Page 136 of Fae Farewells

“You guys need to calm the fuck down.”

“Why are you so calm?” Stone asked me, his tone a mix of anxious possessiveness.

“You’re not listening to me,” I argued, then settled myself, because I knew what was happening. “The pain will fade soon. What you’re experiencing is her emotions, what she felt the last time you argued or hurt her feelings. The bonds are still there. She’s just closed them so no one can access us through her.”

“How do you know?” Palmer challenged, the heartbreak in his voice making me frown.

I hoped they all stepped back and worked out these feelings. They were deeper than what I was experiencing. My last argument with Sloane had been two years in the making, so they weren't new emotions. She’d been aggravated that I’d pushed her into talking, but relieved that I was safe. We’d already had this discussion.

“Because I did the same thing,” I answered. “I closed the bond. She felt my heartache and grief, but she didn’t know why.”

Briggs rubbed his forehead so hard I worried that he would take the skin off. “But she—”

“She’s basically sleeping,” I affirmed, trying to settle them down, even if I was guessing.

“She mimicked the magic that my parents were using,” Vaughn stated. “That shouldn’t be possible.”

I snorted.

That was a stupid response. Sloane was an impossibility. There was a high probability that she could do anything she set her mind to. That wasn’t a trait from her parents; that came from something else.

Something that made little sense to me.

But I didn’t have time to dwell on questions that I couldn’t find answers to.

I had a group of co-mates who needed to understand that the physical battle was now resting on our shoulders. She was taking care of the mental shit-show. It was time for us to roll our shoulders back and figure our shit out without her.

She would be back.

And she’d be livid if we were still sitting here.

“I can’t get inside her head,” Novak mentioned to me as he sat on my right side. “It’s like there’s nothing there.”

“There isn’t anything there,” I commented. “She’s blocking everything from us, so Alric can’t get to us.”

Stone held his hands out. “What do we do now?”

“We do what she told us to,” Palmer stated.

“She’s trusting us to finish this,” Vaughn told us, though it felt like he was talking more to himself than anyone else. “If we don’t follow through with it, then pushing her to this point was for nothing.”

“I don’t know why I was expecting a few baby steps…” Briggs said with a chuckle. “But I was.”

“That was dumb.” Novak grinned at him. “She is literally the definition of balls to the wall.”

I stood and clapped my hands together. “We’re going to the druid realm. We should probably wrangle the hounds, too.”

“But first, we need to pick up another mage.” Palmer nodded his head toward Sloane.

“Why?” Stone asked.

“Because she’s fighting,” he explained. “And she’s draining herself by holding this stasis. If Alric is in her head, then she needs all her energy. Why let her weaken herself when Murphy and I can boost this self-induced coma?”

“We need to bring someone to monitor her, too,” Vaughn suggested.

Briggs looked skeptical. “Like who?”

“Thatcher.” Vaughn shrugged. “He’s trustworthy, and he’s not associated with any of us outside of this realm. He won’t draw attention, but he’ll fight if anyone gets near her.”