“Where is that?” asked Tessa.
“Nævhail Glen.”
“They’ll come for you again,” I told her.
“They’ll never find me,” she said with assurance, then she turned and flew up into the dark sky shrouded in smoke.
“We have to hurry now, too,” said Tessa.
“We are still going to Flaxon?” I asked, following her along the river’s edge.
“Yes, we have to.”
Rushing along the path that led to the mill, I couldn’t stop glancing over my shoulder, certain that Gael could somehow sense I was here. That he would catch me this time and drag me to Mevia to do all the nightmarish things he had planned for me.
Chapter 12
REDVYR
“They’ve been gone too long,” Bezaliel said for the second time.
“I know.” We walked through the woods to the edge of the treeline.
We’d left Leifkyn and Dayn to guard our goods and the babe, both of us too impatient to stay put. Normally, we waited at the cabin for Flaxon, to keep from being seen by any travelers heading through these woods toward Hellamir. But neither of us could keep still when it was obvious something must have happened to delay them.
“I should’ve gone.” Bezaliel was angry. Of course he was.
“You know that was impossible. We might as well have not come at all.”
“If something’s happened to Tessa,” he growled, “I’ll burn the whole fucking town to the ground.”
I’d already had similar thoughts, chastising myself for allowing Jessamine to leave my sight. It was my job to protect her, and yet I’d let her go with Tessa. I worried now that theones who’d been chasing her through Northgall had decided to backtrack from the Borderlands and rest in Hellamir.
Wolf huffed a low bark up ahead near the treeline. I sniffed, a strong scent on the wind, then I picked up my pace as we neared the edge of the woods. Bezaliel followed quickly behind me.
“It looks like someone else has beaten us to it.”
Across the open field, several rooftops were engulfed in flames. The shouts of panicked townspeople echoed toward us.
“We’re going in to get them,” he said, stopping at my side.
Suddenly, Wolf took off running across the field.
“I don’t think it will be necessary.”
Though I could barely see the two silhouettes making their way across the field, I could smell that sea-lily scent of Jessamine. We both bolted across the meadow after Wolf. The women hurried toward us. Tessa leaped into her mate’s arms. I gripped Jessamine’s shoulders, noting her eyes were rounded with fear.
“Are you hurt?” I demanded to know.
“No,” she replied, though something had obviously shaken her.
“What the fuck happened?” asked Bezaliel, finally putting Tessa back on the ground.
“There were moon fae there,” said Tessa. “They were making a speech in the town square. About to burn a moon fae woman at the stake.”
“What?” I snapped. “What had she done?”
“Nothing.” Jessamine’s voice was cold, angry. “She had magick they wanted and she refused to use it to help them hurt the dark fae.”
