Foolish, it spat.
I tried to ignore it. Elysian had been right after all. The food, the drink, it had all been safe. Everyone had indulged, laughing and unscathed.
But pixies were clever. Resourceful. Survival taught them tricks kingdoms never would.
My eyes kept darting between her untouched cup and mine. My throat felt tight, sweat had begun beading at my temples. The fire whispered in the corner, snapping up through the tunnel above it.
Suddenly the room felt smaller. Hotter. My stomach churned. Though that might have been from nerves.
At last, she dipped the tip of her finger into the mug, humming a note softly to herself. Only then did she bring it to her lips—sipping, swallowing, and then smiling.
“When you’re as old as I am, the heat burns worse,” she said. “Have to wait the extra minutes, or it’ll scorch my throat clean through.”
Relief sighed through me, the tightness in my throat at last loosening. Whatever danger I had braced for, it wasn’t in the tea.
Still, I couldn’t figure out why she’d requested me. Ronan was in charge the same as she was. Never assigned, just assumed. Yet, it had beenmeshesought before the sun could even rise. Postponing our hope of leaving before they took notice.
I took another sip. “So, how long have you been here?”
Her eyes drifted to the rug beneath us, its thread dulled, its pattern all but erased by time. “This family, or this forest?”
I blinked, realizing I hadn’t known which I meant. “Both, I guess.” Though I didn’t miss the way she called them her family.
The wrinkles in her face eased, fingers tightening around the handle. “We don’t stay long in one place. It’s in our blood to move with the world, to shift as it spins us. But this family?” She paused. “All my life.”
It would be easy to sink into a life like this. Free of kings and crowns.
“You were born a pixie?”
Mae was kind, too gentle, to have ever been anything else. But when her eyes focused on me, her irises swirling in a mystical pattern, I knew she was not what she seemed.
She took the seat mirroring mine. “I was born to be free.”
The words hit. Because in truth, she was born to slavery. All her kind was. Hunted from the moment their magic awakened. Their lives bartered so others could carve futures.
The silvered hair, the eyes so pale it was as if they had fogged over. Her wrinkled skin like snow, untouched by even the harshest sun. She was what I first thought Nezra to be.
Yet, where Nezra pulled you into memories, Mae dragged you where anyone had yet to go.
“I’ve read about your kind.” I placed the cup on the saucer between us, inclining toward her. “You’re a Veyari, aren’t you?” Her eyes blinked into a smile. “How have you stayed hidden for so long?”
“My fate is not one taken lightly,” she voiced. “Sooner or later, I know it will catch up to me.”
“You know because you fear it, or because you can see your own future?”
“Both,” she breathed, placing her cup beside mine. “I have watched my reaping a thousand times. The gift was never sight, it’s learning how to walk toward the inevitable.”
That sounded...ominous. I knew my fate didn’t end happily, but at least I didn’t know the exact day and time I would be ripped from the world.
“So, you’ve just always been waiting for the end to find you?”
Mae chuckled, the sound soft but edged dull. It struck me then how foolish my question must have sounded.
The vortex in her eyes churned, drawing me in as she braced a hand on the table, drifting forward. My pulse faltered when she slid her hand to mine. It was cold. Not the chill of winter, but deep enough to reach my veins.
“I do not fear death’s face. I amexactlywhere I am meant to be.”
The words should have comforted me. But they couldn’t. Not with the way her touch leeched the warmth from my skin, the way her eyes flickered, briefly, into shapes I couldn’t quite name.
