Page 39 of Immortal Sins
My heart hammers at the unnatural, desperate cry, and I grip his free hand.
“This is your fault,” I tell Lydia, hoping to coax an emotional reaction out of her.
A stiff angle in her neck is all I get in response.
“If Jules hadn’t stolen the horn, if you hadn’t helped her, Jeremy would be fine.” I speak the words as though I know them to be true.
Her jaw clenches, but she doesn’t look at me, her gaze still locked on Jeremy. “Don’t put this on me. YoukilledElsbeth Eillis.”
Eyes wide, I take a small step back. I expected this sort of comment from my sister, but her redheaded friend always appeared to be out of the loop, and a bit naive at best. “I was under a spell.”
Lydia scratches the constellation of freckles on her neck. “Were you under a spell when you brushed us off for months? Or ignored Jules’ questions? All this time, you were under a spell?”
Our eyes finally meet. Lydia stares right through me as though she read my destiny in her damn tarot cards and watched me drug Cole in her crystal ball.
My pulse drums a harsh rhythm in my chest. “Where is she?”
A wry smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “Beyond your mother’s slimy reach, that’s for sure.”
Out of mother’s reach…
I grab her wrist and squeeze. “You helped Jules steal the horn and flee to Faerie? Are you completely insane? What if she gets eaten or killed? Or worse, what if she gets enslaved by a Fae? Have you thought about that at all?”
She shakes me off. “Okay, Blondie. Play the victim, like you always do. You’ve ignored your sister’s existence from the day she arrived at the Academy. Don’t pretend to care about her now.”
“Fae are dangerous.”
“Youare dangerous. She’s safer in Faerie than she ever was with you around.”
My jaw clenches at the disgust in her tone, and I draw in a tight breath. Jules is in Faerie. I need to process. “Hate me all you want, but you disclosed her location. That was pretty dumb of you, if you ask me.”
Lydia opens and closes her mouth, probably realizing her mistake, and flips me off.
I hustle out. Still, I got what I came for. I found Jules. Who cares if Lydia hates me? But tears threaten to pour over my eyelids, and the simple thought of Jules being alone in Faerie churns in my stomach.
I trek back to my room. The origami sculptures suspended above my head convulse at the force of my emotions.
A dragon. A unicorn. A phoenix.
What the fuck has my sister done? If the Seelie keep the horn, or if mother’s illness progresses in the meantime, everything I’ve endured to get here, all the heartache, the regrets…it will all have been for nothing.
17
MADNESS
Cole insisted that I meet with his head housekeeper, Mary, a Fae with clever eyes and a permanent sneer.
“I’m sworn to him. I could never betray his trust, no matter how much I want to.” She walks in circles around me, one finger pressed into her chin dimple.
I haven’t met a lot of female Fae, yet her glamor pales in comparison to the others. It’s subdued, her skin a smooth shade of gray, and I wonder if it’s a genetic trait, or a choice.
“You do not belong with him. You’re a mortal.” A long, defeated sigh punctuates the sentence. “But you’ll die soon enough,” she adds as though this marriage is palatable only in the sense that it won’t last very long—to her anyway.
I flash my teeth. “If you don’t want to do this, I don’t need to wear a wedding dress.”
“Tss—I will not let my Cole marry an ugly bride.”
The Fae seamstress weaves her arms in front of herself and murmurs an incantation. Streaks of black-and-blue magic spark off her fingers. “Let your fire burn a little, so I can use it.”
