Page 16 of Fated or Knot

I wanted to know the things she wished for at night so we could grant them. Locations she dreamed of visiting so I could steal her away to them.

But most urgently, I had to understand why her blue eyes had been shadowed with darker emotions when she’d said she’d wanted to be “seen”at the Omega Masquerade tonight. It’d felt like a cry for help, and Iwouldanswer it once I knew what she needed from me.

“Her troubles will suffice,” I said.

He lifted his brow with a knowing look.

“For now,” I added.

If he could tell meeverything, it would save me time and effort. But I would eventually learn it all myself once she trusted me enough to confide. No matter how long it took, I’d show her that fate had crossed our paths for a reason.

I looked forward to seeing her again. No masks, no illusions, and fewer secrets between us.

7

LARK

In the darkness of unconsciousness, a thought nudged my mind.“What troubles you, dreamer?”

My feet dropped onto the cobbled road I’d seen from a carriage window. Now, instead of a pixie child trying to sell masks, there was a busker on the street corner, strumming a tune I’d heard played by a full orchestra only hours ago. I twirled on cue and stumbled with no Fal to catch me, tumbling to the ground in an awkward tangle of limbs. My smock burst at the seams, and out tumbled coins, rings, timepieces, and a few jeweled bracelets.

Faceless fae stooped to pick at the bounty of gold and silver while I frantically gathered up what I could and dropped it into the ruined pocket, holding it closed with one hand.

“No! It’s mine!” I grabbed the band of a timepiece, trying to tug it from an equally determined shadow. The leather snapped, and I ended up holding an empty strap.

“Don’t you understand?” My eyes welled as my future was taken by grasping hands. “I need all this.”

“More than the ones who bought it all fairly?” asked a fae weighing a coin purse in her hand.

“More than us, who beg for scraps every night?”

The faceless forms stood when I did, surrounding me on all sides with accusing fingers pointed square at me.

“At least you have a home.”

“At least you will have a pack, no matter what.”

I clutched at my middle, holding my diminished fortune to my chest and smothering the burning sensation in my belly. It felt like my throat was in a vice, closing off my air as I looked for some kind of escape from the wave of accusations coming my way.

“You still have magic.”

“You’re still an omega.”

“A waste of pixie wings.”

“Thief!” the crowd screamed.

I bent, ducking my head to shield my face from the words, each of them blows I felt straight to my center. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I wailed. I knew I deserved all of this and more.

Phantom hands seized my arms, and panic further gripped my chest. My headspace was all shrill noise and overstimulated nerves.

I belted at the top of my lungs, “Stop!”

A whisper threaded under the ringing in my ears.“Hmm, guilt. Interesting.”

Then there was silence. Figures frozen in time, their pointing fingers and clenched fists turning into wavering lines, and then nothing at all. Just a nightmare…something I should have shaken awake from but didn’t. I blinked and it continued on as if nothing had happened. My ill-gotten gains returned to me, and I went through the motions of finding a pawn shop willing to buy everything from me with no questions asked.

The details were hazy at best. I haggled with a faceless fae standing in a misty box, then headed to a magirail station that looked like I suspected one to look. I hadn’t seen one, so it was a fanciful place with a sleek silver snake of a machine waiting to board travelers for a long ride with several destinations along the way.

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