“Is there anything else fae are vulnerable to?” She glanced around the valley, probably expecting me to start making a whole list.
“Fae are pretty indestructible. But besides iron, we’re allergic to yarrow, and St. John’s Wort,” I said. “I don’t suggest getting anywhere near either.”
“I took St. John’s Wort once. A girl at school gave me some herbal pills to calm me down before a test, and I gotsosick,” she said with clarity, as if a realization was dawning. “Mom freaked out when I told her I’d taken them, and I didn’t get why. I was ill for a week afterward.”
“Well, now you know,” I said.
Emma shifted closer to me. She was so close that I could smell her perfume. Her red hair drifted across my cheek when the wind blew.
If it wasn’t that small incident that made me completely fall for her once more. I was already so far gone.
“Do you really think all Unseelie magic is bad?” she asked. “Thatalldark magic is evil?”
“I’ve been raised all my life to believe so.”
“That’s hardly an answer.”
I sighed. “I don’t know if it was right that all the Unseelie were killed. But I do know that Seelie shouldn’t tamper with dark magic. That includes you, Emma. Seelie blood runs in your veins. You’re a fae of the day court. You’d do well to remember that.”
Emma said nothing more about it. Only got a grim expression on her face. She rose slowly to her feet. “Thanks for the lesson, Ethan, but I have to get going. I’ve got practice at the rink in an hour.”
“Yeah. I’ve got class, too.” Not that I was looking forward to it. Professor Waldron was hardly my favorite teacher.
As we left the Willow Maid, Emma’s red hair bounced on her shoulders. I tried not to stare too long. She seemed lost in contemplative thought— it only felt right to pry.
“What are you thinking about?” I questioned as we walked through Arcanea University’s gates.
Emma hesitated. “I’m not certain. I just have a gut feeling there’s more to the story than we know. Something about the Unseelie just doesn’t add up.”
“You could be right.” The fae liked their secrets— even now, parts of our history remained hidden from us. And I wasn’t sure how far our ancestors had gone to completely conceal… or perhaps twist... the truth.
* * *
Emmaand I separated once we got back to the castle. On my way to my evening class, I noticed a headline blaring across one of the TVs in the dining hall.
ThebeithirI’d been hunting had been captured and killed. The Arcanea Alliance had somehow cornered it yesterday night and destroyed it.
Damn. I’d missed my chance to figure out who’d set it loose. The suspect was still at large, and there was no way to find them now.
The officer they were interviewing said that they expected the slaughters and disappearances at the warehouses to stop, but I was doubtful. The monster hadn’t been the sole reason people were vanishing. That was the responsibility of the Black Claw.
I’d hit a dead end investigating the case. I needed to find out where these cultists were hiding. Maybe then I could put a stop to the murders plaguing the city.
Interspecies Cooperation was one of the few Companion classes I had indoors. Companions of all grades were in here, talking and goofing off before class. I took a seat in the back and tried to imagine where the Black Claw could be.
“Gods, I can’t wait until this semester is over,” Stefan complained in front of me. “Professor Waldron isso boring. He needs to fucking retire.”
Agreed. He was a griffin that was older than Malovia itself, I bet. The only thing we did in this class was listen to him lecture for an hour about how important interspecies collaboration was. It was enough to put you to sleep.
The sound of thuggish laughter caught my attention. That Alexei guy we’d saved the other day from thetaranticulawas in this class. He sat up front and mostly ignored everyone else, keeping his eyes straight, though someone had set their sights on him.
It was Elijah. He and his goons were throwing wads of paper at him. When Alexei didn’t respond, Elijah and his boys took turns shoving Alexei and smacking the back of his head.
I rolled my eyes. This was fucking college. Couldn’t these clowns grow up? We were beyond grade school bullying.
Alexei stared forward and tried to ignore them, but it was obvious he was getting pissed. His hands were bunched together into fists, and his face was glowing red. I expected him to explode into a pile of feathers at any moment.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed. An alicorn kid, Theo, was watching the situation from the other side of the room cooly, his arms crossed. He wasn’t impressed with Elijah’s stupidity.
