“I honestly didn’t know if you’d be able to do that,” she says.
“What do you mean? Why did you ask me?”
“I just wanted to test you. We don’t know what all you can do, so I figured, why not?” She straightens and takes a step toward the bathroom door as steam starts to fill the bathroom. “Anyways, I’ll leave you to it.”
She shuts the door behind her. I undress, tossing my sweaty clothes to the side and stepping into the shower. As much as I want to bask in the hot water, I hurry through the rest of my shower. When I finish, I pad to the living room, overhearing Holly and Elle in deep conversation.
“I’m not sure, but they found—” Holly whispers, before snapping her head up as my footsteps echo down the hallway.
“Hey, Holly,” I say cheerfully before plopping next to her on the cream sofa.
She whirls toward me, a smile on her face. “Are you excited?”
I blink in confusion at the question and her cheery affect. “For what?”
“To meet all of the princes!” she exclaims. “There’s a ton of buzz going around the court about the upcoming courting process for you. Everyone is wondering what you’re like and who you’re going to choose.”
“I guess,” I say, shrugging.
Her face falls. “You don’t seem excited.”
“I don’t know. It’s been a couple of crazy days, and you’re right, I’m not excited. I’d be more excited if someone told me I could go back to my normal life,” I confess.
She deflates a little. “Well, damn,” she mutters.
Although I’m living every little girl’s dream right now, I can’t stop thinking about my old life. I miss Bound. I miss Cally. I miss my home.
“What were you talking about before I interrupted?” I ask, changing the topic.
Elle pours some red wine into a glass and hands it to me. “You’re going to want to take a drink for this,” she says soberly.
“Great,” I mutter. I take the glass from her and take a sip of the bitter red wine.
“They found a lead on the murders,” Holly says quietly.
My eyes widen.
Why haven’t I been thinking more about this? Three people were just murdered, and I’m more concerned about going back to my old way of living. All I’ve been thinking about lately is myself and how all these changes have been so hard. A family was just brutally murdered, and I’ve barely spared a second thought for how or why. I shift in my seat, feeling physically uncomfortable as shame floods me.
“What did they find?” I ask Holly.
She pulls her legs up into the chair, crossing them underneath her. “It’s not much of a lead, but it’s something. They think there was more than one person involved and that whoever was involved was close with the family. There was evidence of a closed portal in their front yard. Someone from the family would have had to temporarily remove the spell-blocking portals to allow it to form.”
My blood turns cold. That’s exactly what I was thinking just days ago when Holly and I were talking about portal magic.
“Evidence of a portal? How would they know?” I ask.
“Portals create a mini tornado on the ground, so anything that’s on the ground will be disturbed. If you find a small area on the ground where there’s nothing but grass, you’ve likely come across a recently closed portal. It was easy to catch since the yard was covered in fallen leaves except for that one spot.”
Elle clears her throat and adds, “Based on the size, they know that no more than two people traveled in it at once.”
Holly speaks up, volume slightly louder than it was before. “But it could be more. Just because only two people can travel through the portal at a time doesn’t mean the portal wasn’t used repeatedly.”
“Portals don’t close automatically?” I ask.
“They close after a certain period of time, depending on what the user sets. If you want it to close faster, you’d need to manually close it using Fae magic,” Holly explains.
My mind reels at the new information. “That means the person who killed the High Family was Fae?” I ask.
