My boys, however, had no such sense of self-preservation.
“Show yourselves, you wankers!” Arthur vaulted the wall. One hand drew out his sword while the other fired a ball of flame in the direction the arrows came from.
A Seelie soldier ducked behind the sidhe as the fireball crashed into the ground in front of him. Flames licked the grass, burning like starlight as the dry grass caught.
Two more green-cloaked heads popped out from behind the other mounds, each one drawing back the string of a bow. Their arrows pointed directly at Flynn, who stood frozen, his arms filled with magical implements.
My breath caught. The damage those arrows could do…
Arthur raced toward the hill, his hand raised again. Another fireball cracked against the ground. The fae it was aimed at crouched low to avoid the blaze and let his arrow loose.
No.
I surged forward, but there was nothing I could do.
“Argh!” Flynn spun around, wobbling on his feet. The arrow embedded itself in the grimoire in his hands, the shaft quivering from the force of the impact.
“I take back every time I said reading was a bloody useless hobby!” Flynn yelled in triumph. He dropped everything else in his arms and hugged the grimoire to his chest like a shield.
Another arrow whizzed past him, the fletch grazing his arm. In the moonlight, I could just make out a long, thin cut across his skin.
“Mother Mary, that fecking hurts!” Flynn grabbed his arm and dropped to the ground, holding the grimoire out in front of him.
Corbin was over the wall now. He ran toward the sidhe, his blade raised high. Rowan hung back. He bent low to the ground, taking shelter behind the wall. He clapped his hands in front of him, and the ground beneath our feet rumbled. The earth rolled under my feet – a wave flowing down the hill toward the sidhe. A fae loosed his arrow at Corbin just as the earth buckled under his feet, sending his shot wide.
“Thanks, mate!” Corbin yelled back at Rowan as he fell on the fae, cutting it down with a slash of his blade. The fae screamed as green blood smeared across the grass.
“You can’t keep this up forever, witches,” the nearest Far Darrig sneered, notching another arrow in his bow. “Run along to your castle and leave us what should rightfully be ours.”
“You’ll burn before you take a single blade of grass from us.” Arthur picked up one of the fae and tossed him toward the sidhe. The fae fell against the stone lintel over the entrance, his body crumpling down the steps. He didn’t get up again.
My breath burned in my throat as three more green-clad fae poured from the sidhe, each one carrying a deadly bow and a long, curved bone blade. They kicked the body of their fallencomrade as they stepped over him and lined up along the crest of the hill.
I can’t just watch this. I have to help them.I surged forward, ready to vault the low wall. Blake dispatched the fae he’d been grappling with a single slice of his dagger, and rushed back to meet me. “Don’t come over,” he said, vaulting back over the wall to meet me. “Give me your hand.”
“I can look after myself.” I held up the sword.
“I knowthat. I’ve got an idea, but I need to combine our powers to do it.”
“I don’t know how to combine powers or do spirit magic,” I said.
“That’s never stopped you before.”
I glanced down at the sword in my hand. It wasn’t as if I exactly knew how to use it, either. It was one thing fighting one-on-one with Arthur, who liked me enough not to cut me to ribbons, but bringing down an army of heavily-armed fae? I’d lose a limb, and I liked all my limbs.
Arrows whizzed toward us, hitting the air above the wall and dropping to the ground. Flynn yelled as a fae fell upon him, bone knife slicing at the air. The fire leapt through the grass, spreading in a line over the mounds, pouring grey smoke into the black night. I couldn’t see Arthur or Corbin through the blaze. I slipped my hand into Blake’s. “We’d better make this quick.”
Arthur, Corbin, and Flynn marched toward the host. Rowan stayed back, his face stricken as he clapped out a rhythm that made the earth shudder and dance.
Blake’s hand squeezed mine, firm and reassuring. For once, I appreciated his arrogant confidence. He closed his eyes and muttered something under his breath. I tried to close mine, too, but then an arrow string pinged and Corbin cried out and Icouldn’t stop them flicking open. Blake was still muttering, his long dark hair matted against his forehead.
Something tugged at my mind, pulling random thoughts to the front so the smoky battle swum with random shapes and visions. Slivers of memory. Patches of quantum theory, sensations that felt both totally familiar and utterly alien.
And then, a flash of something else – I was looking at my own face, silhouetted in the moonlight, from across the other side of the field. I could see my hand clasped in Blake’s and my face creased with worry.
What?
As soon as the image appeared, it flickered away, leaving only a nagging pain across my temples that grew and grew until it exploded through my entire skull. Red welts appeared in front of my eyes, and my whole body coursed with agony.
