Page 192 of A Thief Among Fae

Orla laughs, the sound too chilling to be human. Darkness consumes the ballroom, and any guests who haven’t fled already are running now.

“There is one other way,” I realize, glancing at the clock. Two minutes until midnight, but it might as well be an eternity. “I need to get closer.”

“Closer?” Maeve squeaks. As I advance, she follows me, her vines still wrapped around her limbs.

Desmond groans as he stands. He notices our approach, and his expression twists with fear. “Run!” he calls out, begging me.

I ignore him. He can’t stop Orla. No one can, except for me.

With Desmond behind Orla, Maeve and I spread out to form a triangle around her. Orla’s spectral eyes flash, and her blood-filled mouth stretches into an eerie smile. She whirls, one hand extended back toward Desmond at an unnatural angle, the other stretching toward Maeve and me. Neiro collapses with a faint gasp, barely moving.

Orla unleashes her siphoned power.

It whips my body, throwing me back until I hit the banister. I clench the railing. It shakes as Maeve hits it, but she grabs on, squaring her shoulders in determination. Her vines writhe, crawling toward Orla’s feet.

Orla’s magic is overpowering, so different and yet so similar to the curse within Olin’s tomb. Neiro’s life force—that’s what she’s throwing at us. If a siphon can truly control the curse, the continent would stand no chance against their power.

One minute.

I crouch, then lunge at Maeve’s vines. I hold onto them, biting my lip as the thorns dig into my palms. Bit by bit, I pull myself toward Maeve, closer to the stairs. “Auri!” I scream. “Auri, the arrow!”

Halfway across the ballroom, Auri looks up from her fight. Lightning blasts from her hands, fomorians smoking and fleeing around her. She nods at me, a warrior’s determination tightening her form.

Then she runs. Each graceful step dodges the slash of a weapon or leaps over rubble. The skirts of her torn gown flow like torrents of bloodied water.

Fifty seconds.

A sheet of ice crackles across the base of the stairs. Auri falls flat on her stomach, and a fomorian pulls her into range of his axe.

“Auri!” I yell again.

The maelstrom halts, and in its place, power pulls toward Orla like a spinning cyclone. My breath is sucked from my lungs, and I tremble under the strain of my lifeforce leaving my body, my magic unraveling with it.

Vital seconds tick by. Thirty.

Auri strikes the axe with a crack of lightning that blasts it from the fomorian’s hand. She jumps to her feet, skids across the ice, and climbs the bottom step⁠—

The fomorian chases her, seizes the skirts of her gown, and yanks her back. She won’t make it. She won’t get to us before Orla devours our souls.

Desmond and Maeve have fallen to their knees. Maeve gasps, her skin paling to a ghastly gray. Desmond braces himself on the floor with his hands, one still clenching his sword. He drags himself forward, determined to stop the queen.

Orla blasts him back. She cackles as his body hits her throne. He falls still.

No! I grasp for our bond on impulse, but the vow is broken. Then I try to feel him with my magic, but I don’t have enough power left to reach him. Please be alive, please be alive.

My insides are withering as I pull myself up Maeve’s vines, my muscles straining harder every second. They’re weakening too fast, and I’m too far from Orla.

Midnight strikes, the gongs of the clock tower above Drottheim Keep ringing with a foreboding echo. Our glamoured clothes shrivel like fallen leaves into their true forms, Auri’s bow and quiver appearing on her back as she wrestles against the fomorian.

“Cynthia!” she yells. She lands a punch, slides her quiver off her shoulder, and throws it.

It’s a short throw. The quiver lands two-thirds up the stairs, then starts to roll.

No! I reach out with the last vestiges of my magic, the shreds that Orla hasn’t yet claimed. The quiver levitates, and tears sting my eyes as I bring it to me.

Olin’s arrow. Where is it?

There.