Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,115

least by being with them, I have some control over their care, and I can learn more about each one.” He lowered his gaze to the floor. “Besides, if it wasn’t me, it might be someone who doesn’t care at all.”

We stood in silence, both of us engrossed in our thoughts as we waited for the pixies to return with the book. I still wasn’t convinced they’d come back, but I had to hope that their desire to be exonerated was stronger than their desire to escape. Nathan’s words had perplexed and intrigued me. Did the pixies really like me, or was he just blowing sunshine at me? Truthfully, my heart had developed a soft spot for them, too, despite their mischievousness.

Some twenty minutes later, a faint buzzing sound drew my gaze upward. The squadron of pixies descended in formation, a small cluster of them carrying Nathan’s book. I tried to count the pixies, but I had no idea how many I’d actually Purged in the first place.

“Is everyone here?” I asked Boudicca as she made a grand entrance on my shoulder, flourishing her beautiful wings.

She beamed and pretended to count everyone off on her tiny fingers before shaking a triumphant fist in the air. I guessed that meant they were all present and accounted for, and my lungs took an easier breath. None had been captured during the mission, and they sure looked smug about it.

Grinning through her pin-sharp teeth, she swept a hand toward the book: ta-da. My eyes sought it out eagerly, only for my hopes to deflate as I realized what they’d brought: The Ladybird Book of Irish Myths and Legends. A kids’ book, more pictures than words, and definitely not what I’d asked for.

To make matters worse, the splinter cell who’d carried it was squabbling over who got to bring it to me. As each clawed for a corner, the book flew open to reveal a painstakingly detailed illustration of a leprechaun sitting under a dock leaf, dressed in green with ginger hair and a pipe in his mouth. As the rabble battled over the book and one of the pixies seized the corner of the page and pulled, the illustrated leprechaun ripped right in two. The pixies fought over the remaining pages, pulling the paper apart.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as they scampered toward me with eager faces, each of them brandishing an armful of shredded pages like it was the best gift in the world.

“This isn’t the right book,” I muttered apologetically, and the pixies looked crestfallen. “And books aren’t all that helpful if you tear them up, just FYI.”

They’d done their best, book-mutilation aside, but the language barrier was proving difficult to overcome. The pixies were wild, despite my unique connection with them.

Nathan huffed out a sigh. “Without going with them myself, I don’t see how we’re going to get this book.” He brushed a hand through his hair, and a throng of she-pixies swooned. Boudicca glared at them, as though she’d already staked a claim. “Although, I’m somewhat glad they didn’t bring the right one, otherwise I’d be looking at the pieces of a rare manuscript right now.”

“Then we need to come up with another game plan, and we need to do it—”

I was interrupted by a sudden, blinding pain that cut through my skull like a white-hot blade, severing the sentence before I could finish. My knees buckled and I toppled forward, unable to move a single muscle to break my fall. The pixies shrieked and swarmed, trying to catch me, and the ground rushed up to meet my face. A moment before I hit the deck, the lights went out in my world, and everything disappeared into darkness.

Twenty-Seven

Persie

I opened my eyes to nothing at all, a dull throb pinballing back and forth between my temples. My cheek rested on something hard and cold and smooth, presumably the floor where I’d fallen flat on my face at the bottom of the sphere.

Did something hit me? I struggled to recall what had happened. I remembered vague panic about the book, and then blackness. I squinted into the gloom, confused, trying to find Nathan and the pixies. They had to be nearby. They wouldn’t have just left me alone, unless… unless the Wisps had come back and taken Nathan. Still, that didn’t explain why Boudicca and the rest of the pixies would’ve left me. They’d had a chance to run away, and they hadn’t. Had I been out for