Page 41 of The Elven Spymaster's Thief

“None,” Illeron promised. “I have a bronze blade.”

“But you have healed her. There isn’t enough blood left, and you can’t draw more. The binding will prevent it.” Casimir’s voice sounded uncannily calm.

“But you can,” Illeron pointed out. “I will give you the blade.”

I felt the tingle of Illeron’s retrieval magic at the same time the siren’s call intensified again. The throbbing was so intense that I couldn’t hold back a cry of pain. The spell flung me against Illeron’s embrace at the exact moment he loosened his hold to pluck the blade from the air.

Suddenly, I was running toward my death with a bevy of shouts at my back. I sobbed with the effort of trying to resist, but to no avail.

∞∞∞

Illeron

I plucked the child’s dagger that Avril had attempted to steal from its keeping place just as Avril tore from my grasp.

“Casimir,” I called as I tossed the blade across the gap between us. Not even bothering to check to see if he caught it, I darted after Avril’s stumbling form. She fought the call, contorting her body in a wild-eyed effort to slow her progress.

Casimir beat me to Avril by the barest of moments. Striking with frightful precision, he reopened her wound. Then he turned wraith. With the barest shadow of variation, he flew from dark corner to black shade across the garden to the siren’s side. He plunged the dagger up into the siren’s heart.

I reached Avril just as the siren’s song ended in a prolonged shriek that made my ears ache. But I didn’t care. Avril dropped into my arms, limp, sobbing, and very much alive. I buried my face in her hair and clung to her. It was a few moments before I recalled she was bleeding again and initialized healing.

“I couldn’t stop.” A harsh sob shook her narrow shoulders. “She was controlling my whole body.”

“I know, love,” I whispered, smoothing her wildly tumbled tresses from her face. “Hush, now. It is over. You are safe.”

She shuddered. “I wish that were true.”

“Lady Avril said a shadow elf attacked her.” Favian, one of my most trusted veteran shadow elves, stood over us.

Avril nodded grimly. “I didn’t see him well enough to recognize him, and his voice wasn’t familiar, but it was definitely a shadow elf.”

Unease filled me. My arms drew her closer, reassuring myself that she was safe, at least for the moment.

“Casimir, we need an accounting of every elf’s whereabouts.”

Favian and Casimir both disappeared.

Avril’s favorite shawl was stained with blood and the shoulder of her tunic gapped. I made a note to replace them both immediately. The last thing she needed was a reminder of this night.

The Seelie king watched with obvious concern as I helped Avril to her feet. She wobbled like a newborn colt.

“Let me.” He opened a portal into the study.

Avril’s dark eyes widened in awe. “How do you do that?”

An amused smile crossed the usually reserved king’s face. “It is a bit of inherited magic, you might say.”

“Can all Seelie open?” She appeared to struggle with a word for what she was seeing.

“Open portals?” The king supplied. “No, I am one of the few.”

"Why wasn’t I allowed to meet him?” She asked me.

Despite the show of strength and attempt at normalcy with her friendly chatter, I could feel her body’s warning signs of an imminent collapse. Even an elf would have struggled to remain upright after such a traumatic event.

“We feared you would be caught in the curse because you are human,” I replied.

“Human female,” the king clarified.

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