Chapter 35
DAVID
I saw her fall. I saw it, but it couldn’t be true. She’s too powerful and too smart and too everything that is good about this place. All of the Seelie fell with her, reduced to ashes that blew away on the wind. Her wind. Her wind that was dying now that she lay there limp.
I struggled to stay on my feet long enough to reach her. When I got close enough, I fell to my knees and grabbed her hand. It was the hand I’d held last night. Only it didn’t hold mine back anymore. I choked on a sob. She couldn’t be dead. I didn’t know how I could ever be okay if she was gone. “No! This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening!” I cried. “Please, Cearo, please come back. Please come back to me.”
I heard Mom’s voice behind me, and Eric’s as it answered hers. I didn’t understand what they said. I felt them come up behind me as I gathered Cearo into my arms. I shook with sobs.
“David?” Eric asked cautiously. “Are you alright — I mean, are you hurt?”
I turned only my head, unwilling to loosen my grip on Cearo. I managed to see enough through my tears to be assured that both of them were more or less unharmed. They were standing and their limbs were all accounted for. Cearo’s maelstrom had skipped me entirely, like I hadn’t been there. They looked like they’d been sunburned and then plunged into water. They were fine though.
“Is she…?” he started. I turned back.
“I saw what happened,” Mom whispered. I didn’t look up. “She threw too much of her power out. Her elementals left her.” She spoke like it was unbelievable, impossible.
“What does that mean?” Eric asked for me.
“She’s dead. The elementals are what make us immortal.”
“Are you sure?”
“Look at her eyes,” she whispered.
I gently lifted an eyelid. I was shocked. The iris was brown. Not yellow or blue or even green or red. Brown.
“Her elementals are gone,” Mom confirmed.
This made no sense. I couldn’t deal with this. My sobs became even more forceful. I couldn’t breathe. “No, no, no, no,” I endlessly repeated. I buried my face in her neck.
And I felt it.
“I’m sorry, David. I’m sad too,” Mom was saying, “but we have to get out of here.”
“Wait,” I croaked. I put my fingers to Cearo’s neck. It was there. “She has a pulse.” I cried again, but this time in relief. “She’s not dead. We can help her!”
I looked to Mom and waited for her do something to heal her fellow fairy. She shifted and couldn’t meet my eye. “There’s nothing I can do, David,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
I tried to think fast. “The kelpies!” I yelled. “The kelpies can heal her.”
“David, I don’t think they’ll be able to do anything. And she’s going to die any minute. We have to leave, sweetheart,” she said, stroking my head, “before we’re trapped again. She would understand.”
I refused to budge. There had to be something I could do. I wasn’t going back to the human world, leaving her like this.
“Mom, maybe we should go to the kelpies,” Eric came to my rescue.
“They really can’t fix her.”
“We can’t do nothing. It’s worth a try. Besides, they’ll at least be able to heal this.” He held up his arm, which I noticed was really burned. It was much more severe than the sunburn over the rest of their bodies. It was blistering and oozing. It must be insanely painful. “Let’s head back to them before more fire fairies show up and do this to the rest of me.”
Mom looked like she was being literally tugged in two directions. She swayed as she looked back and forth between the gate and the direction of the kelpies. Finally, she gave in. “Fine, let’s hurry.” She bounded off to find our trail.
“Do you need help carrying her?”
I shook my head and lifted her. She was as light as the air she loved so much. “Thank you,” I said to him.
He knew it wasn’t just for the offer to help carry her. He grasped my shoulder. “I want her to live too.” Then he went after Mom.
I paused before following them. “Come back,” I whispered to Cearo.