She stepped around me, the cloth at her wrist staining red from her blood.
“You’ll bleed out.”
“I am a witch, Estrella. I cannot die from a mortal wound,” she explained, her fingers pressing against the bump at the back of my head. I winced, my entire head throbbing.
“But the witches on the beach…” I trailed off.
“Your snake strangled one, squeezed the life from her body. It was not the action of a natural snake, but one you enchanted to do your bidding. There is magic involved in such things, and only the magic of another creature or the complete draining of our own magic can end the life of a witch,” she said, applying a thick coating of the paste to the bump. “Leave this on overnight and wash it in the morning. It should help with your headache and the swelling.”
“Okay,” I said, knowing I would follow her instructions. There wasn’t a chance I would let her sacrifice and the pain she must feel from cutting herself be in vain.
She stepped around me to my front, applying what remained of the paste to the cut on my cheekbone. “Tell me what you know of the Fae,” she said, staring down at me. Her mouth set into a hard line, and her lips pursed as she waited for my response. Her fingers were gentle despite the impatience on her face, carefully dabbing the poultice into the valley of my wound.
“That they’re horrific creatures I should fear,” I said, my tone rising incredulously. I couldn’t turn away from her heated stare, the crescent upon her forehead keeping me bewitched.
Imelda rolled her eyes finally, dropping her fingers from my wound and wiping them upon a cloth she pulled from her pack. “The Fae operate under their own set of rules. Some of them will apply to you, others will not—now that we know you are not human in the least. As a Fae, do not say something three times unless you mean to hold true to your word. The law of three makes it binding, and the only way to break that vow is through death. The same goes for blood vows. They hold more meaning now and are unbreakable; you will owe a favor, and that is not something you ever want to owe anyone here,” she said, her voice trailing off as she glanced toward the door.
She knew as well as I did that our time was limited before the guards snatched her away. I wanted to ask why she’d even come, but I didn’t need to. She would go wherever Fallon and I went. Such was our bond; we were somehow connected in ways we didn’t understand.
“The Fae can’t lie,” I said, adding another rule to her list. I supposed that must have applied to me now, leaving me incapable of muttering untruths.
“But they can dance around the truth in ways you may never realize until it is too late. Less is more. As you cannot lie, try not to speak at all. A hardship for you, I know,” she said with a little smile.
My skin buzzed with warmth, the flesh slowly feeling as if it was beginning to heal. I had so many questions about the magic of the witches and how it compared to the magic of the Fae, why the witch’s magic seemed capable of working through the blockade of the iron that kept my magic at bay.
“Never, ever give a Faerie your name. It gives them power over you. Withhold it as long as you can, though I doubt it will be possible to keep it a secret for long. One slip from Caldris, Fallon, or I, and your name will be known, but there is one rule we haven’t discussed that you must abide,” Imelda said as the sound of keys jangled just outside the door.
“What?” I asked, my voice a hurried whisper.
The key slid into the lock, and time seemed to slow as Imelda hurried to tell me the last rule.
“Never accept a gift from a Faerie, and if they give you one by force, do not, under any circumstances, thank them for it. It implies gratitude, and that is something they can use to call upon a debt in the future. If Mab gives you a gift, you are not to be grateful for it. You are to remain indifferent, even if she offers you water when you’re dying of thirst. Do you understand?” Imelda said as the door opened.
She turned away from me, gathering up her supplies as the nameless guard stepped into the room. He looked me up and down as I got to my feet, assessing the threat I posed or could have posed. I knew the moment his logic warred with his fear, thinking me unimpressive at a glance, but I’d killed his immortal Faerie friend.
I smiled, forcing arrogance to my face in spite of the conflict warring within me. I had killed a man—brutally, in fact—and no matter that it was self-defense, I felt the stain of each death I caused upon my soul. I didn’t want to become like the Fae, killing without remorse.
The day that I did would be the day I truly lost my humanity.
He huffed, turning his attention to Imelda. “Time’s up, Witch,” he said, stepping out of the doorway and waving a hand for Imelda to step through.
She slung her pack over her shoulder, barely glancing at me as she stepped through it and disappeared into the hallway. I knew the idea was to keep her distance from me. She couldn’t claim not to care about Fallon, but I could be irrelevant to her.
It was better for her safety that way, but it did nothing to stem the hurt in my chest. My bond with Caldris had gone silent at some point during my fight to survive with Ophir, leaving me anxious. I’d only managed to keep my panic at bay with the commotion of others being in my room, not knowing who would be able to hear my thoughts. I didn’t want to give them any information that wouldn’t be safe to share inadvertently, and until I had a full lesson on all the capabilities of the Fae, I couldn’t take that chance.
But now alone, I realized how quiet it was to be trapped alone inside my head. There’d been a time when I had lived for the solitude of those moments.
Now I just craved the feeling of my mate’s annoyance grumbling away at me.
8
Caldris
The clearing of a throat woke me, and I knew before I opened my eyes who had come to torment me in my cell. My body felt weighted down, sluggish, and impossible to move. It took every bit of my energy to force my eyes to open, to stare up at the woman who could take everything from me if she wanted to.
“Where is my mate?” I asked, my voice hoarse.
Flames burned up my throat, the first hint at how long the iron had kept me unconscious. The fuzzy remnants of my dream hovered at the edges of my memory, threatening to consume me if I gave them the attention they needed. They slipped through my fingers as I forced my body to roll onto my side, pressing a palm into the stone beneath my body and trying to push to sit myself up.
“She’s in far better condition than you at the moment,” Mab said, crossing her arms over her chest as she stared down at me. She kept her distance from the iron bars, her nose wrinkling in disgust at the horrid, damp smell of death and decay that always consumed the dungeons. “Must you force me to lock you away down here? You know how much I hate being forced to subject myself to this stench.”
“Sorry to inconvenience you, my Queen,” I mumbled, dropping onto my back when my body wouldn’t cooperate.
I couldn’t force myself to sit, let alone stand. The iron had rendered me incapable of protecting my mate, as if the cage hadn’t already done that. The snake wrapped around my heart was a sufficient cage in itself, forcing me to obey Mab’s commands even when they went against everything I believed.
Estrella’s relief pulsed down the bond, her sense of me returning as I awoke. I felt her worry—her fear for me—and guilt plagued me in response. To be so separated from all parts of me must have been devastating, and I wasn’t sure I would survive it without having eyes upon her body to know that she still breathed.