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A small voice breaks through my thoughts. “Who are you?”
I turn to see a young girl, no more than fifty fae years old, staring up at me. The sight of her makes my throat tighten.
“My name is Briony. Your mistress had to leave, but I’m here to take you somewhere safe.”
“Safe?” the girl asks.
I crouch down to her level, trying not to terrify her with my version of the truth. “Some bad things are happening in the city, so we need to leave.”
“And you’re going to help us?” she asks.
“Yes,” I manage to say. “I’m here to help.” When I stand up, I speak to the rest of the children, projecting my voice to fill the room. “We need to leave, all of us, right now.”
As I speak, they begin to stir, whispering amongst themselves. The air in the room shifts, filled with a mixture of hope and fear.
“I know you’re scared, and this is a lot to take in,” I say, my voice stronger than I feel. “But we have to be brave. And we have to be fast.”
Beside me, the girl takes my hand and squeezes it tightly. She is so small, so very small and innocent.
Do Finn and Alana not see what they’re doing?
Do they not care how many people they are hurting?
“Will we get out in time?” the girl asks.
It has been a long time since I’ve been around young fae like this. I’ve been holed up in Eldrion’s castle for most of my life, and it is not a place where children are welcome.
And now here I am, surrounded by them. Trying to get an entire school full of young Shadowkind out of the city before Alana comes for them.
Just thinking those thoughts sends shudders of nausea through me.
When I first met her, she was the most kind and thoughtful person I’d ever encountered. She emanated warmth, and a quiet strength. And there was hurt in her eyes.
She was someone who had seen pain, and hardship, and that was why our bond was so quickly formed.
I brought her into my heart as a friend, and she did the same for me.
At least, I thought she did.
But that Alana has gone.
Maybe she was never really there at all.
She is no different from them now; from Finn, and Eldrion, and all the people who ever made her feel like a monster.
They shaped her in their own image. They turned her into what they feared the most, and now she will destroy us all.
Unless we can get free in time.
“It’s going to be all right.” I stand at the front of the dormitory and speak loudly. “There’s no time to gather any belongings, just get dressed quickly and follow me.”
The girl holding my hand, her wings bound tightly to her back, whispers, “We don’t have any belongings, miss.”
I try to smile at her. “Well then, we’ll make this nice and quick, won’t we?”
“How are we going to escape?” she asks, blinking at me with wide, blue eyes that remind me of Alana somehow.
I try to shift the thought from my mind.
