appear. Too many faces. They all open their mouths and laugh.
The more I blink the quicker the faces turn into one. Greasy red hair is pulled back into a low ponytail. A shadow of an uneven beard dots along his jaw, faint freckles span the bridge of his nose and cheeks. He gives me a slight bow.
"You woke up rather quickly, my dear." Barnabus cocks his head.
"We've been trying to find you," I say, running my hands over my face and rubbing at my eyes. My magic might have eaten away enough of the toxin to wake me, but there is surely still some remaining in my system and it's leaving me feeling groggy at best.
"It's actually quite the other way around. We've been looking for you. We found you." The fire glows in the middle of their camp, a space I'm thankfully familiar with, and it reflects in his eyes.
They found us. They were the sound of whispers on the wind that I couldn't quite place. They were the eyes on the back of my shoulders. They... they were the darts. They were responsible for the poison.
I lay on a blanket flattened on the dirt. Closing my fist in the material, I look away from where Barnabus is squatted in front of me. Other men mill about, a few sitting around a table just a few feet away, some wandering the camp looking as if they have something much better to be doing. Dirt and tents and stolen supplies. Just as I remembered.
Two people remain huddled together at the mouth of a tent, the flap propped open as they stand in its threshold. One Fae, one human. Ellie, I think her name was. The pirate girl who'd found love in a group of bandits who worked against her. She stood with her hand held in his, sending me darting glances laced with anger. I can't help but be reminded of Lincoln and I. Only, I'm not human any longer.
I still would have loved Lincoln with the entire of my human heart. Until the day I grew old and grey and left him alone in this world. There is relief in my Fae side now... a relief that says I'll never have to do that. Lincoln and I can grow old together.
My attention continues to pan the area, searching for Lincoln and his familiar features. But he isn't there. Only sneering Fae faces with their angry pinched brows and tense posture look back at me.
"Where is Lincoln?" I start to get up, blood rushing to my head. The world tilts and turns. I force myself to stand anyway, to push down the rising nausea in my stomach that stings in the back of my throat.
"He's a little tied up at the moment." Barnabus grins, his teeth shades of brown and yellow. He rises from his squatted position as I stumble forward into the group and pull a round of laughter from the waiting bandits. "Should we show her, lads?" Barnabus yells with his hands stretching out at his sides.
I stop myself before my feet catch on one another. There is a dull pain in my arm where the dart had broken skin and I rub it with a frown. "What did you use on us?"
When the bandit reaches to help steady me, I swat his hand away. "Our own little concoction. All-natural, of course." He grins and points me behind a few tents. "You woke up from it rather quickly. Further proof that you've got more magic flowing through your veins than the average Fae we meet out in this wilderness.
The other Fae rise from their seats. I try to count their heads to understand how many are around me, but Barnabus grabs my shoulders and spins me to face the edge of their camp, the only part not visible from where I had laid and a tent had obstructed my view.
Ropes dangle from tree limbs, tied around the hands and wrists of a crumbled body. White hot rage boils under my skin, stealing away any color from my cheeks. My palm connects with the hard muscle of Barnabus's chest as I shove off of him and sprint to Lincoln. His dark hair falls across his forehead, his chin touching his chest. The ropes keep his body taut and upright.
"What are you doing?" I shriek unable to keep the edge out of my voice. I trample anything underfoot, leaves, twigs, supplies... all of it to reach Lincoln. My fingers grip