Marked (The Coldest Fae Book 3) by Katerina Martinez (novel24 .txt) 📗

and opened my mouth, a beam of white light shot out of it and went streaking into the sky.

Then the world went black, and I fell to the floor.

Unconscious.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

 

 

“Dahlia,” came a soft, distant voice.

I rubbed my eyes, groaning. Everything hurt. “What?” I croaked. “Mother… Pepper?”

“Wake up, sleepy head. There’s someone who wants to meet you.”

Opening my eyes and looking around, I found myself lying on my bed back at home, in Carnaby Street. My heart surged into my throat, the sudden burst of adrenaline filling my body with a kind of trembling warmth. I was home, and Pepper was smiling at me from my bedside. She had a little plate in her hand. On it rested a tiny porcelain cup, feathers of steam rising from it.

“What am I… where am I?”

“At home, of course,” she said.

I sat upright and stared at her. She was wearing a long, red robe, over a white nightgown, and on the bridge of her nose sat a pair of half-moon spectacles held around the back of her neck by a light chain.

“How am I home?” I asked.

“Don’t be silly, dear,” she said, “Sit up and drink your tea, then come downstairs.”

Pepper set the plate and the cup on my end table, gave me one final kind smile, and then headed out of my room. I watched her, then I stared at the cup, finally resting my gaze on the window in my bedroom that overlooked the alley into Carnaby Street. It was frosted over, little bits of snow sitting on the outside of the windowpane and clinging to its support frames.

Beyond the window, a gentle snow fell over London’s rooftops.

I slid my feet out of the bed and looked at my toes, my hands. I was wearing pajamas and odd socks, and while I didn’t have a series of moon-tattoos on my right hand, there was still a butterfly shaped tattoo on the back of my left. I caressed it with my fingertips, trying to get Gullie to wake up, but it was no use.

I couldn’t understand what was going on. Was this a dream? Was I dreaming right now? Or was Arcadia a dream? I could just about remember most of it, but it was starting to slip away, the way a dream would after waking. It was like mist, like smoke, ethereal and ghostlike. By the time I finished drinking the tea Pepper had left for me, it was almost gone.

Mira, Melina, the Prince.

All of it.

I got up off the bed with the empty cup in my hand and walked over to the window. There were people walking past the entryway to the alley in which the Magic Box sat. I could hear them talking, their feet crunching on the snow, the cars rolling down the street just outside of the frame. Reflected on the window glass wasn’t the fae girl I had come to know so well, but the old me.

The bookworm with the mousy brown hair. The seamstress who rarely sees the light of day. The boring one with no friends save for the little pixie that lives in her hair.

What the hell is this?

I heard movement coming from the living room. Turning around, I headed toward my bedroom door—which stood ajar—and listened. The last time I had been here, soldiers of the winter court were storming my house to steal me to Arcadia. Tonight, the house was mostly quiet, save for someone knocking around on the other side of the door.

I opened it and stepped through, but as soon as I crossed the threshold, I was no longer in my house. The chilling cold bit and nipped at my exposed skin. I wrapped my arms around myself and instantly started shivering. I wasn’t in my house anymore, but in the woods somewhere, with cold snow under my bare feet and black trees all around me.

“Oh shit,” I said, my teeth chattering. “Pepper? Evie? Where are you?”

There was no reply, save for the woosh of the wind. I scanned the woods, searching for a path to take, somewhere to go. When I thought I spotted a soft, blue light pulsing through the trees, I headed for it, hoping I wouldn’t lose my toes to frostbite. I still had some energy in me, so I broke into a run, speeding through the trees in the dark, following the light in the hopes it would take me somewhere warm.

I spilled out of the tree line into an open clearing of dirt and snow that led to a small lake that had iced over and turned black. On the other side of the lake was the source of the light, bright and pale blue like the reflection of the full moon in the sky on the surface of the black ice. But the light stood apart from the moon. It was its own thing, shining directly in front of the tallest, thickest tree in the woods.

In it, I thought I saw someone. Two people, in fact. They were only shadows breaking the light as it shone behind them, and I could’ve sworn one of them was beckoning me to come closer.

Looking down at the ice in front of my feet gave me all kinds of anxieties. It didn’t look sturdy. It barely even looked real. If I fell into it, I knew I would die. There would be no finding my way out of it, and even if I did, hypothermia would get me within moments. Still, I had to get to the other side. I had to get to that tree.

Taking a deep breath, I broke into a quick sprint and—using my fancy feet—I glided across the ice as lightly and as quickly as I could. The less my whole weight stood on any single spot of ice, the less likely it would be that the ice would break. That was my thinking, at least, and it seemed to hold out.

The wind raced through my hair, the bitter