Because I Love You✔️

Chapter 135: Spiraling out of Control

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Five: Spiraling out of Control

Sinmir wove in and out of the crowd, as slippery as an eel but at least easier to spot than one, and it took Ella three agonizing minutes to catch up to him at the buffet table. He was facing the food, studying it for whatever reason, and when she grabbed him by the shoulder he snatched her wrist and turned, sweeping her down into a low bow.

His eyes widened when they locked with hers, and he pulled her out of the dip, spinning her around with a flourish before pulling her back in. She was confused for a second.

Dance, flirty, Sinmir, right, she thought through her haze of panic, and he let go.

"Ella?" he hissed. "Ella, you're not supposed to approach me!"

She opened her mouth to tell him everything but all that came out was a wheeze. Frowning, he turned to grab a glass of something off of the buffet table and Ella downed it in three gulps that she almost choked on. 

She was lucky he hadn't picked up anything with alcohol.

This was not the moment to get drunk.

"We've got to find Xaphile," she sputtered, shoving the glass back into his hands. "We've got to regroup, now, Sinmir, you have to—"

"Slow down," he said, not liking the rising sense of urgency any more than she did. "What's happened?"

"I overheard some people talking," she said, reigning in her erratic breath. "All these people, they're publicly supporting some sort of secret war that's going to being waged on Nimika soon!"

Grey eyes opened wide, then narrowed as his shoulders tensed and his fingers tightened. 

"What did you hear?" he asked, voice low and deadly and definitely not one she wanted to hear in reference to herself.

"Everyone here knows something about the situation with the missing faeries," she said, summarizing as best she could. "They didn't say what their goal is, but they did say that Duke McCarthy is introducing an enslaved soldier tonight, a primordial faery called the Terrace." 

Sinmir looked alarmed and horrified at once. 

"Are you certain?"

"Yes," Ella whispered. "They said the Terrace was taken from my lands and has been in the king's clutches for many, many years. I don't want to imagine what sort of horrors he went through to have been turned into what they said he was, but it is alarming."

"Shite," he said, perhaps unnecessarily. "I knew this was a bad idea. What else?"

Ella thought hard.

"I think Spackley intended me to see this. I have that feeling," she whispered. Sinmir started to protest. She didn't let him. "Listen, I know it sounds far-fetched and I know I probably misheard everything, but we can argue about it later! We need to find Xaphile's brother and run!"

Sinmir, for all the arguments she could see rising in his eyes, just nodded. 

"I'll find Vrael," he said. "He was asked to dance by a very pretty girl earlier. Just wait here."

He turned around, took a step, and paused.

"We're in the middle of a lion's den, Ella," he said. "Be extremely careful, and stay out of sight." 

She barely saw him vanish into the crowd. 

Waiting didn't feel good right then, so she did the one thing she could easily do in that situation: she turned around to begin a systematic mutilation of the buffet table.  The rush of food-smells hit her in the face, caviar, fruit, olives, meat, sugar, but she also detected a scent that nearly made her sick.