Page 21 of Fang Fiction

Tess peered at the card—it didn’t seem like a good one. It showed a woman tied up and blindfolded, surrounded by a circle of eight swords sticking out of the ground.

“She’s in trouble,” Tess said softly. “She knows she’s about to die—or worse. She’s trapped, and there’s nothing she can do.”

Flora put her hand over Tess’s, and Tess felt another surge of energy pass through her.

“Look again,” Flora urged. “Is anyone guarding the woman?”

Tess looked closely. “No. And—actually, there’s an open space in the circle of swords. She could walk away if only she’d take off the blindfold and see the path in front of her.”

“What does that tell you?” Flora asked.

Tess considered this for a long moment. “She thinks no one will help rescue her. But that doesn’t matter. Because really, she has everything she needs to rescue herself. She just needs to open her eyes.”

Flora picked up the card and handed it to Tess.

“Take this with you to the Isle,” she instructed. “Deliver your message. But don’t come back until you’ve done what the cards have asked.”

Tess looked down at the card—and almost dropped it in surprise. The woman was gone from the illustration. Her blindfold and the ropes that had bound her lay in a pile in the center of the now-empty circle of swords. Tess stared at the empty space where the woman had been. Was this a simple magic trick? Or something more?

When she looked back up to ask, Flora was gone.

“What the actual fuck?” she exclaimed, loud enough that the other customers stopped what they were doing to look.

“Sorry,” Tess apologized. “I didn’t mean to—sorry.”

They went back to what they were doing, and Tess slipped the tarot card into a little zippered pocket in her purse. She looked over toward the wall where Fern had walked through her portal, but there wasn’t any door there. She was confused—was she just supposed to go out the main hallway, the way she came in? But as she surveyed the room, she saw a door in the corner, with the word “Exit” painted in black across its center.

That hadn’t been there when Tess walked in, had it?

She walked over to the door, and she could hear something like white noise, or a whisper. She couldn’t explain how, but she knew, as strongly as she’d ever known anything in her life, that she was supposed to walk through this door.

When she opened it, everything was dark and musty—she thought vaguely that it smelled exactly like her memory of the antique books—but in an instant, there was a buzz, a blip, a blackness. And then, a flash of blue light.

Chapter 5

Excerpt from Blood Feud

(book one, chapter twenty-two)

by August Lirio

Isobel paced her bedroom furiously, clutching the intricately carved dagger Felix had given her for protection. Why wasn’t he home yet? He was only supposed to talk to Callum and Octavia, and that shouldn’t have taken long…

Unless something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

She snapped to attention with every noise, each rush of wind or snapping twig interrupting the eerily silent evening, waiting for any sound of Felix returning. When she heard footfalls pounding up the tower stairway, she flew to her door, her heart in her throat: Was it Felix, or was it someone else coming to say that her lover had died?

Her whole body pooled with relief when she saw him, his pale skin gleaming in the moonlight streaming through her doorway.

But then she saw his clothes were soaked with blood.

“Are you all right?” she cried, rushing to him. He pulled her in and kissed her, his touch shockingly gentle given the urgency of his manner.

“They’re brutes,” he whispered. “Barbarians.”

“What happened?” Isobel cradled his beautiful face as they sat on her bed.

“It was a trap, a vicious fight. We barely made it out alive—and we wouldn’t have at all if it hadn’t been for the poison daggers you made. All I wanted was for them to join our clan, to see that we’re safer together than we are apart.”