Page 97 of A Bargain with the Fae King

“May!” I reach for her, but she just tilts her head and blinks at me.

No… The dagger falls from my limp fingers. My hope gutters to ash.

May would come to me. My sister wouldn’t be this calm, not in a strange place, not with these people.

“There you are! My girls.”

I don’t turn at Dad’s voice. I can’t handle another familiar face. A shudder wracks my form as my eyes squeeze closed. Tears flow unchecked, and I don’t bother to wipe them away. Sobs wrack my body.

“We’ve missed you so much,” Elise says. “Please, just come home.”

“Let me help you, Lia,” Sigurd says.

“Come back to me, please,” Riven begs.

I can’t get enough air. My fingertips dig into the hard-packed dirt.

“You’re just going to hurt them all? Again? Can’t you see they need you?”

This voice does snag my attention.

I twist my head to the side and see the mirror image of myself standing at the end of a pathway. Except this Lia isn’t sobbing into the dirt.

She rolls her eyes in disgust. “So like you to fail.”

I shove to my feet, staring down my doppelganger. Are my eyes really so cold? My smile so vicious?

“Look at you.” She smirks. “Pathetic.”

The others call for me, but I tune them out.

“I’m not pathetic.” I wipe at my face.

“Aren’t you? You got your sister captured. You fled from your parents and left them to worry. You turn your back on every fae you come across.”

“No, I—”

“You play Sigurd and Riven against one another, each hoping to win your affections.” She stalks my way. “And poor Katiya. You let her people get cut down, and now you want to deceive her?”

“That’s not true. I didn’t… I don’t—” Guilt chokes off my words.

But she’s—I’m—right.

“Sitting here sobbing like a child. So typical.”

Nausea churns within me. The world sways. It takes all my focus to grab the dagger from the ground again. The handle in my grip is solid and strong. Something real and true in this maze of terrors.

“God, Lia, you can’t help anyone. You’re such a baby.”

They all want me to come to them. All except one.

I stalk toward my mirror self.

She rolls her eyes again. “Turning your back on all of them, huh? So like you. If you hadn’t been so selfish, maybe you’d have kept your eyes on the road instead of yelling at May, huh?”

I stumble and hunch forward, the breath knocked from me. That horrible memory swells to the surface, nearly dragging me under.

“You’re the reason she almost died. You’re why she’ll bear those scars for the rest of her life. You’re why she got captured.”

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