Crescent

7

Dawn had just begun to break when Vera gave up on sleep. Sighing, she sat up slowly in case the movement disturbed her head again. The dizziness had passed along with the worst of her fever, but there was still a slight ache behind her eyes that pounded in a constant, erratic rhythm. Her limbs were heavy as she dug her water flask out of her bag and took a long, greedy sip. The liquid was no longer cold, but it washed down the sandpaper clinging to her throat. Already, she felt refreshed, the ache diminished. She capped the flask before tossing it back into the pile of her things beside the sofa, though her thirst wasn't quenched. There was no telling how long she would be stuck at the house; she could hear the echo of her father's warnings at the back of her mind, and the stern but wise look in his eyes as he spoke of the long journeys he used to take as a young fae. Most of his words had been lost to the haze over her mind, but one stuck out: it would be unwise to down her entire supply of water under such conditions.

She scanned the room again, though it was still just as empty and disheveled as before. The white wisp was nowhere to be found, leaving only the eerie echo of those three words in its wake, constantly repeating until it was all she could hear. Even the shape it had burned onto the floor just a few hours earlier had disappeared without a trace. There was no denying it. Something remained in the house despite its years of ruin.

As she stood, her gaze snagged on the window. The courtyard garden was in worse shape than the house, with weeds sprouting inside what had once been neatly trimmed hedges of white roses. Now, they spilled out of their flowerbeds, tangling in the knee-high grass and snaking across the cracked road between the gate and the veranda. Beyond the mighty fence, the west woods loomed like a shadow, a great sea of green between her and the city. White shapes roamed between the trees, spindly and thin but no less formidable. She shivered, and a hand snaked to her throat as a phantom pain spread beneath her skin where the creature had nearly choked her. She barely won against the creature when she was healthy. She stood no chance against them in her current state.

That didn't even account for the other monster, the one that had chased her to the manor's gate.

Cold fear slithered up her spine as its otherworldly shape flashed through her mind. Whatever the white creatures were, they were ants compared to the power of that beast.

Desperate to think of something else, she slipped into Eileen's mask of optimism and let her gaze drift back to her half-full water flask. "Maybe the house has a well," she told herself, and she nodded at the distraction. The house was far enough from the city that the idea of it having sustained itself when it was lived in didn't seem too far-fetched. There were no roads connecting it to the Moon Court, which would have made it difficult to haul supplies.

She wrinkled her nose as the train of thought took off. It seemed odd that some rich family would have simply lived in it. It was too hidden, too secluded, too cut off.

But if that wasn't the case, what other secret lay buried in the manor?

She nibbled halfheartedly on the dried meat she had brought from home. The last time she had eaten had to have been before her fight with Wyn, which was at least two days ago, and yet her empty stomach was too unsettled to take anything she offered. Every creak of the walls, every skitter of tiny paws, every whisper of the wind made her jump. Her hand eventually settled permanently against her sword, and her eyes cut between the window and the two open doorways that exited the room—one to the foyer and the other that led deeper into the house. Her head throbbed again. The bump on the back of her head was only further aggravated by her paranoia.

When she gave up on trying to eat, she curled up on the sofa and let her mind drift back to the wisp. That must have been what it was—a tiny guide spirit that usually appeared to humans who found themselves lost. They rarely appeared to fae, and some scholars theorized that it was because they sensed fae's magic and avoided them. She scoffed. Maybe it had confused her for a human despite her physical fae traits—the subtle curved point of her ears and the periwinkle blue markings around her eyes. It wouldn't be the first creature to have done so. People used to whisper that perhaps she wasn't a fae at all, but some sort of changeling, the leftover piece from an exchange gone wrong. Her mother adamantly refused these accusations, and Vera's long lifespan soon proved them to be false anyway. No changeling could have lived for over two hundred years and remained so young and healthy. Longevity was a trait only the fae possessed.