I needed sleep. We all stood to go our separate ways, Mable to the West Side, Hayes to the East Side, and me to start cleaning up the store, when Avis grasped my gloved hand. “Stay and talk with me for a minute?”
Hayes and Mable left, and I chewed on my lip as I looked up at her. “What?” I asked defensively.
Avis swallowed hard and then sat next to me. “You’ve changed,” she said flatly, and tears welled in my eyes.
“What do you mean?” I played stupid, but the truth was, I didn’t know which change she was talking about: the nightmares, losing my second chance at life, the fact that I was going to die within a year? Take your pick, there was a lot to choose from.
She frowned, her own eyes misting over. “Oh, Fallon, honey, what happened to you down there?”
The tone of her voice ripped my heart right open. She sounded…disappointed in me. Like I’d failed her. What, I had to be perfect all the time? I couldn’t be grumpy or tired? I found myself glaring at her and then shook myself. What was wrong with me? This was Avis, the sweetest woman I knew, and yet I could still feel the anger rising up within me.
“Nothing, okay? I saved Ariyon, and I didn’t sleep well. Leave me alone!” I stood so hard that the chair scooted backward and fell over.
Avis’s mouth popped open in shock. “No,” she growled.
“What?” I asked her again, defiance in my tone.
She stepped closer to me, giving me a firm glare. “I willnotleave you alone, Fallon. Something has changed in your energy field, and we are going to fix it before it becomes permanent.”
Her words sent chills down my spine.
Yanric poofed into the room and landed on my shoulder.‘I think whatever happened with the Quorum has got us in a funk. I feel it too, like a darkness trying to pull me under. Let her help us.’
I sucked in a breath and nodded. It was all I could do because in that moment, I was terrified. Was I going dark? Surely this wasn’t what it felt like, right? Emmeric had said he’d seen me go dark, but I had hoped it wasn’t true. I more easily believed my life would end than I’d ever go dark, but now I wasn’t sure.
Over the next hour, Avis fed me different herbs and tinctures:Sad-Be-Gone, Grief-Mend, Mind-Enhance, Clarity-of-Thought.Nothing worked. Nothing made the foreboding feeling go away.
She feverishly ground herbs in a mortar, whispering over them, rubbing them in her palms, and finally made a paste that she handed to me. “Rub this on your arm. It should make you laugh uncontrollably if you are suffering from depression.”
I swallowed hard, trepidation worming through me. Taking the yellowish-brown ball of goo, I began to spread it on my forearm.
Yanric peered at me expectantly, and even I was waiting for a bout of laughter to strike me…but nothing happened.
Avis swallowed hard, nodding. “Okay…well, I just need to research some more, and we will try again tomorrow.”
Defeat hit me like a sack of bricks, but instead of wanting to cry about it, I just felt numb.
It was time to go home anyway. My dad would be waiting. “Don’t bother. Thanks though,” I muttered and grabbed my bag, slinging it over my shoulder.
“Fallon!” Avis called after me.
I spun to look at her, and she gave me a small smile. “Don’t give up hope.”
I couldn’t bring myself to smile back, so I just left, letting the door close behind me. The darkness crept a little further into my heart, like the cold on a freezing night.
Yanric and I were silent the entire ride home. Ranger was a good horse. He kept a steady pace and didn’t jostle me too much. More fae came out to the road to bow to me or hold their fists over their chests as a salute, but I didn’t feel like waving back at them. I felt like all the happiness was being siphoned out of me.
‘Yan, I’m scared,’I told my familiar.
He’d been silent since we left Avis’s shop, and now he hopped closer to my neck and nuzzled it.
‘Me too. But we’re in this together.’
That wasn’t much comfort. It actually made me feel worse. I didn’t want to bring him down with me if I was going dark. No matter how much I tried to think of happy things, my body wasn’t responding. For the first time in my life, there was no joy in my being.
And it terrified me.
TWENTY-THREE
