Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
“Shae.” His name slips out before I can catch myself. Shit. Shit shit shit. I better hope Sol is supposed to know his name. I school my expression and fold my arms. “Why do you think I’d take orders from you?” I ask, sneering as I look him over.
There’s no reason he should recognize that I’m not really Sol, but I’ve never used my Echo abilities in front of Shae when he didn’t already know it was me.
“You think we don’t know what you’ve been up to?” he asks. “All the whispers and the sound shields and the secret meetings. ‘Sol thinks she can save the world from greed and tyranny just because her grandmother was one of the original Seven,’” he mocks, then chuckles. “Don’t worry. A lot of people fall victim to that. I know because I was raised around them. Thank the gods Erith offered me the deal of a lifetime or I’d still be stuck with those idiots.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you get it? None of this matters. The threads of fate are stitched too far now. There’s no going back.”
I need him to leave if I’m going to access the Chronicles, but how? I lift my chin. “Did you need something?”
He frowns and looks me over. “You seem different today. . . .”
“That’s because I’m trying to decide how to execute you.” It takes everything in me to still my hands, and all the shaking I’m stopping on the outside seems to have relocated to my stomach. If he realizes it’s really me, I’m as good as dead.
He cocks his head to the side, then in the next second, he’s behind me, his dagger to my throat. “How did you get in here, Felicity, and what did you do with Sol?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jasalyn
“This is where you grew up?” Kendrick asks as we walk the streets of Fairscape.
Last night was so special, I was reluctant to face the day when the sun rose this morning. I relished those moments alone with Kendrick, and I hated to return to our mission—the heavy reality of the task before us.
“After my mother left, yes. We lived just outside the city before we moved in with Madame Vivias, our aunt. It was a little quieter there, but there were still a lot of people who didn’t have nearly as much as they needed.”
We rode horses from Amelia’s to the outskirts of Fairscape, but only the rich own horses here so we left ours with our friends and decided to walk the rest of the way into town.
I look around and try to see the city from Kendrick’s eyes. There’s so much poverty here—obvious in the litter, the state of the homes, and the unbathed children begging in the street. So much need for basic necessities. I know Abriella has sent sentinels in disguise as humans and had them leave packages of food on porches, but without big changes at the top, there will always be too much suffering in this realm we used to call our home.
Kendrick tucks a handful of coins into the bag of a begging boy, and the child’s face lights up for a brief moment before he pulls away, scared. “I can’t give you nothing for this, though.”
Kendrick shakes his head. “I’m not asking for anything.”
The boy looks skeptical, but we keep walking, and when I glance over my shoulder I spot him tucking the coins into his trousers and running away.
A few minutes later, we reach a familiar gravel lane, and I point to the front stoop of a straw-roofed hut a few doors down. “That’s where the witch was when she called me into her cottage.” An icy chill runs down my spine as I remember that day. How could I have given up so much? How could I have let my fear and rage control me so completely?
“Want me to go investigate?” he asks. “You can wait here.”
“No.” I lift my chin. “I need to do this. She can’t hurt me.” I’m not even sure that’s true, but it doesn’t make sense that she would. Not this close to the deal being completed.
Kendrick looks at me for a long time before nodding and offering his hand. “We’ll do it together.”
The street is lousy with people making their way to the market. We weave our way through them to get to the house on the other side.
The three rickety wooden steps in front of the door aren’t big enough for us both, so Kendrick steps to the side of them while I go up to knock.
I rap three times before dropping my hand, but nothing happens. It’s too noisy out here for me to know for sure, but I can’t even make out any sounds inside the small cottage.
“Who’re you?” a redheaded little girl with pigtails calls from the stoop next door. She’s combing the yarn hair of a battered hand-stitched doll. “You know thems who live there?”