Once I’m done helping clean up the mess that Embyr made at my arrival, I motion for Devona to follow me to my room. She trails behind me as we walk down the hall, her hard-bottomed boots making no sound as we move across the carpet. My own feet make an annoying swish swish sound as I move and I wonder how she’s doing it. After the events of this afternoon, it feels like the walls are closing in on me, and I…
“Just breathe,” her voice whispers in my ear, sending a tingle to my toes and fingertips. I pause, taking a long, steadying breath before opening my bedroom door.
Everything was as I left it, nothing moved, nothing changed. One could almost pretend like everything that happened since I entered that library wasn’t real, just
[Devona] “Faye..ah…” a second arrow pierces my neck, the golden tip gleaming, spraying Faye’s face with my blood. I fall to the ground before her, my own voice gone, silenced by the sharp, golden tip. Gurgling, I pull her down with me to the floor. Faye starts screaming. Raising a now bloody hand to her lips, I try to show her with my eyes that it is okay. I don’t know if I am successful, but as she looks at me helplessly, she also stops screaming and watches carefully as I remove the barbs sticking painfully out of my body. Starting with my neck, I break the arrow shaft in half, pulling the ends out carefully. As soon as the weapon is removed, my neck begins to seal itself, the blood slowly stopping. Placing a finger on my lips to signal the need for silence, I do the same for my leg, but then slowly move towards the window, open just enough for the arrow to find its way through the warding. I should have checked the windows. IF it is even open slightly, it is enough to break t
[Faye] Waiting rooms are a dark, soulless void that can make one lose all sense of time. I can’t be sure how long we have been sitting here, but it feels like hours have passed. Embyr has resorted to watching makeup fails videos on social media while listening to music on her phone with her oversized headphones. Devona is trying to look bored, and nonchalant, but is failing as she sits alert, her spine straight, cleaning her fingernails with the longest dagger I’ve ever seen. Occasionally she stops to twist her wrist in a figure 8, practicing various holds and rotations. Where this knife has been hiding this whole time is a mystery to me. She pulled it out of her pants pocket. How did she have that in her pocket this whole time and I had no idea? Also, why is she using it to clean her nails?The nu
[Arthur] When I wake up my room is mostly dark. I am not alone, Queenie sits slumped in a chair sleeping in what looks like a weirdly uncomfortable position, snoring loudly. It’s a miracle I didn’t wake sooner. I guess the drugs they gave me were strong enough to block out that boar mating call coming from her mouth. No offense meant to the boars. I wish I knew what Queenie is doing here, messing with my life. We’ve known each other since kindergarten, our parents practically raising us together. She was always a bit of a bossy little brat, able to convince her parents and anyone else around her to do whatever she wanted them to do, even from a fairly early age. I’ve always been amazed at how well she could
[Faye]I know it might sound strange, I still am and have always been a little afraid of the dark. Actually no, that’s not quite accurate. Terrified would be the appropriate word. Terrified of the dark. I know all little kids fear the dark a little bit at some point, but the terror I feel go beyond the regular childhood fears of monsters under the bed or in the closet. I don’t fear being in the dark. I have an honest fear of the darkness itself. When I stare out into a complete deep shadow, it doesn’t feel empty, it feels overwhelmingly full. And I know that when I look at the dark, the dark is looking back.But try explaining that to any
[Arthur] After Queenie left, I wasn’t expecting anyone else to enter through that door so quickly. To be fair, she didn’t actually use the door when she entered. Sitting here in my bed, stunned at how Queenie took pleasure in my situation, a blackness forms in the space that should be my door. The darkness expands, like a large mouth opening. I see a figure running towards me, first small, and then bigger and bigger. A blur of red rushes towards me and then there she is. Standing in front of me, breathing hard and shedding shadows is Faye. Faye Archer. My girlfriend. My fate. She found me.
[Faye] I feel the shadows curl around my ankles protectively as I stare ahead at the figure before us. Tendrils swirling at my feet, they create a circle of impenetrable darkness. The darkness calls to me, wanting me to become one with it, to use its power again. It’s call continues to sing to me as these shadows whip around us, flowing into me, filling me from the souls of my feet, to the whites of my eyes. The man begins to stalk forward. I just stand there, unblinking, watching him approach. Waiting. “Faye” Arthur shakes me. “Faye, we need to run.”
[The Queen] Kneeling before me is one of my best horsemen, or so I believed until this evening. He came back to me with a story, and as I listened, I found myself growing more and more angry.How did this little mongrel keep escaping my efforts to bring her here? What is so different from this version of herself than any others? First I send out my Merlin, then I send out my horsemen, and nothing has worked. I love watching him wither under my gaze as he mumbles. When I took him into my court, binding him to my power and trapping him and the others with the curse of the shadowborn, I gained the power of each of their magics, enhancing my own, leaving them a withered husk of their former selves. Spellbound, they belong to me entirel
TRIGGER WARNING: Descriptions of DEATH, VIOLENCE, and RACISM. Please read at your discretion. [Faye] The drive south is quiet. I can hear the sound of the cars moving past, and the growing sound of the waves on the ocean. My eyelids feel heavy. I yawn and… [England, 1595] …I hear music and can smell roast boar. There is singing and laughter around an open flame. I look down and see a slim dress of simply woven cotton, onion-dyed a faded yellow, and hand embroidered along the borders with roses and bluebells--a symbol of my position as one of the Queen’s Ladies. My stays