“Pixies are unpredictable little bastards,” Mauro grumbled. “They don’t emerge unless they want to, and they rarely associate with the fae.”
“Maybe not seelie fae, but they do associate with faecreatures,” Theron said, raising his eyebrows.
Mauro snorted. “You wantmeto approach the pixies?”
“No. I want him to.” Theron jerked his head to the side.
I followed the direction of his gesture and frowned. “You want… the trees to find the pixies?” Maybe the poison was messing with his head.
Theron rolled his eyes. “You can come out now.”
“Damn.” Frisk the arctic fox materialized, his snowy formbobbing toward us. “I’d been so careful. How did you spot me?”
“Frisk?” I shrieked. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“What’s it look like? I’m following to make sure you don’t get yourselves killed.”
“Oh, really?” I crossed my arms. “And where were you when the Demon Fae attacked?”
Frisk licked his paws idly. “Perhaps I was kicking snow in its face.”
“You were not,” I said with a laugh.
“All right, fine, I was hiding. But don’t be mad at me. I’m not the only stowaway.”
My stomach dropped. “Who—” I broke off, my heart skittering in my chest as I frantically looked around. “Shit.Kendra, where are you?”
For a moment, nothing happened. I felt Theron frowning inquisitively at me, but I was scanning our surroundings, my cloak, my pack?—
Something clinked in my pack, and Kendra poked her white snout out of the satchel. Her wide blue eyes fixed innocently on me. “Don’t be mad, Snow.”
Theron made a choking sound, his eyes growing wide. “What… is that?”
Kendra released a puff of icy air before burrowing her way back into my bag.
“She was in your cloak for most of the trip,” Frisk said. “When the Demon Fae appeared, she jumped into your pack and was with Mauro the whole time. Don’t worry, she was safe.”
“Safe,” I scoffed, my heart still racing at the thought of tiny Kendra in close proximity to aDemon Fae.
Theron groaned and swayed slightly. His face wasgrowing paler by the second, his hand pressed to the bloody wound in his side.
Gritting my teeth, I said, “We’ll discuss this later. Frisk, do you know where the pixies are?”
“Yes.” Frisk lifted his head, his ears perking up. “The hunter is right. Icantrack them down. If anyone can do it, it’s someone who can be invisible. Am I right?”
My lips thinned as I caught his meaning. He wanted me to go with him. “Right.”
“We’ll have to be careful,” Theron said. “Pixies are ruthless and brutal. They value strength and trickery, and they consider themselves the strongest species. So it’s best we don’t appear threatening.”
“And if wedoappear threatening?” I challenged.
“Then you’d better hope you’re the stronger opponent.” Theron leveled a hard gaze at me. “Because if you fail, they’ll devour you.”
I held his stare, refusing to cower despite the way his words chilled me to the bone. I had once researched the pixies, thinking their magic could cure me and buy me more time. Unfortunately, it couldn’t. My condition had festered for so long that it was incurable.
Besides, everything I’d read told me the pixies would kill me before I could utter a single word.
“We head for the mountains then,” Theron grunted, moving toward Mauro.
