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I heard the tightness in his voice. He’d thought that he’d lost us both.
“Let’s go home,” Cerri said.
But where was home? We had so many places to go. There was the Seelie castle, the hunting lodge, and her apartment. While some were safe, they were not home. While some were home, they weren’t where everyone else would be.
“I need to sleep for a year, and if anyone interrupts me, I’m going to curse them to shit frogs for the rest of their life,” Cerri said as she fell back in my arms. “Oh, speaking of curses, I have an idea on how to punish Foxglove.”
18
CERRI
My war council was comprised of a pregnant shifter, a shoplifting demi-god, an angel with her boots on my kitchen table, a fae that had been a human, and a knight who could not take his eyes off me. I stumbled up to the table in my pajama shorts and fuzzy slippers. Yawning, I stretched my arms over my head only to be warmed by Rhoan’s heated gaze when my shirt lifted.
It wasn’t like we hadn’t sated ourselves on one another all night. We’d even broken one of the wooden slats of my bed frame. Thankfully, it was wood. Using my arcana, I stitched it back together without breaking a sweat. I did, however, break a sweat after.
Though Rhoan has physically exhausted me, Beryl haunted me in my dreams and kept my sleep from being restful. The seed buried in Beryl’s court filled me with a feedback loop now that I was back in the mortal realm. It showed me flashes of everything that’d happened since she’d taken over.
I knew that it was real because I saw Taliesin, strung up as an example to her court. She’d forced the others to stain their knees in his blood as a sign of their dedication. That nightmare had me gasping for air when I woke. I’d slipped into sleep after that, but the seed fed me more of the same.
Now, it was close to one in the afternoon, and I’d kept everyone waiting.
Tal tilted the plastic cup in front of him. The rainbow liquid inside almost glowed with a toxic aura. He gave Vi a dubious look and shook the drink to hear the clatter of the ice inside. I needed one of those today, but I wasn’t about to admit that to Vi after protesting her concoctions for so long. I just wanted to feel the zing of caffeinated energy flying through my veins.
“Just try it!” Vi lifted her own, nearly empty cup and took a long drag from the straw.
“It’ll wake you up, that’s for certain,” Ness said under her breath. She fiddled with her own clear plastic cup filled with a dark liquid.
I pulled out a chair beside my best friend and sank into it. “Should you be drinking coffee?”
She cut me a glare and pouted. “No. Don’t remind me this isn’t coffee. It’s just hazelnut chocolate milk.”
Addie toyed with the glowing leaf in her hands. It held her attention the same way a magical ring might hold someone’s attention. I fought the urge to snap my fingers in front of her face, but she did catch me staring. A flush reached her cheeks, and she shoved the leaf back into her pocket.
She’d had the power of an entire world inside her up until recently. I could understand how that might be an intoxicating lure. Perhaps she told herself that she would be of more help if she had that kind of power back.
“When are you putting the leaf back on the tree?” I asked pointedly.
Tal’s head shot up from his toxic drink. “Excuse me?”
Rhoan came around and set a drink and a plate in front of me. I gave him a thankful smile. He stayed close to my shoulder, him to one side and Tal seated to the other side. Even though I was in a room full of allies, neither of them wanted to stray far.
I gestured to my friend. “Addie here stole a leaf of the world tree, Yggdrasil, from the Goblin Market.”
The room fell silent. Not even the ice in everyone’s drinks dare melt and clatter. No one drew a breath while we all turned our attention to Addie.
She gave a nervous, apologetic smile. Vi cocked a brow and stole questioning glances at everyone else as she dropped her chair to all fours for the first time since she’d arrived.
“What do you have there?” Vi asked as if she were speaking to a child.
Ness gave Vi an admonishing look, as did I. Addie, on the other hand, seemed sheepish. Her cheeks darkened and she audibly swallowed. When she and I locked gazes, I tried to encourage her to tell her side of the story.
Who was I to stop her if she wanted more power? I wanted to be the kind of person who would fight for all of the lives in that little world, but I was too tired from worrying about my own small slice of this world. Though I knew the leaf contained something far larger, it seemed so small by comparison.
Addie painted a quick picture with her words. Vi gaped and sat back in her chair.
When Vi turned to me, I braced myself for something harebrained.
“Why don’t we take everyone in your court and move them over to there? Seems like a good idea to me. They can all start new in a place where Beryl doesn’t exist.”
