I stumble around and meet two rings of topaz. Moth rolls her shoulders and jogs backward from the fallen Fae, the silk of her wings set wide. She notices me gawking and snorts disdainfully. “What are you looking at?” the whippersnapper grouses. “Fight!”
I wish I had a second to chuckle. Moth and I hurtle into the mob, the crush of bodies blocking my view. I swerve left and right, unable to tell which Fae to combat, which to stay my weapon from. And where’s—
“Lark!” Cerulean roars.
I open my mouth. Too late, he unleashes his wings and charges into the sky, searching for me.
Moth flies to the top suspension, swerving around a bend, vanishing after him. A second later, she shrieks Cerulean’s name. My pulse beats out a violent tempo. Desperate, I scramble up one of the trestles, lugging myself over the edge and onto the uppermost rampart.
I stand—and a red hand clamps around my throat. One of the phoenixes squeezes my neck like it’s a tube, cutting off my air supply. I splutter as the enraged Fae hops onto the ledge and thrusts his arm, suspending me over the gangplank. My legs scissor, and my fingernails scratch his wrists.
The phoenix wears that disgusting forehead band with its charm of a human fingerbone. He spews, “Magicless spawn. You took him from us, but you won’t take this mountain. It’s ours! You have no right!”
The fog begins to sink deeper into the abyss, yielding to the disk of sun burnishing the vista. I dangle above the valley, thinking I just want to go home, just want my sisters, my father, my sanctuary. I just want to care for the fauna of my world, of both worlds. I just want that life.
And I just want to love him back.
The phoenix fixes to drop me. His digits loosen from around my neck—and he topples over, a javelin’s tip goring his torso and spritzing it red.
I don’t have time to gasp, much less to vomit. I don’t have time, because I’m falling.
Released from the Fae’s grasp, my body plunges into a cloud of mist, then I jolt in place, a set of fingers clinging to mine. I flip my head toward the frantic pupils hovering over me. Cerulean hangs upside down, his legs hooked around one of the distended ropes that secures the planks underneath the lower bridge.
Lacerations break his face into sections, like an old map. “Lark,” he rasps.
“Cerulean,” I flounder, the elevation licking my scarred kneecaps, the wind buffeting my skirt. I tell myself not to look down, not to look down, not to look down.
It’s all right. I won’t fall, because he’ll catch me.
But at his petrified stare, doubt worms into my stomach. That’s when my eyes skate toward what’s left of his wings. They’re in tatters, the plumes stripped to their rachises and exposing the torn membrane.
Mauled wings can be critical to a Fae, limiting strength and reducing magic. A yeasty paleness soaks into his flesh, leaching the pigment from his blue lips, so they resemble the pastel tint of ice. His body trembles with effort, his jaw ticking from the stress of my dead weight.
He’s hurt badly. And he can’t fly.
He must have used the remnants of his power to materialize here in time. I want to grapple for my weapon, but not at the expense of slipping again. When I brave a quick glance, a baleful moan slides off my tongue. The whip is gone, buried someplace in The Solitary Forest.
Meanwhile, the feud continues, the Fae unaware of what’s happening below.
“Lark,” Cerulean instructs with a forced calm that only a person the verge of panic would use. “Very…careful now. Listen…very carefully. I can’t…beseech the wind…to catch you.”
A whimper bubbles from my mouth, my chin quaking. The rope struggles to bear our combined weight. Its fibers split, the tear echoing into the valley.
“Cerulean! Lark!” Moth screeches, her horrified face parting the mist as she flutters above us in her cocoon dress, the straps ripped in places. Magic-blessed or not, her visible alarm tells me she’s too small to carry either of us.
Cerulean said Faeries have various connections to the wind. How they steer and shape it, how they commune with it, and to what extent depends on the individual. That’s gotta mean Moth can’t guide the wind to fetch Cerulean and me, either.
“Fables eternal,” she brays.
“Moth, get help,” Cerulean says while staring at me.“Jalladun ánej ukluna. Fardun vvjóttet!”
Moth nods and zips into the firmament.
The rope sheds, jerking us down inch by inch. My lungs chafe, every gasp razor sharp. I inspect the noose tacked to the underside of the bridge. I don’t know much in this life, but I do know how much a rope can handle. Seeing what I expected, I think about how close I was, loss and longing tangling in my throat.
Fear the wind. Follow the wind.
The notion trickles through my consciousness. The current cinches my ankles, pulling me down, down, down. And if nothing is what it seems in this maze, if up is down, and left is right, and forward is backward…
