Page 68 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
I ground my teeth, simmering with the need for retribution.Whether I take the throne or not,if the Cadre ever bends to any of that murdering asshole’s demands, this semi-absolute monarchy will become full-on absolute real damn quick!
Jostling the table, Briar dropped his knife and hopped up from his seat to grab my wrists. Smoke wafted from my fingers.
I gaped down at them, shaking. Out of control.
“Shh,” Briar soothed, his touch misty. “Just take a deep breath.”
Sparks began snapping even as I inhaled.
On my right, I felt the wary gazes of nearby diners, wondering what mischief I was making.
Looking as if he were counting the steps to the exit, Briar lowered his hands to mine and levied pools of chilled water. Dousing my flames before they flared.
Something dampened in my chest.
Briar dropped back into his chair, wiped his brow.
I stared at my hands. They looked so normal. But theysoweren’t.
Briar grimaced. “I’m sorry, Amy. Mentioning Gentian was thoughtless. Just—for a moment, you seemed like your upbeat self again, and I—I forgot. Though, I’m surprised I didn’t have warning your powers were breaking through. I didn’t smell it.”
“I don’t even know what happened.”
“When the dam on a fae’s powers begins breaking, strong emotions can set them off. I’d hoped we’d get you to a muse before that started.”
“I think it’s safe to say we’re too late,” I croaked, scared of myself. “There’s at least one crack.”
“We need to quicken our pace.” He exhaled. “Looks like you’ll be getting that mule after all.”
The stablemaster was a slender male with intricate, coiling cornrows, creamy brown skin, and a set of housefly wings. Our cheap duds notwithstanding, he sensed Briar possessed more seeds than he let on and refused to sell us the one mule he had. Instead, he steered Briar toward his horses, which looked like they hailed from Emerald City—every color in a crayon box.
Keeping his cool, Briar dickered with the gruff voiced fae, and I wandered from the stable to catch a fresh breath. Excrement smelled the same in the fae realm as it did on Earth.
I was resting back against a fence rung outside the stables, watching a pair of pastel pigeons bicker over a worm in the ground, when a commotion drew my attention. A churlish woman, the color of salmon with a ring through her septum, beat a threesome of wraithlike, gray-skinned faelets from her shop with a broom.
They were dressed in rags, their ebony hair hanging in greasy tangles around their gaunt faces. The littlest of them stumbled to the dirt in tears. The older two bent to soothe him.
“No beggars allowed!” the shopkeeper screeched. She shook her broom at the faelets before stomping back into her tree shop.
Acting on instinct, I rushed to help the kids. The oldest was the height of a ten-year-old. Her clear blue eyes hardened at my approach. She quickly stood, her skeletal limbs stiffening for a fight, protecting what I assumed were her two little brothers.
Hit with an image from a dream where an older sister braced to battle a shadow man for her little siblings’ lives, I slowed my pace, raised my hands. “I won’t hurt you.”
When the faelets’ mouths dropped at the sound of my voice, I remembered my accent. Clearing my throat, I strode forward and spoke my next words in the best imitation of Emmeline Wilton I could muster. “I just want to make sure you three are all right.”
The smaller faelets rose to their feet behind their sister. She regarded me like a bee who might sting her. “Since when do Dananns care a wit for us Middlings?” She fisted her hands to hide their trembling.
I stopped before her. “Since now.”
The oldest blinked, rubbing the shoulder of her weeping brother. Dirt smudged his cherubic gray cheek after his fall.
I knelt to his eye level. “Are you hurt?” He didn’t seem injured. Had he just gotten scared?
His lower lip protruded as he wept, “Mm fine, Lady.”
“Where are your parents?”
The eldest’s face twisted. “Why should you care?”
