Page 110 of Why Broken Wings Fray

“Know this,” he muttered, a cough shattering his words, “Know that I have bled and known agony today, yet it pales in comparison to watching you leave again.”

“Don’t make me go,” I cried softly, my eyes welling once more even though I tried to stop them. “Please don’t send me away again.”

I was inclined to believe that the tear in his eye had nothing to do with his broken body.

The last smile Raegan offered me was sincere. Small and soft, hardly there, but real. “Enjoy your life, my darling little human.”

The strength it took to look away from him was nothing in comparison to what it took to turn away. Most of that I could credit to the fact that I started to cry. A true cry, too – blubbering and streams of salty-water down my cheeks type of crying.

“One more thing,” he called after me, causing me to stop but not turn. Because I knew, if I turned, there would be no other option. “Olivia Loughty, I need you to know that I–”

Raegan passed out.

I heard the exact moment that he fainted, the thud of the earth vibrating the short distance between us.

Grimacing, trying to hold together the thousands of fraying pieces of me, I walked.

Slowly, I walked.

49

____________________

It was easier to get to the causeway than I had imagined.

It was also easier to locate, considering the long stretch of Mount’s Bay was visible from most angles, even if I was incredibly tiny. So I dragged myself, my shoulder slouched, my body rattling with pain, all along the land that split Cluaineach and Uisge.

I tried not to look to the South, to the large protrusion of rock that was where I had met Urram and Gliocas. To the meadow that prefaced it where a Prince had revealed his golden wings to me. To the flowers around me that dappled aotroms throughout and reminded me of the one that was permanently around my neck, weathering and decaying the poor thing.

The texture of the land beneath me shifted slowly, no longer the flattened meadows of dirt and grass roots but rounded and bumpy as the pebbles from Mount’s Bay appeared slowly. I hopped from one to the next, trusting my ability to navigate that way instead of trying to walk over them and likely roll an ankle.

Nearly an hour later, I saw the causeway. Where we had once loaded an army of pixies, where panthers had prowled down it and scared the shit out of several random tourists to St. Michael’s Mount. I tried not to think too much of that, either, as I made my way to the ticket-master.

The wooden outpost was tremendous in comparison to my small size, causing me to wonder how, exactly, I would be able to garner his attention at all.

Due to the sinking sun and the late hour – as well as the fact the causeway was flooded and most would take boats or wait for the tide to lower itself – there wasn’t much traffic in and out of the booth.

I stood as close to it as I could, forcing myself to look up at the man behind the counter. At first glance, he looked like nothing more than a normal man, though quite handsome. But the longer I looked, the more of his features started to stand out. From his dark brown hair, near black, that had a unique tint to it that spoke of the trees and their bark, from his eyes of a similar colour. Then there was that natural charm, that indisputable allure that simply pulsed from him like a scent. But the last, and possibly most important, hint was when he pushed some of his shoulder-length hair from his shoulder and revealed no ears to tuck it behind.

“Hello,” I called out, unsure of how else to start a conversation.

He did not startle nor did he panic. The appearance of a faceless voice didn’t bother him much as he simply took a deep breath. “Your scent – I do not recognize it.”

“I’m a friend of Rory’s.”

He contemplated that information, the ravine between his brows thickening. “And what do you want?”

“He told me to seek you out if I ever needed help. I need help.”

His brows, big, black caterpillar-like things, lifted. “With what?”

“I’m too small,” I sighed, wondering if this would be the last time I would know my body in this way, at this size. “And I don’t want to be anymore–”

He didn’t give me time to finish my sentence. The world shifted around me, everything shrinking and contracting as the world tightened yet expanded. I went from standing at the wooden base of his booth to leaning over the pedestal of it, my balance tossing me left-and-right as I fought to accept my new, human-sized body.

“Easy,” he said, unbothered, before offering me an arm to brace myself on. I mouthed a quiet thank you to him as I used his body to center myself, my stomach churning and my mind spinning as everything in me screamed that this was wrong. That my body, which I had owned nearly three decades, was all of a sudden wrong.

“Rory’s back in Penzance,” the causeway booth-man said. “You know where that is?”