Elixir by Ruth Vincent Read Free Book Online Page B

children?”
    Obadiah frowned. “I don’t know why she kills them,” he said at last. “I just know that she does.”
    “How do you know?” I asked.
    “Because I’ve seen it,” he said, a darkness passing over his face. “I’ve seen her dragging them away to her secret room. I’ve heard them screaming. And when they go into that room, they don’t come out again . . .”
    My whole body felt cold as he said it. I knew he wasn’t lying. In my head, I could see the baby I’d switched places with—her tiny face turning purple as she cried, the Goblin shoving her little kicking feet into the sack. Was she . . .  ? If the Queen killed her— it’s your fault , the little voice in my head whispered.
    “She’s killed all the children . . .  ?” I asked, dread in my voice.
    “I don’t know,” he said. “I managed to escape. I don’t know what happened to all the others.”
    My shoulders slumped. So there was a chance my Shadow was still alive.
    “Do you know what the Shadows used to whisper to each other in prison?” Obadiah asked, his voice devoid of emotion.
    He stepped closer to me, arms crossed, a cold fire burning in his eyes.
    I shook my head numbly. The iciness in his voice terrified me more than if he had yelled and cursed. I didn’t want to know what he was about to say. I just wanted to run—run to someplace where I could be alone and think clearly. But there was nowhere to go.
    “Tell me,” I said, my voice almost inaudible.
    “If a changeling dies in human form, its Shadow can return to the human world.” His eyes sparkled darkly. “If you kill a changeling, its Shadow is freed.”
    A sudden dread filled my stomach.
    “That’s not true!”
    “How do you know?” he asked. “Have you ever tried it?”
    The cold logic of his words cut into me. I opened my mouth to protest, but—how did I know? I’d lived my whole life believing a version of reality I’d gotten from the Fairy Queen—and what a reliable narrator she’d turned out to be.
    The gleam in Obadiah’s eyes frightened me.
    Surely he wasn’t going to put this crazy theory to the test? Surely, he wouldn’t try to hurt me?
    I tried to gauge whether or not I should be afraid. His dark eyes were menacing, but he hadn’t made a move towards me. Not yet.
    But we were inside a secret room. No one else knew how to get in here except him and whatever lucky customer he chose to bring inside. Why had he taken me here? He’d said it was so that we could talk in private, and I believed him. But if something were to happen to me here in this secret room, no one but Obadiah would know.
    Now I was starting to panic.
    Think, I told myself.
    I watched him. There was a change in his eyes. Beneath the hard, cold anger, I glimpsed for a moment a young, scared boy who’d clung to any rumor he heard in captivity, if it resembled hope, because what was the alternative? I saw the wild desperation in him, and I trembled at what he might be capable of. I could see the deep hatred he had of all fairies in his eyes, and I understood where it came from, after what the Queen had done to him. But still, I didn’t think he was going to hurt me. There was something else in his eyes too, something that held that hatred in check. When at last I opened my mouth to speak, I tried to speak to that other part of him.
    “Obadiah, listen to me,” I said, moving closer to him, my fingers brushing his forearm. “I know I’ve been wrong about a lot of things. I know the Queen lied to me. But what you heard from the Shadows—it can’t be true. The fairies rarely put a changeling in a Shadow’s place. My mission was the exception. The rest of the time, we just left a Fetch—a piece of enchanted wood bespelled to look like the child that would wither and sicken and ‘fail to thrive.’ I’m sorry if you thought that was a way to free your Shadow friends, but it’s just not true.”
    Obadiah studied me, his arms folded tight over his chest; I could