Page 116 of Kiss the Fae

You cannot assume I’ll stand aside and watch you suffer!

He’s siding with me. He flouted rules before, catching me when I tumbled off The Mistral Ropes, telling me where to head from The Fauna Tower. But those incidents are nothing compared to openly deceiving his world at the final turn.

We gaze at one another. I don’t want to clash with him, and he doesn’t want to block me, but the game’s gotta be played to its utmost.

I want to grab him, and slap him, and whip him. I want to kiss him senseless. I want last night. I want nine years ago. I want to stay with him. I want to go home. I want forever. I want one more minute.

But I can’t waste that one minute. And I can’t risk forever.

Follow the wind.

I unhook the whip from my hip and give it a deft flick. My weapon licks the air, swerving toward an extension behind Cerulean. It cuts through this structure and unfolds into another pocket of fog.

Our eyes lock, caged, trapped. I’m not sure who moves first, but I think it’s me, because it’s got to be me. My whip lashes out. His reflexes kick in, the javelin lancing the air and blocking the hit. The collision pries our shocked eyes wide.

We spring apart. My weapon meets his again, strike for a strike. He rotates the javelin, spinning it between his fingers. The whip swats the air, flogging his attempts. We circle each other, our feet battering the planks, our boots thumping into a complex pattern as we thrust and parry.

The shaft of his javelin pivots, the bladed helix jabbing. The length of my whip flays, thwarting the blow.

I can’t hurt him. Please, I can’t.

He windmills his weapon low to the ground. I jump over it and hurl the whip in a broad, side-loop that catches his arm. The wet thwack of a lash stings my ears.

Yet the attack fails to upend Cerulean, glancing over his bicep like a ribbon. Despite the bond rendering us evenly matched, he’s holding back again. I know it from the chinks in his armor: the dread inflating in his pupils, the slower pace, and the lighter raps of his weapon.

I know it, sure as I know he’s gratifying the masses, whetting their appetites. Faeries crawl along the bridges, keeping a tally of the spectacle.

The swing of his javelin should flog me off this bridge. Instead, my whip hinders another thrust, the slack pulling taut. The tension jams our chests together, mimicking a pose we’ve been in before, when my crusade through the mountain began. Moments before the hornets attacked, we stood like this, spite infusing our veins.

Our panting breaths clash, our lips on the brink of collision. I hate this moment. I need to get past this moment. On impulse, I flick my tongue across the seam of his mouth.

Cerulean’s eyes dilate, exploding in a vibrant mosaic of blues. Hell, men. They’re all the same, magical or not.

Taking advantage of his momentary astonishment, my whip clips across the divide and clubs him sideways. He smacks into the ropes fencing us in. I shove my way past the guilt and make a break for it.

I reach the adjoining bridge as he rights himself. A quick glance rewards me with a private sight: A secretive grin crooks the corner of his mouth.

I keep going, dashing along the structure that burrows into a film of clouds. From there, it’s less a game of chase, more a game of disorientation. Every suspension lacks closure, The Lost Bridges a never-ending medium. They transfer me from one foundation to another, on and on and on.

Me, hiking rungs, jogging past poles, racing across platforms.

Him, scamming my progress, acting like an impostor.

Fucking Fables! Mist obstructs every grade. Each access leads to someplace nonsensical, splintering my sense of direction.

Up is down. Left is right. Forward is backward.

Maintaining constant vigil of my destination fails to help. Whichever gradient seems intended for the peak lands me farther from it.

I traverse one of the trestles, shimmying up its pillars. But at the top, I find myself at the bottom again.

Another divide brackets into an L shape. I follow the wind and turn the corner, which deposits me at the summit of an upper parallel bridge. I look over the railing, at the place where I’d come from. Cerulean materializes below, wads of mist bloating around his limbs. He reclines against the banister with his arms folded, tips his head to meet my gaping face, and winks like an evil prick. Even if he’s faking it, the Fae in him is also somewhat enjoying these sick antics.

The stunt wrings a curse out of me, reinvigorating my adrenaline. I hurl myself over the edge. My boot heels crash onto a new bridge, leagues from where Cerulean had been. Somehow, I’ve landed on a platform farther above the one I’d leaped from, but it appears to be the highest altitude yet.

With renewed hope, I let my whip and the wind guide me. Hustling past another projection conveys me into a screen of moisture. My muscles shriek with exertion, my thighs wobbling, perspiration swamping my armpits. Oxygen shaves the tissue from my throat.

I stumble in place, second-guessing my direction. Maybe I should backtrack and—

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