Crescent

7

But if it was a wisp, it was there for a reason. It knew the secrets of the house and the west woods. From the way it whispered persistently in her ear and appeared each night, it had something it desperately wished to show her.

If it weren't for her ankle and the unsteady footing the injury brought with it, she would have followed. However, like fae, wisps could be cheeky things. They had no words to twist so they twisted emotions instead. They preyed on weakness, and a lost, wounded fae trapped in an abandoned house on her own was weak enough. Magic was not to be trusted outright, and even things that seemed helpful at first could quickly become dark and twisted. No fae worth their salt would stumble blindly into its trap without a way to protect themself.

Putting her chin in her hand, she glanced around the room again to ignore the heaviness in her head. This time, her gaze snagged on Wyn's gun, propped up against the couch. She glared at it. For a weapon that was supposed to be Wyn's best, able to kill just about anything with ease, it had bit the dust on her when she needed it. It barely scratched the white creature that attacked her, and had been acting up since. The runes painted over it had since lost their glow, reduced to little more than swirling, decorative calligraphy. A pang of unease hit her, and she wrestled back the sigh that rose within her. It had to be the moon's waning. Without its enchantments, however, the shotgun was reduced to a regular weapon, one that she had no bullets to reload with. If it was no longer generating its own, she couldn't use it.

It really is an over-glorified metal stick now. Raking her fingers through her disheveled bangs, she turned her head away so she wouldn't have to look at the stolen weapon anymore. Wyn was nowhere near her, but she could feel him breathing down her neck, his cold and unforgiving gray eyes narrowed in a silent demand for an explanation. When she returned, she was sure to get an earful about her stupid, rash ideas. There's a reason I never taught you to use my shotgun, he would say in that stuck up tone of his. You destroy everything you get your hands on.

She sank further into the couch cushions, anger racing like wildfire through her veins. "If you didn't want me to take it, you shouldn't have suggested I was so useless without magic," she mumbled. Now, it was like her: magic-less and only useful for making an example of what not to be. She wasn't sure it would even last long as a whacking stick, despite having some nice weight to it. It had survived her panicked blow to the creature's head, but it wasn't designed for melee combat.

Her throat tightened painfully. It wasn't supposed to be this hard to kill a monster.

No. Gritting her teeth against the hot tears that pricked her eyes, she rolled over and put her back to the windows. For whatever reason, it was that hard. She was warned it would be—even her own father told her not to go. It should have been obvious that it was a task too great for one fae alone, especially one like her. The High Council's attempts to quell the creature had failed, so why should she succeed?

Vera perked up. The thought echoed in her mind, but the shame it brought had faded as she zeroed in on the most important part: the Council's attempts. A light went off, and her heart soared with a fool's hope. She flung herself upright and scooped her rucksack into her lap, knocking over Wyn's gun in the process. Filled with new vigor and buzzing with excitement, she rummaged through the bag until she dug up the old tome buried at the bottom, which was just as worn as the house she had taken refuge in. A grin split her lips. Knowledge was a kind of magic in and of itself.

The book had been cleared of dust due to her repeated flipping and shaking of its pages. This time, no cloud exploded in her face when she opened it, but she hardly registered the change. She thumbed through the pages with a purpose and the image of the eight-point star seared in her brain. It burned with familiarity, screamed with importance that she couldn't ignore. If the wisp had gone to such great lengths to show it to her, it had to mean something.