hand-to-hand combat; she knew that a fight for my life would show some injury. I rocked on my heels nervously.
“I’ll go back tomorrow night. I won’t give up,” I told them.
“Let’s go back now,” Trissa pressed. “How many were there inside? I can kill them.”
“Five … I think.” I was trying to remember; I hadn’t exactly seen all of them. There could have been more in other rooms sleeping or something. Going back would surely be a bad idea. Liam wouldn’t hesitate to try to kill me, and I wasn’t completely sure I could hurt him, even if it was to save my life.
Mara sighed. “It was her first time. We’ll try again in twelve hours’ time. Her mother’s being laid to rest. The elders have called for her.”
Trissa looked like she wanted to argue, but simply nodded her head, stepping past me and going deeper into the house.
The sending off was the most beautiful part of the celebration of life. All of the white tea lights, the invocation of the elements … I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
I bowed my head in shame. “I’ll do better next time,” I told Mara, because I had a sneaking suspicion she knew I dropped the ball.
“Your mom botched her first job too.” She winked as we started to walk into the dining room.
My eyebrows raised. “Really?”
Elle stood there silently watching me, but hadn’t said a word.
Mara nodded, a wry grin pulling at her lips. “She walked in, saw a group of Sons, and ran out screaming. Came back crying and said she wanted to quit.”
Whoa. That did NOT sound like my mom. “She was twenty-two years old, new to all of this, and terrified,” Mara added.
My eyes widened. I didn’t know my mom was so young when she started, basically my age. She had me young, at age twenty, declaring on my fifteenth birthday that she would stop aging because she’d gotten her first gray hair that day. I smiled at the memory. The mom I knew would take shit from no one. It was kind of cool to think of her new and starting out like me.
Reaching out, Mara smoothed my hair. “She didn’t want to rob you of your childhood. To throw all of this at a teenager’s feet.”
I understood now. As much as I might not agree fully, I understood.
Mara motioned to the bedroom I had slept in last night. “Go and change for your mom’s ceremony. There are clothes in the closet.”
The second I stepped into the bedroom at Mara’s to change for my mother’s ceremony, Elle turned to face me, shutting the door behind her.
“Is there something you want to tell me?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest.
I gulped. “About?”
Shit. She knew. How?
Elle stepped closer to me, lowering her voice. “About the black-winged Son of mother fucking Darkness who, I don’t know, looked like your fucking soulmate.” Her eyes were wide and bugging out of her head.
My hand flew out and clamped her mouth shut. “Shhh,” I scolded her, pulling my hand back. “Did you see?”
She nodded. “I got worried when you were taking so long, started peeking in windows.”
My stomach tightened. “Did Triss?”
She shook her head. “I diverted her.”
Relief crashed through me. “Thanks.”
She shook her head, rubbing at her temple. Her golden-brown wings flitted about behind her in anxiety. “Lily … those guys are scary … like evil.”
“I know! It’s not like I did anything to make it happen,” I snapped, feeling like she was making this my fault.
Her face fell, compassion replacing what previously looked like condemnation. “I know … I just. You didn’t like … give up the crystal, right? You fought him for it? And he won?”
Shit. So she must have just seen the blue lightshow and not what happened after he put me in the closet.
I nodded. “He’s strong. He … someone else walked in and there were two of them and yeah, they overpowered me.” I wasn’t yet ready to admit the truth to my best friend.
Fuck. Why hadn’t I stabbed him? What was wrong with me? My entire homeland was dying and I let him just take the crystal back.
Elle nodded. “Okay, just … remember what’s important … saving Faerie.”
I returned her nod, suddenly feeling sick to my stomach. The only person in the world I wanted to talk to about this and ask advice from was dead, and I felt so very alone.
An hour later, I was dressed in all white, standing next to my best