Serrated laughter peals through the night, its source tucked within the trees. They’re watching, probably waiting for me to make a deal in exchange for help.
I ignore my spectators and reexamine the drop. If this path is consistent, the wrong steps will have the same consequences.
A breeze nudges my skirt, urging me forward. The brush of air reminds me that a stronger blow—the bluster of a gale—could bring me to my knees at any point during this trek. Or it could shove me off a precipice, with or without Cerulean’s influence.
My teeth grind. If he can ride the wind, I’ll learn how to resist it.
I wobble to my feet, unravel the whip from the branch, and wince from the abrasions at my wrists. It’s going to hurt like a bitch every time I wield my weapon.
Mist swirls around the trunks and fills the abyss. Using the slack to steal a bundle of sage berries from the bush closest to me, I toss the morsels one by one at every plate of stone, watching the bogus steps collapse under the barest weight, until only the right ones remain.
My limbs quake. I round my achy shoulders, take a great big sniff, and keep going. The distance between slabs forces me to hop, the pillars jostling as I land, my pulse leaping into my throat. I’m not supposed to look down, but that’s exactly what I do, because I love heights, and I’m not giving that up. I won’t let anyone condition me to fear them.
I cling to visions that propel me along. Juniper and Cove smiling at me through our attic window, their childlike hands kissing the glass. Juniper and Cove swallowed by an ominous woodland and fathomless waters. Juniper and Cover lost in Faerie, lost to me forever.
Papa Thorne telling us a Fable. The sanctuary of our home.
A Fae boy in a feathered mask, giving me a long look before fleeing into the wild. Him, my one and only secret, even from my family. Him, my one exception.
Me, sitting in an empty forge. Me, awaiting his return, my lips dry and chapped.
My heel slips. I totter, but my reflexes click into place, preventing me from losing balance.
Harsh chuckles leap from the vegetation. I ignore them and leap to the next stone, and the next one, and finally, my feet stumble onto a flat of grass. I clasp a trunk for balance and glance over my shoulder at The Wayward Steps.
I made it across. But all I feel is drained and battered. Perspiration beads on my neck and in the webs between my fingers.
To my surprise, the air caresses my chafed wrists. I slump against the rowan tree until I’m able to stand upright again. I’m scraped up but still in one piece, all body parts accounted for.
I survey my pack to see if anything fell out, double-checking that the blue feather is safe in its hidden compartment. Then I give myself a pat down. My fingers seize the instant they land on my hip buckle, where the whip should be.
Terror lances up my spine. I dart around and spot the weapon sprawled on the final step I’d taken. My jump must have unhitched the spool. Curse me for not securing it better.
It’s one thing to cling to memories for strength. It’s another to let them distract me. For shit’s sake, the whip could have tumbled over the edge.
Nevertheless, a tide of relief rinses away the panic. I’ve had that whip since I was a tyke, though it was too long for me back then. The recollection of my wee limbs constantly tripping over the cord while I battled imaginary goblins pushes a weary, and possibly manic, chuckle from my mouth.
To retrieve the weapon, I’ll have to backtrack. With a sigh, I secure my pack and jump onto the correct slab.
And that’s when I plunge.
10
I’ve fallen lots of times before—fallen into a heap of trouble, fallen in and out of love, fallen down chimneys, and fallen out of trees. Be it emotions or my actual body plummeting, the crash was the worst part, a bone-crushing, soul-breaking shocker. I’ve got the knee scars and recurring visions to prove it.
None of them measure up to this drop. The ground sinks beneath my feet, the abyss swallowing me whole as I shriek, the guttural sound distinctly feminine and cavernous. My stomach flips, and flips again, and flips again. Air surges upward, turning my dress into a thrashing sail.
I can’t feel my pack. Or the whip.
My hands grapple, searching for the length of my weapon. My brain scrambles to process the void, the cracks in the darkness. It’s not a well or a tunnel, but it’s not without borders, either. Skeletal appendages emerge, licorice wings fanning out in thin swathes of black, attached to dozens of beady eyes with dotted pupils.
Bats. I’m falling through a channel of bats.
Their wings splay into various formations, so that I bang into them on my way down. Several feet below, I spot the whip’s descent. With a growl, I force my head down, capsizing so that I plow headfirst, my hair flying behind me. I extend my arms and pretend to dive, desperate to believe this won’t end fatally, that I haven’t failed already.
But this is Faerie. Nothing is what it seems, what it seems, what it seems.
The inversion has me falling faster through the chute. My fingers wiggle, grazing the whip, then grabbing it. A puddle of moonlight floods my vision, widening fast.
