“And also you made me strip by the pool.” I glare at Two, livid.

He presses his brow to the glass, his chin tucked in. “Don’t have a look at me like that. I’m the drunk, merciless Damian. If I hadn’t been outvoted at each flip, we’d have performed loads worse.”

I flip to One, my coronary heart in items at his ft. “What do you want from me?”

He grazes my backside lip together with his thumb like I’m a department from his sacred tree. “I wished to win the guess to strengthen our magic. To outlive. I by no means anticipated to fall in love with you…”

I blink a number of occasions, attempting to place the final items of the puzzle collectively. “Inform me concerning the guess. What’s it for, precisely? What do you intend to do to my individuals?”

“Your father made positive I couldn’t inform you the main points.”

I’ve at all times believed Damian would enslave us all if I misplaced, however every little thing I’ve been taught about him, about Faerie, has been a lie. Even Esme informed me he was a monster…

“I quit, then. You win.”

His brow wrinkles right into a hopeless frown. “It doesn’t work like that. The finality of the guess can solely be determined by your actions, not your phrases.”

“Then…I’ll flee. After you win the guess, you’ll be able to take my magic. It can prevent, no?”

He recoils violently on the supply and grabs a fist of his hair. “Don’t be ridiculous. If I take your magic, you’ll neglect ever assembly me.”

“I do know.” My eyes dart to the bottom. It hurts an excessive amount of. “Lori informed me about Mara.”

He smears a recent tear throughout my cheek together with his thumb. “What’s the purpose of preventing this curse, enduring all this ache, in case you don’t bear in mind who I’m?”

“However you’ll stay. Your kingdom can be saved.” I attempt to sound assured, however the hushed phrases are sheer and brittle. “Your solely sin is missing the energy to do your responsibility.”

“Profitable the guess would assist, however it might solely purchase me a number of extra months… That’s not sufficient.” He rests his brow on mine and offers it a bit push. “I like you, Nell.”

“Then search me out. Make me bear in mind.”

“Mortals can’t stay in Faerie. Not with out magic.” His tortured gaze hardens into one thing sharp. “I received’t take it—it’s out of the query.”

My coronary heart provides a painful squeeze. If mortals aren’t allowed to stay right here, it implies that Cece can’t, both. However I can’t quit on her. If she has to remain in Demeter, then so ought to I. “It’s the one approach to prevent, Damian.”

He freezes for a second, shock written on his face at listening to his title on my lips. “I don’t imagine that. Not anymore. All these years… I used to be merely surviving the curse. I wish to stay once more.”

I threat a glimpse at 4 once more, the ache in my bones virtually insupportable. “Can I attempt to heal him?”

With a small nod, One cuts a window into the glass together with his magic, massive sufficient for me to succeed in the fourth, damaged piece of them. Perhaps my magic can heal him simply because it healed One from the spider.

4’s breath hitches once I flatten my palm to his bony arm, and his lids droop like he’s about to go to sleep. The identical icy, harmful feeling I skilled once I didn’t heal Firenze’s useless leg grips my coronary heart.

Shadows wisp out of his wound like a wraith’s hand coming to greet me, and I draw again from the spooky apparition. “How is he nonetheless alive? He’s so…chilly.” My voice cracks. “It’s not going to work.”

One squeezes my shoulder. “It’s okay, kitten. The extra highly effective the curse, the thinner the thread… It received’t be really easy.”

The smoke clears once I let the magic go, and a pearly white form in the course of the wound turns into seen, smack-dab within the middle of the festering black goo.

A nervous hiccup quakes my throat. “Wait… What’s that?”

“Morrigan pushed her poisoned shadow needle straight by his coronary heart. If we take away it, he’ll die,” One says.

The smaller however similar pin in my calf burns, and my stomach cramps. “Do you’ve gotten a portray of Morrigan? An image?” I begin unlacing my boots in a rush.

Two walks across the nook of the glass jail and leans over my shoulder to see what I’m doing. “Why?”

I rip off my socks and pinch the top of the pin Esme gave me. The three Damians all clench their fists in excellent synchrony, and a horrible reality slowly sinks in.

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