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The moonlight streaming in through the window highlights a scrap of white on the floor. I pause, looking down at it. What…?
Huh.
A piece of paper lies a few inches away from her outstretched hand. Without bothering to stop and read it, I reach down, pick it up, and shove it in my pocket. It’s not important; if it’s hers, I’m glad it’s mine now. I can look at it later after I wake Lina up and rip her a new one for working with the Unseelie against me.
Her betrayal sucks. I would’ve liked to pretend that everything I heard was some kind of vivid dream, but after dealing with the fae lately, I know better.
And I can’t wait to hear how she’s going to explain it.
“Carolina? Hey. It’s me. Wake up.’
She doesn’t answer.
I crouch down next to her, grabbing her by her arm so that I can shake her awake.
I know in an instant that something’s wrong. She’s too cold. Too stiff.
She isn’t sleeping.
I swallow the bubble of terror in my throat. One more shake, and another whisper. “Lina?”
Why the hell am I whispering? She can’t hear me.
At that realization, it feels like someone with a giant hand reached in through the window, picked me up like a toy, and squeezed. My breaths are a rattle, short and shaky. I can’t swallow. My eyes are moving rapidly, dancing all over the gloomy room, desperate to land on something, anything except for my dead friend.
Because she’s dead.
Carolina is dead.
Deaddeaddead.
No matter what I try, I can’t look away. I’m drawn to her body like a moth to a flame.
And I whimper.
This isn’t panic. This is so many times worse than the irrational fears I’ve lived with for so long. This is something else entirely. I’ve only known it once before, when the firemen cleared the remains of this old house and I finally understood—without any doubt or alternate explanations—that Madelaine was really, truly dead.
This is what happens when the shock starts to subside.
This is grief.
And, as I stare down at Carolina, I have to wonder why it’s hitting me so hard like this.
It’s because I let my guard down. Because I let someone in. I only knew Carolina—or thoug
ht I knew her—for a handful of days. How much of it was a lie? Based on what I overheard earlier, it could be most of it. It could be all of it.
She was going to betray me. She was going to sell me out to the Fae Queen if it meant she could have back her freedom.
I can’t even blame her. If it came down to it, if throwing Carolina to the fae meant I’d never have to deal with any part of Faerie again, I might have done the same.
And now she’s dead.
Oh my god.
She’s dead.
16
