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Fey growled. “And, what, this?” She waved the small bottle. “This will change all of that, huh? This will solve everything?” Her voice was angry, full of sour disbelief.
Alice shrugged, but her eyes glittered with mischief. “Maybe. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you drink it, and nothing happens at all, and I unlock the chain holding you and you walk out of here like you never saw me. But there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”
Fey looked at her, assessing. Could she really trust Alice? The sister who had left them, the sister who had chained her down here? Who had stripped her of her Blade’s mark, stripped her of everything she was?
What do you have to lose? Alice’s smile seemed to say.
Raising the vial to her in a mocking salute, Fey snapped the wax top open and drank it down.
Chapter 46
For the first few seconds, nothing happened. For one brief, blissful moment after drinking it, all Fey felt was a pang of disappointment, a sliver of embarrassment that she’d expected something, anything at all, to have happened. That a part of her had maybe wanted something to happen.
And then pain filled her entire body, and Fey felt nothing but searing agony.
I’m dying, she thought as she screamed. Her body arched painfully, and she collapsed, writhing on the ground. She’s poisoned me, and I’m dying, truly dying.
The golden liquid burned through her veins, and Fey’s whole body was on fire with it. She felt it in her blood, pulsing through every part of her, nothing but burning, agonizing pain.
Fey tried to call Water to calm herself, tried to counter this sudden power coursing through her with her own. And her power responded, even stronger than usual, rushing to fill her veins and displace the poison inside her. But this other power, whatever it was, smothered it immediately. The Water she called evaporated into nothing, and the pain surged, stronger than ever.
She was screaming, but through the sounds of her own torture, somewhere far away she could hear Alice.
“You have to embrace it, Fey,” she was saying, her voice panicked. “Stop fighting it, you have to let it in. Please, listen to me.”
But the pain made the words incomprehensible. Again, Fey called to Water, and again it rushed to answer her like a torrent of raw energy, a world-shattering level of power far beyond what she was capable of. It crashed through her, filling her. And again, that burning in her veins flared in response, smothering every morsel of power she had called, turning it to nothing but vapor.
It was getting worse. She was going to die of this. She was burning alive from the inside, her very bones melting from some invisible heat. This was worse than her fall from the cliff, worse than anything any Witch had ever lived through before. There was no way anyone could survive this.
Something was touching her face, something cool and soft, cradling her cheeks. Hands. Someone was holding her face in their hands, gently. With love.
“Please, Fey.” Alice was crying. Her hands were so cold against Fey’s skin, like ice. Why was she so cold? Didn’t she feel the heat in this room, couldn’t she feel the burning? “Please don’t fight it. Goddess help me, listen to me Fey, you need to embrace it. I can’t lose you again, please.”
Fey tried to summon Water again, but it felt so distant now, so far from her grasp. Air, then. The world outside her became a whirlwind, her secondary power swirling around her like a protective cocoon, buffeting against Alice as she struggled to hold on to her.
But it did nothing to relieve the pain inside of her, and again Fey screamed, her throat burning from it, like fire was raging up her lungs and out her mouth. The floor roiled beneath her back, moving like it was alive. A living, angry thing, a serpent curled in the ground waiting to strike.
Alice was swearing, but her hands remained steady and cool against Fey’s skin.
“Please,” she whispered, one last plea. And she sounded so lost, so small, that Fey stopped fighting for a moment. Alice always knew what to do. Alice had never sounded lost, never sounded that scared…
As soon as she stopped fighting, the burning inside of her changed. In that small moment she had stopped calling Air, stopped trying to fight the fire inside of her with Water, the power inside Fey surged and overtook every cell in her body. But it didn’t hurt as much, suddenly. The fire licked against her skin from inside her, pulsed inside her.
Let me out, it hummed to her, in a voice that sounded just like her own. Let me free.
And with one final scream, Fey did just that.
Fire flowed from her skin. Fire came to her call, answering her call stronger than Air ever had. Almost stronger than Water.
Alice finally let her go, stumbling back and swearing, beating the flames from her clothes, as Fey’s eyes opened and she called Fire.
The flames coated her skin, but they didn’t burn. Didn’t hurt, not anymore, not now that she controlled it. It didn’t even singe her clothing.
Fey watched in wordless fascination as the fire danced around her, covering her. A part of her.
“Fey!” Alice warned. “Fey, pull it back!”
But why? A part of her thought, watching it grow around her like a second skin. Why would she ever try to stop it when it was so beautiful? So powerful? How could she ever stop something that felt so good?
