A pair of black wings spreads behind Devi’s back, and I gawk. I had no idea she could fly, but the expression on her face is worse.
My Faerie godmother bares her teeth through a wry laugh. “There’s nowhere else to run now. We’ve come home to you,Daddy.”
Chapter 48
One More Light
MAX
Ethan absently strokes Iris’s hair. “Tut-tut,” he chides. “We’ve gone down that road before.”
He pulls a greenish dagger from his sleeve and holds it up to the light. All the Fae around me crouch and hiss, their feet digging into the ground.
“Either you all stand down and leave, or I kill Lori.”
He drags the blade slowly across Iris’s throat, but she doesn’t recoil from it. Instead, she extends her neck toward the flat edge of the weapon with a smirk.
I swallow against the roil in my stomach.
“One more dead queen,” Ethan sighs dramatically. “What a waste. Will that be fifty dead wives now, son? Or fifty-one?”
Goosebumps tighten the skin at the back of my skull, but Willow braces her hands on her hips with a provocative grin.
“That lame threat might have worked on Elio, but I don’t buy it. Without Iris by your side, it’s seven to one. You can’t afford to kill her,” she says.
Ethan’s face darkens to reveal the monster underneath. The hollows in his cheeks deepen, his brow furrows, and the cruel curve of his mouth twists into something ugly and vicious.
“You might be right about that,” he says.
He releases Iris and passes her the end-all blade, then starts down the stairs with one hand trailing along the golden banister. With his other hand, he reaches beneath the collar of his shirt, fumbling with something hidden there.
A smirk tugs at his mouth.
“But as you can imagine, I expected you to come. In fact, I planned on it.” Ethan’s eyes gleam as he stares at Willow, and Willow alone. “You think I haven’t done my homework since we last met, my sweet?”
His smile widens.
“Don’t you notice anything different about your silly little jewels? Let’s see how they behave now, shall we?” he adds.
The beautiful gems adorning her knuckles suddenly begin to pulse with light. The long sleeve of her jacket starts to melt, revealing a hundred more, and she grabs her elbow, crouching forward as though the weight of them is suddenly threatening to tear her arm right out of its socket.
Sweat gathers on her forehead, her limbs shaking, and her lips curled in a rictus of immense pain.
“What did you do?” she seethes, falling to her knees next to the throne.
Then, the jewels fall to the ground, one by one.
Ploc. Ploc. Ploc. Ploc.
The smugness on Ethan’s face boils my blood.
“You’re playing with technology you don’t truly understand, my dear. Or own. You’re no Mist Fae, and Kahlee doesn’t stand for usurpers,” he says.
Damian’s bow sings. Arrows and bolts tear toward the twisted staircase, forcing Ethan to shield himself with an orb of light.
One second, Devi is standing beside Willow.
The next, she’s airborne.
