Camelot's Crow | ✓ [BOOK 3]

~ 28 ~

SELENE COULD HEAR HER own heartbeat in her ears. It matched the pulse of the blood pushing from the wound in her middle. She'd suffered worse, but this was still unpleasant, and she could see the world wavering in her view. She stumbled in her attempt to stand, and the others rushed to her side.

"I got it, I got it," she insisted, though she didn't try to push them away. She slumped against the tree beside her, clutching her wound, covering it in warm, sticky blood. She groaned the moment she realized she couldn't stand, but Chalice was already catching her before she could fall completely.

"We need to get you to Giselle," they said. "This is a bad wound, Selene."

"As much as I would love that," Selene said, panting. "We have to find Kit."

Chalice slung her free arm around their shoulders, but they had to bend down in order for her to reach. "And I need to find Lionel," they told her. "Connor has him. Eurion, a little help here?"

Eurion, still stunned from the death she'd just witnessed, shook her head and inhaled sharply to break from her trance. She joined Chalice at Selene's other side, and it was significantly less awkward to lean on the thief.

"Really, I'm alright," the Lady insisted. "If it's Lionel in trouble, we need to go save him. Forget about me."

"Absolutely not, Lady Selene," Herwerde grunted. "If Connor has the boy, we need backup. We're going to Faerie, it's decided."

Selene threw her head back. "How the hell do you expect us to get there? I'm in no position to make a deal with the Fair Folk."

"Well, I am," Chalice said. "Come on, then. Let's find an entrance."

She tried to walk, but even with help, her knees kept buckling and her head kept spinning. It was becoming apparent that Chalice and Eurion were trying to carry her in the least effective way possible, and there came a point where even Selene, tough, unbreakable Selene, couldn't pretend to be fine anymore.

"Allow me," said Herwerde. He placed an arm behind her neck, then another at the back of her knees, and he swept her up into his arms without a struggle.

"I was stabbed in the gut, which is like a normal weekend for me now," she groaned. "I should be able to walk."

Chalice was lingering at Herwerde's side, walking slowly but still keeping pace with their long legs. "It was the weapons," they told her. They removed their green cloak from their shoulder, revealing black and mangled skin which reached down to their fingertips and spread across their neck and brushed the left half of their jaw. "Connor got me in the back of the shoulder. It's the magic doing the damage, that's why we need to get you to Giselle right away."

Selene squirmed in Herwerde's arms as a flash of pain shot through her abdomen, and another pulse of blood pushed through the cracks of her fingers. "Good God," she gasped. Her vision wavered again, and her head felt hot.

"Hang in there," said Eurion, her voice soft. There was something behind her eyes Selene hadn't seen before. She was haunted. After everything the thief had seen, this managed to shake her up, and it was worrying. She kept close to Chalice, and Selene was glad she had someone, at least.

After a few minutes of walking, they found a passage. Hidden in a grove of trees, a ring of mushrooms was tucked away in the long grass. Chalice stepped into it, still clutching Eurion's hand, and the four of them awaited that familiar hum of magic and mischief that all of the Fair Folk carried with them. But it never came. Minutes passed, and there was hardly so much as a rustle in the trees to tell them their call was heard.

"Is it because of Herwerde?" Chalice suggested as Eurion stepped into the ring.

"No," the thief said. "It worked with him before. This is something else. Something is wrong."