Its eyes landed on Ava. “He’s been looking for you,” it hissed, stepping forward.
Soldiers charged. The monster lunged, avoiding them again, and wrapped its giant arms around Ava. Then it took off into the sky.
“Ava!” Casimir bellowed.
She screamed, fighting and kicking as she was carried into the air. This wasn’t the plan. She was supposed to lure Andras toher.Not the other way around.
As the monster flew on, she gaped at the utter chaos below. And in that moment, she knew.
They were losing.
Fae bodies from her kingdom and the others littered the ground. Daemons, monsters and ice fae continued toadvance, closing in on the remaining army. She caught a glimpse of Imsel cornered by monsters, covered in blood as they wielded their staff. A soldier from Igneothenia was being disemboweled by a helwraith. Another’s head was severed by a daemon. An ice fae froze a group of soldiers from Monterre.
It was a blood bath.
Where was Quinn? Where was her brother? Maeryn and the others? The wind whipped the tears that had formed in her eyes at the utter destruction.
Ava, you have to free yourself,said Luna.
“I’m trying!”
But even if she could, she would fall to her death.
They flew over the treetops. Ava tried to reach her sword. Her arm screamed in protest, pinned to her side by the monster’s strength. It looked at her with a wide grin, venom dripping from its fangs. Licking its lips, it leaned in, as if preparing to have a taste. She tried to back away, tried to pull from its arms, screaming and writhing.
The inch long teeth closed in, a hair’s breadth from her face. Ava jerked her head away and kicked back, her boot finding purchase with a leg. It didn’t phase the creature. With a clawed hand buried in her hair, it held her still, sniffing her neck.
Ava whimpered.
It froze, eyes widening. An unearthly shriek pierced her ears. She searched the sky, looking for the source of the monster’s terror, but she couldn’t see anything save for its massive wings.
As if in slow motion, the monster’s face sank in on itself, smoking and steaming, then dissolved into ash, whisked away by the wind and rain.
Ava’s braid hit her face as she plummeted to the ground.
She opened her mouth in a silent scream, arms and legsflailing. She was going to die. She was going to hit the earth and break every bone in her body.
Slamming into something hard, she stopped, her breath knocked from her lungs. It wasn’t the ground, but someone’s chest, arms clutching her firmly around her waist and under her knees. Arms that glowed as they hovered a few feet from the earth.
“Cas,” she breathed, prepared to gaze into his golden eyes.
But they weren’t gold. They were…violet.
“Jareth?” she gasped.
“Sorry we’re late.”
“You came?” she asked, as he floated to the ground and set her on her feet.
He gestured to the open land behind him. The sun had begun to crest over the horizon, casting a warm glow around the force standing in the field. Thousands of fae stood before her, their golden armor resplendent in the light. And in the very front stood Orion.
Ava’s heart surged, unable to stop the tears this time as she grasped onto the thread of hope that had unraveled only moments ago, pulling it back and holding on with every fiber of her soul.
After weeks of practicing a complicated spell she’d learned in the book, Ava had been secretly maintaining a portal connecting to Caelestia. Just in case. She hadn’t told her friends, worried about getting their hopes up, but it seemed her efforts were not in vain.
“How did you convince your father?” she asked, heart in her throat.
“It’s a long story,” Jareth said.
