I hated to hurt her, but I had to move fast, and she was so dangerous. So quick and so clever. She kept almost escaping them. She got her hand around Ander’s knife before he managed to wrestle it away.
Ander made a choking, desperate sound, and then he hit her so hard that her head snapped back into the ground, and she stilled.
He stared down at her with the horror of someone who has hurt the one he loves most.
“She’s tough; she’ll be fine,” Fear promised. “Cara will cut the enchantment out of her.”
Ander’s eyes were wide and stunned. “How did I not know? I’ve been with her since?—”
“It’s not your fault.” Fear cut him off. He reached for the unmaking knife where Ander wore it on his belt, and Ander let him take it.
Ander collapsed to sit, drawing Tesa’s head into his lap. His hand cupped the wound he had opened on her temple as he held her.
Fear put the hilt of the knife into my hand. “Steady.”
That was a difficult command to follow. My hand trembled as I traced the tip of the blade over her skin. The enchantment did not rise up when I traced over her arms, her shoulders. But then, I had covered that ground before. I had found the crystal in her torso and had not looked further. “It might be within her legs.”
Ander’s face was a grimace of pain, but he understood what I needed. He drew his other knife and cut her clothes away, the knife ripping through them, exposing her skin.
The enchantment was slow to rise to the surface. I had almost gone past toward her knee when I caught the faintest glow in her thigh.
“Close to the artery,” Ander said mechanically. He pulled his own potion loose from his belt, ready for the fact I’d likely cause her to bleed out if he did not heal her fast.
I steeled myself. The room was still chaos beyond the four of us; I trusted Bismyth to protect us and dug the blade in.
Ander muttered tender words she could not hear, his hand brushing past her hair, careful of the place where his knuckles had broken open her skin. He would never have hurt her.
But Fear would have killed her to stop her if he’d had to. I knew that. Tesa being knocked out was better but still terrible.
The crystal ripped loose. I flung the enchantment away from me.
Tay stood again now, standing tall with the Fae contingent behind him. His fine jacket was dark with blood, but from his posture, he must be healed.
The crystal rolled across the floor to them and stopped at his feet. He didn’t spare a glanced at it; he was focused on me, his face filled with grief and regret.
Regret for my choices, grief for my choices.
“You can’t trust these rebels.” He gripped the hilt of the knife at his side but had not drawn it. “The queen warned me. They don’t want a mortal to be their queen. You aren’t safe with them. You have to come back to Stonehaven. Please, Cara.”
Bismyth moved toward them.
“Hold,” Fear ordered. “This arena is not where our war begins. Not today. Killing them is not worth it.”
I could tell from a few of the faces scattered around the arena that they felt killing these Fae was indeed worth it. But they held.
“We have to stop them.” I whirled to Fear. “They’re going to take Tay with them, and what is the queen going to do to him?”
“Trust me, please,” Fear asked. “Let me get you out of here. Then we’ll take the next step.”
I hesitated, hating to trust him, but sometimes he understood the world beyond Stonehaven better than I did. “Fine. Keep me alive.”
Then I was in his arms, and he was not taking to the air—they would have expected us to fly—but rushing me toward the door.
Bismyth was guarding us, and there was a dragon circling above us, ready to dive and breathe fire if any fresh threat appeared.
Then we were out in the street.
For a moment, I breathed.
