There’s a big party and I promised we’d be there.”
Shit. “It’s okay. It’s not an emergency. I just…I know her. She’s trying to solve this riddle and she needs you.”
“Listen, bring her up to my room. Sit her under my mood lanterns and watch those to know if we have to take drastic actions. Put on some Tom Petty or the Eagles and shove pizza under her face. Then give her milkshakes. Even if you have to pry her mouth open. That should buy me a day. When the party is over, she can portal us back home. That work?”
“Okay. Okay. I’ll try that.” I sighed and stared at Tegan through the window. “She hasn’t spoken a single word today at all.”
“We have to get Saffie back before she tortures herself into a straight jacket.”
“We’re working on it, but with her not telling me what’s in her head, I’m not sure what we’re missing.” I cursed and pushed my hair back. “I know this face. She’s scheming but something isn’t adding up for her and you’re the only one who thinks like she does.”
“I’ll be home in twenty-four hours. I promise.”
Chapter Six
Saffie
The second my feet hit the vines of the tunnel, I spun and slammed my palm into the wall. Green light burst from under my touch. Flowers and vines spread left and right. The image of Riah’s stupid fake friendly smile from that night we met all those years ago lingered in my mind like a hideous shadow.
All these years.
No, stop it. He’s not worth your tears. You have to get home.
But as the tunnel opened up under my hand, I realized I didn’t have a home. My home in Salem had not survived the centuries. The theme park had been my curse, not a home. My mother had joined the crones. Uncle Leyka had…well, I wasn’t really sure where he’d gone. Landreia’s house had been my home for a couple weeks but going back there now felt wrong. I felt like an imposter.
An empty, hollow ache filled my chest and tears burned in the backs of my eyes. I didn’t have a home because the Seelie fae had stolen it from me. They stole my life from me. They stole everything from me. And just when I was finally free, finally within reach of getting something of myself back, they swept it out from under me. Riah swept it out from under me.
I thought I’d been mistaken, hallucinating that night on the wharf when I landed in Salem but now I knew I wasn’t. He’d been trying to take me right then and there. I screamed and pushed my magic into the tunnel wall, forcing it open faster. He may have won the battle but I was damn well going to win the war. I waited three hundred and twenty-seven years for freedom. I wasn’t going to give that up without a fight.
No matter how pretty his stupid face was.
I wasn’t going to fall for his charm a third time. I was going to find my way back to The Coven and then I was going to have my vengeance. I was going to sing my song of revenge and they were going to hear it.
The second the tunnel opened far enough, I dove through…and my bare feet hit cold cobblestone.
The sound of engines filled the air and, in the distance, the ominous blaring of alarms sent a cold chill down my spine. My wet hair clung to my body and coiled around my arms. My dress was heavy and trailing the ground behind me. A cold breeze swept up from behind me and I shivered so hard my bones rattled. I glanced left and right and my heart sank. I had no idea where I was, but I had not caught up with time yet. I seemed to be in the middle of a village that’d been destroyed. The stone walls were crumbling and missing ceilings, windows were shattered, and doors were blown off their hinges.
I cupped my hand over my eyes to shield from the sun and looked to the sky. Planes with weird red flags and strange black cross-like symbols flew overhead. These weren’t like the planes I’d seen flying over Hidden Kingdom. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen planes like these. They each dropped large dark objects that exploded in flames and smoke when they hit the ground, like cannons on a pirate ship. The walls around me shook from each explosion, the cobblestones