about a foot into the ground. They were sickly looking, and I knew that the Winter King had used the dark witch to turn them this way. That meant I couldn’t touch them, but Liam could. Reaching inside, he pulled all three into his arms and looked up at me, grinning. “We’ll rebuild Faerie. Close the portals, burn all the blue doors, and The Winter King can never come for me and my brothers again.”
I nodded sadly, a bit confused that he was trying to simply lock the Winter King out and not kill him. I knew, in that moment, that it would have to be me. I would have to be the one to kill his father because, no matter how much that man had tortured Liam and his mother and their entire family… there was still a shred of love there. I could see it in his eyes and the way they looked achingly sad when he spoke about the man who raised him.
I’d been wrong in my earlier assessment, Cam too. He wanted his dad gone, not dead. There was a difference.
“Yeah, we’ll do that,” I told Liam, not wanting to stress him any further. There was no way I was letting his father stay loose out in the world, and I couldn’t destroy all the blue doors after inviting all the fae to come home. They would need to stay open, always.
As we ran to the next crystal cluster, I started to feel dread grow in my gut. Where was Elle, Cam, Jasper, Trissa? Where were Liam’s men, and why was the village so quiet? I liked to believe that we had the upper hand, that we were stealthily grabbing these crystals while the king’s guards fought Liam’s men off, but…
“Liam, why aren’t they guarded? The crystals?” We were deep in the thick woods behind the house, but still, you would think the king would put some guards on the area.
We’d reached the second mound, Liam dug at the ground, his fingers bleeding as the pile of other crystals he’d found lay on his lap.
I didn’t bring any healing water. It just struck me, at this moment, I’d charged after Liam and not thought of any way to heal these. Could he carry nine dark crystals himself? I’d touched one and got burned on my arm, could he carry nine without injury?
“Who cares why they’re not guarded. We got three more!” Liam whooped, dusting off the final layer of dirt.
Sure enough, three more crystals emerged from the ground. When Liam placed them in his arms with the stack of the other three, he swayed a little as if he were about to fall over.
“Liam!” I caught his elbow before he went down.
He winced, looking up at me with sadness in his eyes. “Why is there so much darkness in the world? Why can’t everyone just focus on love?”
I swallowed hard.
It was a valid question, one I think everyone thought of from time to time, but not one you would have while you were in the middle of the greatest crystal heist in history. They were affecting him. Six dark crystals were too much.
“Liam, let me try to help carry them.” I opened my shirt, indicating that he should deposit them in, but he shook his head.
“No, I’m fine.” He took off, running the forest perimeter, in search of the next pile of crystals, but quickly fell and faceplanted in the dirt. Catching up with him, I reached out and hooked my hands under his armpits, hauling him up. “Liam, dammit. You listen to me! We’re partners now. In this together. Let me help you!”
He rolled on his back, clutching his ribs, which I suspected were broken, breathing heavily. “You can’t…,” he panted, “You’ll get hurt.”
I stared at the six dark crystals that lay on the ground, splayed out around his body, and my hands heated up with warm buttery light.
Huh?
It hit me then. These were sick. The darkness in them was like an illness, and what better way to cast out the dark than the light? Settling onto my knees, I reached for one of the crystals with my light-infused hands.
“Lily, no!” Liam shouted, swatting my hand away.
I looked at him and saw so much love and protection in his gaze that it made my heart pound faster. “Trust me?” I asked.
We stared at each other for a long few moments until finally, he released my hand and nodded. Continuing my forward motion, I grasped the