Rare Vigilance (Whitethorn Agency)

“Now, Phineas, I want you to tell me how you’re able to use the ley lines.”

“Can’t,” I mumble.

The dagger drops from my sight. Her eyes narrow and her nails dig into my chin. “Can’t tell me? Is it such a secret that you would give up your life?”

The wound registers a second later when the skin peels apart and the numbness from the blade wears off. The ley line flares, energy so volatile it flows out of me with a high-pitched whine.

But the ley line dives back into the earth and the whine continues until the air runs out of my lungs and I have to gasp for my next breath. Only then does it start again.

Mab’s fingers dig into my sweat-drenched scalp, ripping my head back up by my hair. I don’t recognize the man in the reflection that plays over her soulless eyes.

“That,” she whispers, and the fear gripping my heart only tightens at her tranquility. “Tell me how you did that.”

I fight to form the words. “Can’t,” I repeat, trying to get her to understand. “Don’t know how.”

She can take it. Take my power. Anything to make this stop.

She makes a noise and releases me. My head rolls toward my shoulder. The world reduces itself to pain. Every heartbeat. Every breath. Every drip of sweat rolling down my neck and stinging its way over the broken flesh of my chest.

Soft whispers as Mab and her partner confer.

What they say doesn’t matter. I’m going to die here.

I’m going to die because I’m human and they’re treating me like something else...something that can survive this.

Will they take my body back so my parents can bury it? They’re fae. Surely they can hide what they’ve done. I don’t want my mother or father seeing me like this. Don’t want them to be haunted by questions of how long I suffered before it all was over.

Bury me under the oak tree on the hill. Next to the dogs and roses and the six tiny crosses memorializing the brothers and sisters I never knew. I’ll be able to watch the fields turn gold. Watch the snow drift against the fence posts...

“Wake up.”

I jerk at the dismissive words. I’d drifted off. Probably bad with this kind of blood loss.

Cool air. Goose bumps hurt. Skin pulls tight, even when it’s split open.

“You know what I want,” she murmurs. “This won’t stop until I get it.”

“Won’t help,” I gasp out as the blade tip digs into my pec.

She doesn’t watch the knife’s course. She watches my face instead.

The knife digs in deeper. I clamp my jaw so I don’t scream. Her hand’s steady, ensuring every shift in pressure, every angling of the blade, tears out impossible sounds. She forces the ley line to rise again and again, feeding me raw power to keep me together, to keep the darkness circling my vision from taking me under.

The blade slips deeper, rasps as it grinds against my rib.

Back bowing at the sound. The tremor reverberates through my chest. Every nerve electric.

I can’t do this anymore. I give up all control. The ley line rushes to meet her winter magick. She shields herself, and smiles while I blaze.

“Beautiful,” she whispers and reaches out. Her finger slides into the wound and runs over the bone.

Please, let me die, I beg the ley line.

It hesitates, its power stalling for a half breath. Long enough for my body to register the full extent of my injuries and all the pain they bring—

/> I welcome the darkness.

Chapter One