hopped to the next, tugging them along.

Stepping inside was like popping through another illusion, the sounds of the city falling away to crickets and chirps of the forest. The walls were a deep forest green, ivy seeping between thick cracks in the wall. The roof was open, sun cascading fromabove with a few small birds perched in the branches of the high trees that leaned heavy against the walls.

To the left was probably a couch made of three massive and hard mushrooms as strong as wood with a knitted blue blanket tossed overtop. The kitchen took up the center of the room, a real fire crackling in a woodstove with the stack pushing a thin line of smoke into the air.

Without the trees and the plants, the heat would have been oppressive. But instead, the coolness of the leaves seemed to linger, moisture clinging to the walls as a pot bubbled on the stove.

“You dropped something, Grandma—a wrapper, maybe?” Adair leaned over, grasping a few stray leaves from the floor. They crumpled in his hand, dry and brown with a few wisps trickling back to the thick grassy floor. “Where’s the garbage?”

There was no way that Adair was seeing the reality that was before Munro’s eyes. In his eyes, a small wartime house was reflected, with a rickety porch and an electric stove, the green-tinted appliances older than the walls.

Munro looked sharply to Dara. “He doesn’t know.”

She shook her head, sadness mixed with a heavy regret. “Nothing.”

Munro barely knew Adair, but that still hit hard. Lies from someone close to you were one of the deepest betrayals, especially for a faerie. Family was everything to them. Without it, they lost their wings in a savage ritual that cast them out. Some of them struggled to live after that with nothing left to their soul but slivers of themselves.

“Know what?” Adair looked at them, his eyes wide and so cluelessly innocent.

Munro shook his head, dropping his gaze to Hollen. His face was ashen, the last of the color faded away. His chest was barelyable to rise and fall, stuttered and slow as sweat beaded on his brow.

“I don’t have time for this,” said Munro, a growl in his throat. “Faeries lost something important, but it was your own doing. Now, can you help us or not?” He turned until Hollen’s face was under the stream of sunlight that peeked through the open roof. The golden light did little to correct his pallor.

Dara shook her head. She turned away, reaching for the lid on the pot and tugging it free. Steam swirled in the air, tomatoes and spices thickening the room. “I don’t know what you expect me to do. I thought demons had been exterminated, but you brought one to my house. How were you expecting I could help?”

Munro curled his lips back, exposing his fangs. Adair took a step back, his eyes wide.

Erie spoke up for the first time, his voice soft. “Magic.”

Dara went stiff, her knuckles going white on the fresh ladle she’d grabbed. The flames in the stove had dimmed to orange coals, the color dropping. For a split second she looked at Adair, her gaze giving everything away.

“You know they didn’t give Adair a chance.” Dara let a breath out, and the room seemed to dim. Adair looked to the ceiling as if he could see flickering lights and not a cloud overhead. “They murdered his mother, my most precious daughter, calling it a betrayal. I couldn’t stop them from taking his wings—cutting them off with that blasted cursed knife. I made them take mine afterward to settle the score.”

When she faced them completely, there were tears in her eyes, a few streaked over her cheek. “Those bastards cast me out when I refused to leave him. They never knew that he was different, and I didn’t either, until so much later.”

Munro tapped his foot. Hollen was fading faster than he could fathom, his heartbeat slowing as Gorgo leeched more fromhim, intentionally or not. Between one breath and the next, he threatened to fade away.

Dara caught his eye, her gaze steady. “He can’t help you. He’s not like what you think. He’s something this world has never seen before. His magic—or whatever it is-- won’t save Hollen.”

It was worse than a stab through the heart and the twist of a rusty blade.

She wiped the tears from her eyes, her lashes clumped together. “You know there’s only one thing left to do.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

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