Ruthless Fae - Ingrid Seymour Page 0,41

was bigger.”

My eyes grew wide. “A big fountain?”

“Yep. And that guy was there, in the water. I thought he was, like, evil, but he told me not to fear him, and then he said he knew you. So the two of us talked for a while until we heard all this commotion coming from this cave. We came here and, well, you know the rest.” She shrugged, gesturing around the cavern.

“We wondered where you were,” Ronnie said, staring at Becca with a fondness I hadn’t quite seen before. I wondered if he was falling for her. They’d spent enough time together.

“I’m glad you found us,” I said. “Sinasre is my cousin. You met him as the beast, but it seems that he is healed. And that is a story I do want to hear.”

Turning back to my cousin and aunt, I put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry to break this up, but we’re still being pursued, and I have some questions for Sinasre that are pretty important.”

Kiana stepped back, wiping her eyes, and readopting her regal stance. “Carry on,” she said as if she hadn’t been sobbing a moment before.

Sinasre nodded, turning to me. “What do you want to know, Tally?”

“How are you healed?” I asked. “The last time I saw you—”

“I don’t want to remember,” he said, shivering. “The fountain changed me, but how I found it is a mystery. Somehow it...it called to me, like an animal instinct where birds return to their mating grounds, or something similar. I think I had been there before, and that’s how I knew of its location. I found myself in my animal form, wandering around dark tunnels until I found the right one. Then I found the fountain and suddenly I was myself again.”

“You had been there! Daniella told us the fountain was used to make you.” I glanced at Becca who nodded. “It seems what made you can unmake you.”

“What about Bael?” Ronnie asked, glancing back at the Khurynian who was still struggling against Sinasre’s bondage.

“Yes, what about Bael?” I repeated. “How far is the fountain?”

“Just in the other cavern,” Sinasre said, pointing towards a large archway on the other side of the space.

Glancing back at Bael and making sure he was secure, we headed out as a group to the other cavern. We walked through the rocky archway and into a smaller area. In the center stood a large stone fountain.

It looked like the older sibling of the fountain we’d found last time. It was larger with water constantly flowing out of the top and cascading down. The rock was smoothed and sculpted as if someone with an expert hand had put it here long ago. The water here also glowed, much like whatever living things lit up the walls of the cavern behind us.

The trickle of the water, and its shimmering reflection along the cave walls, would have been relaxing if I weren’t so tense. I stepped toward it and put my hands on the cool rim.

“This is the water that made you into that… that thing?” I darted my eyes to Sinasre.

He nodded grimly. “I think so. But it healed me, too. I think they did something to it to twist its purpose.”

“That’s what Daniella said,” Becca offered. “The Habermanns tainted it somehow.”

“But it’s okay now?” Ronnie said, leaning to peer into it.

“I wouldn’t try it out if I were you,” I said to him.

“For Bael, though. Should we put him in it?”

I looked to Vaughn and then Sinasre. “We should try,” Vaughn said.

With it decided, we headed back and found Bael where we left him, prone in the dirt still weakly fighting against Sinasre’s bonds.

“Ronnie, can you help soothe him?” I asked. He’d done a similar spell to Crescent, keeping her asleep when we needed it.

The boy’s face tightened, and he started casting a spell, something I’d seen him do dozens of times since meeting him. If he wasn’t a master magician after all this, I didn’t know what it would take.

Slowly, Bael’s struggles subsided. Then Ronnie laid a hand on Bael’s forehead, and the huge Khurynian started snoring like a big baby.

“Okay, let’s get him up,” Vaughn said.

Between Sinasre and Vaughn, they were able to lift him and carry him to the fountain with the rest of us helping. Becca and I tended his wings, making sure they weren’t injured. Carefully, they lowered his huge body in, making sure to keep his face above the water. I watched nervously as Vaughn’s hand dipped