She trudged forward, avoiding the nocturnal growls that sounded far too close for comfort. The larger creatures seemed to want to check her out until they got close enough to smell Neeve’s concoction on her, and then they probably decided she didn’t smell like food.
“Thank you, Neeve. I smell so bad not even the dragon monsters want anything to do with me.”
To make the time pass and to keep her mind off the creepy crawlies, Brea kept her eyes glued to a grove of trees in the distance. When she reached it, she found a long branch to use as a walking stick. Checking her compass to ensure she was heading in the right direction, she selected a new landmark to focus on. This time it was an outcropping of rocks rising from the swamp.
She was on her fifth landmark when it started to rain. Her seventh when it started to pour. By the tenth landmark, Brea was in mud up to her thighs with no solid ground in sight.
She was exhausted and scared out of her wits. The area around her was more water than mud, and Brea’s heart raced with the fear of what monsters might lurk nearby. She clutched her walking stick, using it to keep her balance in the swamp.
The magic she didn’t understand thundered through her body. She had no knowledge of how to control it, only that it responded to her emotions. Griff claimed he was going to teach her how to harness her emotions so she wouldn’t lose control, but that had never happened. The evidence against him continued to mount, and Brea wondered why it had taken her so long to see it.
She could feel it sizzling under her skin, begging for release. The longer she struggled to move through the swampy waters, the more the magic gathered inside her, latching on to her fear and anger like a blazing fire consuming oxygen.
Brea took another step forward, and she was up to her chest in muddy water as the rain continued to beat down on her. Lightning flashed, and something slithered against her thigh
Struggling to move faster, Brea’s exhaustion overwhelmed her. Her tears mixed with the rain. “I just want to go home.”
She’d gladly face the assault charges that awaited her back in the human world if it meant she could put this nightmare behind her. If she could see Myles again. Even her parents would be a welcome sight right now.
Splashing through the water, the ground began to rise, and Brea lurched forward until her knees were above water for the first time in hours. Checking her compass, she was still on the right path and the land ahead of her seemed rather solid in the moonlight.
As she moved forward, the magic pooling just under her skin seemed to reach a critical point. Stumbling, Brea’s heart rattled in her chest, and her lungs seized. She clutched her walking stick like a lifeline, but she couldn’t stay upright. She could feel the magic like a welling pressure in her body. With a scream of anguish, Brea tumbled forward, and a yellow light rushed from her open mouth, clashing with the lightning overhead. Sparks rained down around her illuminating the expanse of marshlands she still had to traverse.
Brea fell headfirst into the putrid mud. Rolling to her side, she tried to stand, but her vision went blurry.
I’m going to die out here all alone, and no one will even care.
Chapter Fifteen
Thunder ripped through Brea’s mind, and she jolted up in bed.
Bed?
Her chest rose and fell with rapid succession as she tried to see her surroundings, hidden by the dark.
The marsh. Creepy alligator-lizard-dragons.
She released a sigh as she gripped the thin wool blanket pooled in her lap. Had it all been a dream?
Or had her magic really almost killed her?
Her eyes darted from the bed to the sliver of moonlight appearing through a crack in the… tent door? Yeah, she was in a tent. How? Who?
A flash of lightning illuminated the sparse surroundings for just long enough to take in the small bed roll beneath her and little else. Her pack rested in the corner next to a set of saddle bags.
Brea’s stomach ached with hunger, and she couldn’t take her eyes off the familiar bag Neeve had given her. It took her a moment to realize the steady drumming on the canvas overhead wasn’t in her mind. The rain kept coming like it had no intention of letting up.
Scrambling from the bedroll, she crawled across the mossy ground to her pack and ripped it open. Yanking every one of the few belongings she had out, she searched for the remaining food that should be there.
Nothing.
Turning her attention to the unknown saddle bags, she pulled them into her lap and dug through the stranger’s provisions. Still, no food.
Warm, briny air blew into the tent, bringing with it the rain. She scooted back from the opening, dragging her bag with her. Going through it more slowly this time, she found the small knife Neeve had given her. Whoever found her must have taken it off her body.
Tucking it into the waist of pants she didn’t recognize, she pulled her legs up to her chest. Weariness invaded her mind. Her limbs tingled with weakness, and it took her a moment to realize what she felt… or what she didn’t feel.
No magic pooled underneath her skin. It didn’t churn with her emotions and lend her strength in her greatest moment of need.
“It’s gone,” she whispered.
She should have felt relief. Her entire life, she’d stood on the edge of a precipice, her volatility threatening to send her into the abyss—or get her locked up in the Clarkson Institute. She now knew it had been the magic, her fae heritage, expanding everything she felt.
But now, in the absence of that, with the prospect of being just a normal human, there was an emptiness inside her, a void in her heart.
She had to figure out where she was. If whoever found her was taking her back to Gelsi, she may as well have stayed with the lizard things. A shiver wracked her body and she couldn’t make it stop. Wherever they were was warmer than Gelsi, but even that couldn’t still her body’s shaking.
Her teeth clattered, and she pulled her tangled mass of hair over one shoulder, running her hands through it as if that could provide her the comfort she needed.
“You are Brea Robinson,” she said. “You survived being pulled into a different world and living in a palace of lies. A manipulative aunt, a man who betrayed you, and… snakes.” She closed her eyes, trying to make herself believe the words. “You can survive whoever is outside this tent.”
A crash of thunder made her jump, sounding like it split the sky in two. If the fae world cracked open, would it let her return to the safety of Ohio corn fields, where the biggest danger was psychiatrists overanalyzing everything and mean kids at school?
At least none of them had swords.
She fingered the hilt of the knife, wondering what any of the kids she’d known would think if they saw her now.
“I need you, Myles,” she whispered. She pulled the blanket around her as if it could protect her from this world. “I really hope you’re alive.”
And if he was, she’d see him again. In all of Griff’s stupid promises, he’d never been able to give her that hope. How could he even keep all of his promises and lies straight?
She couldn’t go back to Griff, not after everything.
Kicking the blanket away, she stood and crept to the tent opening, peering out into the storm.
Two guards stood nearby, seemingly impervious to the rain in their leather armor. Tents sat haphazardly around the small clearing with cypress trees looming as shadows overhead. Were they still in the marshes?