“No. No. No.” I pull away, only to stumble backward into waiting arms.
These hands aren’t friendly or comforting. They grab my shoulders while two Fae clutch my wrists and bind them in obsidian chains.
My vision swirls as the locks latch.
I’ve been bound in obsidian before. It had little effect on me apart from the pinch against my skin. But as I’m wrapped in it this time, bound in the weight of black stone, a heaviness seeps deeper than flesh and bone. It rests over something in my chest that I didn’t realize was burning until the chains snuffed it out.
“What are you doing?” I try to tug free as I look up at Callum. “What are they doing?”
He doesn’t answer. His face is cold.
“You have to stop them. You have to stop this. I’m human.” Panic swells in my chest. “I’m human!”
Something cracks in the forest. The snap of a hundred tree branches breaking all at once. Birds take flight, and fear washes through the Fae. Even Callum flinches.
I didn’t do that.
I can’t do that.
My heart hammers as a final chain wraps around my chest, covering my heart. And then I can barely move or breathe orthink. I can only succumb to a new type of black prison that envelops me.
The island no longer speaks.
The scent of frozen pine is replaced with something floral, which is when I realize I’m no longer on Alyssium. The last flowers to bloom were the morning glories, and when they gave up, I did too, even if I didn’t realize it at the time.
At some point, I manage to find the strength to speak, but my vision still swims.
“Where are we?”
“Ruse Village.”Callum’s voice.
The last thing Father said was to trust Callum—that he would have the answers I’d be searching for. So why would Callum let them do this to me? He stood and watched me be bound and chained. And these chains are so…
My stomach lurches as bile rises in my throat.
They’re heavy.
Even if I could form a question, this queasiness won’t let me open my mouth. Only vomit will come out. So I bite my tongue and swallow it down. I close my eyes and refuse to look at Callum. Even when a warm hand rests on my shoulder, and I know it’s him. His fingers tighten once.
Twice.
Then he’s gone, and I’m alone again.
Father was wrong. I can’t trust anyone.
“Why does it glow sometimes?” My fingers brush the handle of the sword, but Father quickly pulls meback.
“It doesn’t. It’s just a trick of the light.”
“Like the butterfly?” My eyebrows pinch as I look up at him.
His dark beard has grown grayer this winter, and when his expression pinches, it draws out the wrinkles in his forehead.
“Yes, like the butterfly.”
My gaze moves back to my mother’s blade. Maybe Father isn’t seeing it like I am, because the blue vein swims, and light doesn’t do that.
“There is no magic on Alyssium. You know this,” Father reminds me.
