Page 112 of Fae Farewells

No hesitation.

No regret.

Not that we were expecting it.

The smell of rotting meat filled the air as his aunt’s scream reached ear-splitting volumes. Then it morphed into gurgling before blackened sludge began oozing from her mouth.

Novak raced forward, tackling Vaughn at the waist without missing a step. He circled around and stopped beside me, setting our fae onto his feet.

“Why did you do that?” Vaughn asked in a breathless rasp.

“We saw the green maid-lady in the hall. She told me to grab you once the black stuff started.” Novak shrugged. “I thought she was going to explode. And I didn’t want the green lady to clean up puke when you inevitably got that black goo on you and gagged.”

Sloane shoved off the wall behind us, leaving broken bits of plaster raining over our heads. Finally, she aimed true at Bowers, hitting him like a missile.

She sliced straight through his neck, her hand holding the dull side of the obsidian blade instead of the hilt. On the return stroke, she leaned to the left, tearing the rest of his neck away in a feat of strength I couldn’t comprehend.

When she swapped the blade to her right hand, she used the tip to scrape shards of broken glass out of her left palm.

I shook my head at the thought, but I knew it to be true. She’d been holding the broken vial of poison, leaving the entirety of its contents within the alicorn.

“Nothing is happening. I don’t understand why I was supposed to get you,” Novak commented absently while watching the end.

Sloane turned her back, and Bowers tumbled from the air as if she’d been keeping him there. The two pieces of his body landed atop each other... Exactly where Vaughn had just been standing.

“Huh… That was a good call,” Stone stated as I nodded.

“Lashul is a seer,” Vaughn told us.

“Then she saw how fucking hot Trouble looked in that outfit?” The vampire brought his fisted hand to his mouth, biting at the side of his index finger. “Gods. Corsets have never been as sexy as they are right now.”

Vaughn and I turned to give Novak a look. Mine said just right now? But the fae’s expression was one of complete agreement.

So, I said my thoughts aloud. “Just right now? Really?”

“Well, always,” Vaughn replied, staring at me like I was the one who’d lost my mind.

“Especially when she looks that determined,” Novak added.

The four of us collectively titled our heads, watching as she kneeled by Alania’s body to remove the obsidian dagger from her chest. Then she spun on the balls of her feet and ripped the side of the dead fae’s dress to expose her thigh.

Stone snorted, but confusion laced his words. “What is she doing now?”

“Not a clue,” I replied.

“Barbie,” Briggs yelled from behind me, like she couldn’t hear him. “What are you doing?”

I flinched. “That’s my fucking ear.”

“Why are you shouting?” she asked.

“What are you doing?” York repeated at a more reasonable volume.

She gave us a coy smirk. “I had an idea.”

“What kind of idea?” I inquired.

“You’ll see,” was all she said to us as Franklin stepped out of the void at her side.