Page 65 of Where Broken Wings Fly

Without needing further explanation, Raegan summoned Rìoghail and took to the skies, Killian not far behind on Milis.

Trying to lift to my feet again, I heard the rasp of the pixie in front of me. His wavy, verdant hair was caked to the sides of his head, but the brightness of his misty-lavendar eyes shone in spite of it all.

“How can I help?”

I couldn’t help but to chuckle at him. “By lying back down and recovering your strength.”

“I cannot,” he groaned, trying his best to lift himself up.

Niamh appeared over my shoulder, her eyes wide as she looked at him. “Tadgh?”

“Ah,” he croaked. “Niamh. Tell me, what can I do to help?”

She didn’t question him or object to his offer as she passed a bottle of soap over to him and pointed at the many doused bodies still laying across the shore.

Once he had taken off towards them, I frowned at Niamh. “He should be resting.”

“He will not rest.” She smiled, small and sorrowful. “That is Tadgh Righ’Mar’Rugadh. The heir to the Uisge throne.” She patted my back and squeezed my shoulder. “You, my friend, just saved the son of the Queen.”

~

While Niamh and I continued to work at the bodies around us, Killian and Raegan still somewhere within the tanker, Shea got busy trying to figure out how to transport all of the pixies who were still clinging to life. She made quick work of it, sending birds into Choilltean only to return an hour later with leaf-crafted hammocks stretching from one bird’s talon to the next, capable of hoisting dozens of bodies up into the air. We filled them, slowly and carefully with as many as we could, sending batches of birds and pixies back into Choilltean.

“Will they be able to treat the poison?” I asked Niamh as we worked on two pixies, side by side.

“Hard to say. It’s always fifty-fifty. Our healers are skilled, but they can only do so much. One either survives iron-poisoning or doesn’t.”

I hated how defeated she sounded.

“Are you making sure to coat your hands in the soap before touching them, Niamh?”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her nod, allowing me to release a long breath. I called for Shea, offering her the next pixie as I finished scraping as much of the oil from their body as possible. Between movements from one to another they ushered words of thanks, light prayers to their god Cernunnos, or the faint whisper of goodbyes to loved ones not here to hear them.

There was no saying how many died on the side of St. Micheal’s Mount. Too many to count. Too many to even try.

It was with a heavy heart that Niamh and I finally finished the last of them. But I couldn’t help looking out to the water, my eyes lined with tears and my arms burning.

“What is it?”

“What if there’s more out there? Deep in the water?”

There was no point in sugar-coating it, at least that was what Niamh thought. “There probably is.”

“Can’t we get down there? Can’t we do anything more?”

She stepped to my side and pulled me into a tight hug. “You’ve done so much already, Olivia.”

“It’s not enough. There’s more out there, I can feel it.”

“Look—” Niamh lifted her hand to the tanker across the water. “It’s Killian and Raegan. They’re coming back.”

But I wasn’t listening.

“I’m going in,” I finally declared, peeling off the shirt that Raegan had offered me less than a few hours ago.

“Olivia no! You can’t—”

The rest of her sentence was lost to me as I dived into the oil-spilled water.