I nodded. I was not in the mood to celebrate anything, but he made excellent points. And if he’d already made arrangements,I didn’t need to do anything more than agree. “That’s fine.”
He fell into step next to me, and we walked toward the indoor courtyard. “Did you lose Callista?”
Yes. Yes, I did. I glanced at him. He didn’t even know the weight of his absurd question. “I did not lose her; I sent her home.”
He stopped abruptly. “You… sent her home? With her brother?”
I glanced at him and resumed walking, forcing him to catch up quickly. “Yes. As far as I know, her brother is the only way to get through the cursed barrier.”
“And you sent thembothaway?!” He stopped walking again, but I did not.
“Yes.”
“Aedan,” he groaned.
“What?” I was not in a mood to guess at his shenanigans.
“Do you think she might come back?”
I finally turned back and looked at him. “Why?”
He rushed up to me again. “She ishalffae. I think we could do some remarkable things with her blood, including breaking some pesky curses.”
I grabbed the front of his shirt and lifted him off the ground. “You will do nothing with her blood,” I snarled, not caring that I was truly threatening my cousin for the first time that I could remember. I released my magic in hot waves, so it collided against him over and over. “If you touch her, if you hurt her, if you remove one drop of blood or piece of skin or any other body part, Iwillkill you.”
He coughed and spluttered. “Aedan. It was information. Just so you know. I’m not suggestingwe do anything.”
I dropped him on his feet, turned, and stormed off to my room.
Chapter 33: Callista
Ipointed down a hill into a valley that held at least ten homes. “Alastor, look! One of them has to have horses.”
He sighed. “I’m not saying horses are a bad idea, Callista. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. Elves don’t lend horses to strangers, especially strangers like us.”
“That’s not necessarily true. I know at least half a dozen elves who would lend me horses.”
“They wouldn’t be random elves, then. You’re thinking of friends.”
“Fair enough. But let’s at least go into the valley with some optimism.” I needed to be hopeful. We were only two or three miles inside Sirun’s magical barrier. Based on the two times I’d flown to the castle, I suspected we still had twenty or thirty miles to go. That was three or four days walking… or a couple hours on horses.
I needed horses. The thought of Guyan setting up whateverplans he had for killing Aedan twisted my stomach so hard it hurt to breathe.
We reached the valley just before sunset. Aedan would be shifting out of his drekkan form at any moment. Was Guyan planning on attacking him while he was an elf or a giant reptile? And would Guyan actually attack him? I hadn’t seen him use magic yet. As Aedan’s cousin, he should be strong—a quarter fae, just like Aedan. But maybe he’d try something more sneaky like poison? Or more traditional like a blow to the head when he wasn’t expecting it?
The possibilities were too awful. I needed to focus on getting us there and warning Aedan. He could find a way to protect himself once he knew.
Alastor tossed a rock up in the air and caught it. “So, what’s your plan? Knock on every door and ask if they’ll let us borrow some horses?”
“Maybe?”
He laughed. “That’s a terrible plan. Let’s see if they have a pub. We can get a feel for who’s most likely to lend their horses to complete strangers.”
I glared at him. “Don’t say it like that. It makes it sound so impossible.”
He raised his brows as if to suggest that it really was impossible, but a few minutes later he’d found this little town’s version of a tavern. It was small—most likely someone’s home who had set up the ground level as a large dining room. A second level had flowers in window baskets, and a small slate propped up on the porch listed today’s menu: potato soup with sausage.
“What is with the soup everywhere today?” Alastor muttered. “I’ve had more delicious food at elves’ tables than I everexpected, but today? Just soup.”
