The Faerie Prince (Creepy Hollow, #2) (41 page)

I yank the knife out of the table and unfold the paper. My heart almost stops at the sight of Ryn’s handwriting—and then it breaks all over again as I read his words. There are a lot of them, but I can only focus on one sentence:
Don’t try to find me.
I squeeze tears from my eyes as I shove the note into my pocket. “You promised you wouldn’t leave,” I whisper. “You
promised
.”

It’s then that I hear a faint voice. Tora. Calling my name. I swivel around, searching desperately. “Tora?” I call. I hear her voice again. I jump off the ruins and run around the side of the mess. There she is, pinned down by a tree that landed across her abdomen. A tree with splintered branches and bark and—oh, dear Seelie Queen, I don’t even want to look at the damage because I know instinctively that it’s too much for even a faerie to recover from.

“Tora!” I run to her side and take hold of her hand. “Oh crap oh crap oh crap.” I have to try and heal her. Even if my brain tells me it isn’t possible, I still have to try. “I can move the tree,” I say, getting ready to lift it with magic.

“No.” She touches my arm to stop me. “It won’t help. My magic,” she gasps. “It isn’t . . . strong enough to . . .”

It isn’t strong enough to heal her. That’s what she wants to say. But I have magic that
can
heal her, I realize. The eternity necklace. If she wears it she can’t die, right? I climb the rubble of my house faster than anything I’ve ever climbed before. I find my bed. My bedside table. The drawer has been knocked out and is lying next to splinters of my desk. I search through the contents for the eternity necklace.

It’s gone.

“No!” I shout. Why is it gone? It was here when I left, less than an hour ago. I search all around the drawer, but there’s no necklace to be found anywhere.

I run back down to Tora. I lift the top half of her body and hold her on my lap, letting my magic seep into her wherever our skin is touching. “Please don’t die,” I sob. “Please don’t die, please don’t die.”

“Are my legs . . . still there?” she manages to ask. “Can’t . . . feel . . .”

I lean over her and let my tears fall onto her chest. “I’m so sorry, Tora. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

“Remember . . . I . . .” Her words die on her lips as life vanishes from her eyes.

I clutch her hands tightly, desperately. I can’t breathe. Where is the air?
Why can’t I breathe?
Bright spots of light dance before my eyes. I let go of Tora’s hands and fall back onto the ground. And suddenly there’s a release, and I’m sucking great breaths of air into my lungs.

Not that I deserve it. I should be the one lying dead on the ground, not Tora. I stand up. I walk blindly over the wreckage of my house. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what I plan to do. All I know is that I don’t want to think. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to
be
here.

I collapse onto the highest point of my destroyed home and hold my head in my hands as I cry. I can’t fix this. I can’t make up for it. I don’t even know how I can
live
knowing that she died because of me.

My hands drop to my sides, and one of them comes to rest on a pile of glass. The contents of my emergency kit, scattered and broken. My trembling fingers sift through the items that managed to survive and linger on one of the vials. I pick it up.
Forget
, says the label.

That’s what I want. I want to forget everything that’s happened. I want to forget that it’s my fault.

I unscrew the top.

I lift it to my mouth.

I close my eyes and pour it down my throat.

I awake in a small, dimly lit room with a ceiling that feels too close. I roll onto my side, rubbing my scratchy eyes. The room is bare except for a chair and a small table. On the table sits a lantern with a candle flickering inside.

“Oh, you’re awake, dear. How lovely.” Someone short comes into the room. Someone with grey hair and wearing a long dress. She bends over me, and I see black eyes in a face covered with reptilian-like scales.

Reptiscilla
, my brain tells me. “Who are you?” I ask.

She smiles down at me, and wrinkles form at the corners of her eyes. “Someone who decided not to leave you out there in the wreckage.”

“The wreckage?” I repeat. I’m still trying to make sense of where I am, how I got here, and what happened before I fell asleep. I’m coming up blank.

“The wreckage of the forest. It was torn apart by an evil faerie.” She shakes her head in disapproval. “Draven, they say his name is.”

“Draven?”
Never heard of him.

“And what is your name, dear?”

My name. That’s an easy question. And I have the answer. It’s right here on the tip of my— “Violet,” I say, relieved the name came to me.

“And?”

“And what?”

“What else do you remember?”

What do I remember? Now that one’s a little harder. I search my fuzzy head, then shake it. “To be honest,” I say, “not much.”

Look out for the next book in the series,
The Faerie War
.

If you enjoyed this book,

please consider leaving a review online.

Thank you.

Once again, the number one thank you goes to God. I owe Him everything.

Kittie Howard, here is a great big THANK YOU for your expert editing skills and your willingness to read my work no matter how tight the deadline. I am so grateful we “found” each other online!

To Nicola Vermaak—thank you for your proofreading eyes and for always bugging me to hurry up and finish the next story so you can read it. You help me to keep writing.

To everyone who read
The Faerie Guardian
and wanted to know more—you guys rock. Because of you, I now know what an amazing feeling it is to have people
eager
and
excited
for the next story in my series. My very own series! So to all the readers out there who contributed to that feeling—a massive thank you! You make all the hard work worth it.

I don’t think any acknowledgements section will ever be complete again without a thank you to all book bloggers. Without you, dear book bloggers, my books would be review-less and lost amongst the millions of other books out there. Thank you for sharing your love of reading with the rest of the world.

And to Kyle, my sunshine, my best friend—thank you for always being the biggest believer in my dreams.

Rachel Morgan was born in South Africa and spent a large portion of her childhood living in a fantasy land of her own making. After completing a degree in genetics, she decided science wasn’t for her—after all, they didn’t approve of made-up facts. These days she spends much of her time immersed in fantasy land once more, writing fiction for young adults.

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Find out more about Creepy Hollow by visiting the
Creepy Hollow website
.

Also by Rachel Morgan