Page 8 of The Crown of a Fallen Queen
Percy lets out a satisfied huff at my failed attempt to bend his will. “You’re too weak to control me. Serves you right.” He extends his small hand to the screen of my phone and taps in the password, but before he can do anything else, a powerful knock at the door spooks us.
My pulse spikes as we both turn toward the entrance of the shop.
“Percy? Percy, it’s Mabel. Are you in there?”
Say her name out loud, and she appears. That witch. Shit. Did she already hear about my murder spree?
“Weren’t we supposed to meet in town for breakfast? Why are you so early?” I shout through the door, calculating the chances that she caught a whiff of the cupids’ bite of power.
“Open up, child. Or the stink left behind by your chubby visitors will trigger my migraines.”
My eyes screw shut, and I rest my head against the wall. Caught red-handed. So much for keeping it a secret.
Chapter 4
Mabel
DEVI
Percy flies to let Mabel in while I lean against the wall in a relaxed, natural way, still feeling a little too weak to stand without help.
“Hey, Mabs, what brings you in so early?” I say.
“Bad news, I’m afraid.”
Percy scans the street behind her, checking on the cupids, and a cold wind gusts into the room.
The bite of Mabel’s magic settles over my frayed body like a weighted blanket as she tightens her hold on the handle of her black umbrella and shakes it over the carpet. The accessory quickly melts into a cane.
"What possessed you to throw a party for those vicious beasts? I smell what, twenty? Thirty? What in the Dark One’s name did you cook up in here to summon a haze storm of cupids at your doorstep?" Her gaze darts from the pool of blood at my feet to the deep bite in my leg before she rests both hands on the raven-shaped pommel of her cane. "Oh, I see. You went out again."
A judgmental throat-clearing sound escapes her, bringing heat to my cheeks, and I offer her a sheepish grimace.
“It was worth it.”
Mabel fixes her bun, her white hair tied neatly at her neck. “And how long do you figure you’ll be stuck within two blocks of this place?”
As soon as I step outside the safety of the house, the cupids will track me down, and it takes them weeks to vanish back to the hell they crawled from.
“A month? Maybe two? Max can bring me groceries. It’ll be fine.”
“Hmprh.Should I fry a few of them before I go?”
I cross my arms over my chest, finally letting go of the wall. “Don’t bother. They won’t stay down for long anyway.”
While the cupids created by the curse are completely immune to my magic, they are merely hindered by anyone else’s. They can’t be killed. Period. When one is struck down, its body breaks apart, and another appears in its place—only buying me time to get away.
Mabel walks across the room to the kitchenette, leaning her cane against it before filling the boiler to the brim. “I’ve received dire news from the continent.”
Mabel doesn’t share my longing for the motherland that chewed us up and spit us out, but her web of spies still keep her informed, so she can better protect what’s left of her people. She’s always watching over her shoulder, trying to protect me and her other protégés.
I raise a curious brow. “Spill.”
She glowers at my breezy attitude. “Max is parking the car. You should probably clean yourself up.”
Maxine, Mabel’s adopted daughter, is a mortal. As young and sheltered as she is, growing up in this world, she’s not used toseeing me in pieces. And the Fae Continent is as intangible to her as the nightmares that keep me awake at night.
I join Mabel in the kitchenette, careful not to step on the glass beads still littering the floor. “I’ll take a quick shower before Max gets here, but you can’t tease me with gossip of that magnitude and not spill the details. Just tell me.”
