would absorb her light, like a healing talisman. I’d seen one of these before; they were very special, but I didn’t want it. I wanted my mom.
“Mom…” I whimpered, not ready to say goodbye.
“Love you, Lil,” she breathed in a rasp, her blue light quivering in arcs around her body, shaking the locket between my fingers.
Not wanting my mother to leave this world in sadness, I began to sing.
“When the blue waters…” My voice was strikingly crisp given the circumstances. “Rush onto the land.”
My mother’s lips turned up into a smile. She was the one who taught me this song after all.
“When the sun goes down on the sand…” My voice shook as my mother’s eyes rolled into her head. Blue tendrils of light swirled in the air as they sought out the magical locket between my fingers. My skin tingled as my mother’s light magic poured around me.
Kira stepped up behind me and white light poured from her palms, saturating my mother’s body.
“May the ancestors welcome you with grace and ease. It’s been an honor to serve as your healer.” Kira’s final death proclamation had the song dying in my throat.
When my mother’s eyes drifted shut and her hand fell from my chest, a scream ripped from my throat, my body collapsing backward into Trissa. Her arms came around me and held me tightly, while the world crumbled around me one blue thread of light magic at a time.
My mother was my link to this world, my nurturer, my best friend. Now I was a ship without an anchor.
I lay there for what felt like hours, but must have only been a short while.
Kira knelt to pick me up. “I’ll take her back.”
Trissa shook herself and I pulled my body up from the floor. My limbs felt like sandbags, but nothing quite matched the misery in my heart. I took one last look at my mother.
“No.” Trissa’s tone was firm. “She must meet with the elders and begin her training.”
My jaw popped open. “My mother just died. There will be a month-long period of mourning and the people—”
“Lily, I’m following your mother’s orders, the elders’ orders. You are our last seeker. You will be trained at once. Your mother will be laid to rest at sea and you will carry on her work immediately.” Her face was hardened and the coldness in her tone shocked me.
How dare she talk to me like that. My fucking mother just died!
“Who cares about the humans or Earth—or whatever she does! My mother’s work can wait,” I yelled, hot tears springing the edges of my eyes.
Trissa sighed, reaching up to rub her temples. I didn’t want to be standing in the bathroom with my mother’s dead body any longer.
“Because … your mother’s work involves saving Faerie. If you don’t pick up where she left off immediately … we fall.”
Kira’s sharp intake of breath matched my own.
“What? How can that be?”
Trissa looked one final time at my mother’s body and then led me out into the small living room.
“Come, the elders are calling you.” She weaved through the small space until we reached the backside of the blue door we’d come through.
The elders.
My stomach dropped out. I saw them only a few times a year, once at the midsummers festival and once at the winter solstice. If you saw them outside of that, you were probably in trouble. They stuck to their land at the very back of Faerie, near the Tree of Life, and read books all day or did whatever it was elder Fae did. My mom dealt with them a lot, I knew that, but they kept to themselves when it came to everyone else.
When we exited the blue door and back out into Faerie, the sun was just coming up over the protection shield. Slivers of light escaped through the top and kissed the green grass. Without a word, I let my wings carry me up high above the people. I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, and flying was something of a relaxing gesture for me, so I decided to just travel to the elders that way. Trissa didn’t complain, kicking up off the floor after me. It was only after I left that I realized I’d forgotten to thank Kira for her help with my mom. I’d have to find a nice way to thank her later.
I was heading for the elders’ home when a blue light below caught my eye. A group of Fae were