"I still wonder about it," I said.
His brow furrowed, eyes searching my expression. "Wonder about what?"
"Whether you're the villain in my story."
~~~~~~~
Mara Monroe is at the center of a war she wanted no part in.
But with her new throne she fac...
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Turns out, Regin and Thea were both right. Brighid was both dead and not dead.
Simple, right?
The curse that Cenred put on her advanced far enough that for all intents and purposes, she was dead. Thea called it a containment spell.
Thea, however, through some witchy thing could tell that Brighid's soul— her élan vital— still lingered close enough to a living plane. I didn't really want to ask her what she meant by that. She started to explain about something called the Elsewhere, and Shades and Shadows, but there was only so much weirdness I could take in a day.
When the Winter court royals and Cedric eventually left us alone, I finally asked Regin what the hell he was thinking bringing two mortals here.
"I went to your apartment first. I knew that Brighid contacted you there so I thought maybe she'd try again. When I got there, your place was trashed and Ellie was... well, um—"
"I was in the hospital," she added. Then, after noting my horrified expression, continued. "Just a concussion and some bruised ribs."
"Autumn knights," he explained, "I don't know why they thought you'd be stupid enough to be there with no protection."
"There wasn't supposed to be 'no protection'!" I hissed. "There were supposed to be wards on it. Spells! The witches we paid—"
Thea cleared her throat.
"Someone must have paid them a little more." I glared at her and she shrugged, continuing unperturbed. "I'm just saying, if you're paying a witch for their allegiance... what makes you think somebody else isn't going to have the same idea?"
"Alright, so you brought Ellie along to protect her—"
"She sort of demanded to come—"
"I did not!"
"I can't lie," Regin deadpanned.
"Okay, I did. But, he's terrible at acting human. We took the bus to West Acres and he greeted every person in every seat with a peace sign."
Thea and I both cringed and Regin crossed his arms, defensively. I turned my attention to the young girl. She should've been a Sophomore or a Junior in high school. Not in Elphame delivering the news of my half-sister's half-death.
"And you're here because?"
Regin answered for her. "Because she was the lead we had. And she wouldn't tell me a damn thing until I swore to bring her here to you. Actually, she didn't tell me a damn thing until we were in Elphame."
Thea shrugged, glancing around the room. "How many chances do you get to go to the realm of faerie?"
That didn't seem like a good enough reason to me, and I could tell it wasn't the real one. I was around people constantly now who could not lie that it was getting easier to spot them. But I wouldn't push her. Not now, at least.
