Bones of Faerie03 - Faerie After by Janni Lee Simner Read Free Book Online Page B

held me, fought without thought, knowing only that I had to be free, no matter the pain, no matter
anything
.
    No
. Beneath pain and fear, a small part of me remembered I could not afford panic now. I forced myself to stop fighting, and I listened for the ragged thread of my breath, remembering Karin’s lessons. Breathe in. Breathe out. Again. And again. My breath steadied. The pain and the fear didn’t go away, but they no longer controlled me. I kept breathing, counting out the time. Ten breaths. A hundred. I might yet have a chance to save both Allie and myself, but only if I kept my thoughts clear.
    I tested the limit of my good hand’s reach, feelingevery bit of wall and floor I could get to. The stone was smooth all around. I snapped my mirror open against my hip, taking the plastic case in my teeth to feel for more shards of glass. My fingers traced a spiderweb of cracks, none of the shards among them large enough to serve as a weapon.
    Five hundred breaths. A thousand. Light flickered at the edge of my sight. I turned as far as my hand would allow. The light came from a glowing purple stone, carried by a boy with clear hair tangled as willow branches, approaching through a stone tunnel that hadn’t been there before.
    My broken mirror caught the boy’s light. It flashed bright into my eyes, and in that flash I saw—
    Mom clutching Caleb’s hands. “I’ve birthed children without magic before,” she said. “I can do it again. What I can’t do is walk far enough or fast enough—find them, Kaylen. Bring my daughter home—”
    Caleb running through a storm-tossed forest, Matthew a wolf at his side. The sky was bruised gray-green, and wind lashed at branches that hissed as rain flew from their leaves. Caleb stopped to put his hands to the surface of a rippling lake. “It is no good. The wind is too strong. We must continue on, toward the Arch—”
    A woman I did not know, a faerie woman with bright eyes and a long twisting braid that brushed theground behind her, also running, through forests I did not know. A ragweed vine lashed out to block her way. She stopped to give it a long, wry look, and the vine drew back, letting her pass—
    The vision faded as a voice shouted, “No yelling!”
    I jerked at the sound, pulling on my trapped hand, dropping the mirror. The tangle-haired boy grabbed my face. His silver eyes glared at me. “I said no yelling!” His glowing stone lay on the floor, filling the room with purple light. Across from us, a tunnel stretched into the distance, if only I could reach it.
    I focused on the boy, who, like Elin, looked the same age as me but was probably older. His sleeves were torn, and angry red scars ran along his arms. There was something wild in his eyes—it reminded me of what I’d seen in Karin’s eyes, before she’d collapsed. “I wasn’t yelling.” I spoke gently, as to a trapped animal.
    “Not you.” He released my face to grope at my pocket.
“Them.”
    I pushed his hand away, moving my arm to shield pocket and seeds. Those seeds were all that kept him from being able to glamour my thoughts away.
    “Why so loud? Why so green?” The boy snarled, as if he were a wild animal in truth, and lunged at me.
    I hooked my leg behind his ankle, sweeping him to the ground. Heat tore through my stone hand. The lightshowed, too clearly, the way my wrist melted into the wall.
    The boy looked up from where he landed, sniffling like a hurt child. “There is no green,” he whined. “There is no loud. There are only gray whispers, whispers that slide between skin and thought, make people say you’re crazy. Not crazy.
Not
. The Realm crumbles. No one stops it. Why?”
    “I don’t know why.” I watched, waiting for him to attack again.
    The boy began to weep, with a low moaning sound like plants when rain soaked into their roots. He ran his fingers along his arms, nails digging deep, drawing blood.
    “What’s your name?” I asked, not expecting him to give it, knowing