sounding amused. “I didn’t know she made half-formed ghosts these days.”
I didn’t know if he was trying to be funny, or if he was being his irritating fairy self. I couldn’t care less. Robin was talking to Marian with everything I had deluded myself into thinking was reserved for me. Open ease and familiarity, pleasure at seeing her mixed with genuine worry. But he could hold her hands in his.
Meira started singing my praises to Guidion, listing what Leander and court advisors had fed all my failed suitors, mostly what the six other fairies had gifted me with at the celebration of my birth. Basically, traits I had no hand in, and were, as Robin had said, ornamental. I doubted anything about me could interest a fairy prince. And I wasn’t interested in him.
I had eyes only for the two figures in matching hooded cloaks and hunting gear. I was deaf to all other voices beyond their argument.
Marian’s voice was rising. “I couldn’t wait until the Wild Hunt returned the next year.”
“Why?” Will exclaimed. “What’s so important about these fairies you couldn’t wait for our return?”
“This!” Marian tugged down her cloak and collar, baring three angry-looking claw marks stretching from beneath her ear to her shoulder.
“What is this?” Will hissed. “Would you stop being vague and tell us already?”
Marian rolled beseeching eyes to the skies. “Use your head, Will! That night I left was a full moon, and what was I patrolling for? Predators. Well, one got me before I could get it. But instead of killing me, it infected me.”
“No,” Will gasped, looking sick. “No.”
“That’s why I came with the Wild Hunt,” Marian said with a determined set to her jaw. “They said if I rode with them on an important hunt, they’d help me find the werewolf that scratched me. Once they do, and before the infection sets in, and it’s too late for me, I’m going to track it down, and I’m going to kill it.”
Werewolf? Like that horrific Lycaon.
“We’ll come with you,” Robin said firmly, his tone final. “We’ll help you, just as we would have from the start had we been there.”
And that was the final nail in my coffin.
I couldn’t ask him to help me now. Because he would. He would tear himself apart trying to save us both. And he would never live for himself.
That was my fate, but it shouldn’t be his. I wouldn’t let it be.
He was the one for me, but I wasn’t the one for him.
Now he’d do what he’d come here to do, save Marian—and marry her. Because he loved her. He would have a free, fulfilling life with her.
But for him to do that, I had to remove myself from the equation.
“Are you listening to me?” Prince Guidion snapped irritably.
Staring down at him, like he was as see-through as I was becoming, I rasped, “Listening never did anything but waste my time, my whole life.”
As he opened his mouth to answer, I urged Amabel to gallop away, feeling the devouring numbness starting to consume my remaining limbs.
Meira galloped after me. “Where are you going? Fairuza! Fairuza, stop! This is your last chance!”
But her voice sounded so far away, like I had waded into a tunnel, leaving her at its threshold. The edges of my vision followed suit, dimming, becoming unfocused as I felt the tug in my center.
My other arm vanished, breaking my hold on Amabel, sending me flying off her back and out of Faerie.
It happened almost instantaneously, yet felt like a torturous descent. Then the Underworld emerged all around, with its eerie, green river coursing beside me, and dark, glittering ground and walls encompassing me.
The Horned God was there to receive me this time, the incandescent whiteness of his skull, and the silver of his bident the only stark brightness against our gloomy surroundings.
He waved, and I was whole again.
Tears flooded my eyes, sizzling like acid as I shook and sobbed, stuck in place, watching him approach.
My breath hitched, my heart hurt, everything burned.
But I knew what would happen. What I should do and say, to leave this existence with some dignity.
I forced my shaking legs to straighten, my quivering chin to rise as I faced him and said, “I’m ready to die now.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Death stared down at me with endlessly dark, hollow sockets.
His nearness became more nauseatingly terrifying with each passing second.
I somehow held my ground.
I still jumped and moaned when he spoke, his deep, calm voice permeating everything inside and around me in