Breathing hard, Mina tightened her grip on her weapon and closed her eyes to listen. She knew the Reaper was hiding in the shadows above her. The wind blew softly through the trees, and she waited…listening…until she heard it.
The rattle that comes before death strikes.
She screamed and held the scythe above her, using it to blast a golden beam of light into the face of the Reaper as he leapt at her from the trees. He screeched in pain, covering his eyes from the blinding light that pulsed from her weapon. Mina used the distraction to spin and cut the Reaper out of the sky. He fell to the ground with a heavy thud, wounded but not dead.
But it was enough. He was weakened enough for the Grimoire to entrap him. The scythe changed into the Grimoire again. More light emanated into the forest, wind picked up, and she heard him scream in terror.
It was over.
Afterwards, the forest was eerily silent, and Mina saw the Grimoire’s pages flip. It stopped on a page, and just before its light faded and it closed, she could make out the picture of the final battle between her and the Reaper.
Mina turned to help Ferah, but the Fae girl was gone. She’d disappeared, leaving only a slight impression where her body had lain on the grass. Mina was about to call out for her when she grew cold and a large shadow beast appeared before her. She wasn’t afraid as the shadow dissolved into Teague’s Fae form.
“You ran away, Elle. Why?” His voice didn’t give any hint to his feelings. But she knew from experience with Jared, that he wasn’t asking. He was accusing.
She couldn’t answer him, so she turned her back on him and continued to scan the forest for Ferah. If the girl came back now, she’d be in worse trouble than before. She hoped Ferah had the sense to stay far away.
“Answer me, Elle.” His voice rose, and she could hear the anger he was trying to hide.
Mina sighed and turned, holding her hands at her side. “I’m trying to find my way home.” She couldn’t make eye contact with him, so she continued to stare at the grass.
“I don’t know why you always think the worst of me. If you had passed the next test, you’d always have had a home with me. Even if you didn’t, I would make sure you’d be taken care of.”
Her heart skipped a beat, but she remembered why she was here. Teague couldn’t be trusted. Even split from his worse half, Jared couldn’t always be trusted.
“I can’t. You’ll come to hate me over time,” she answered truthfully.
“You don’t know that.” He sounded hurt.
“I do. And I also know that I can never live in the castle. That will never be my home.” She pointed back toward the hills beside the palace.
“So you would rather run away, fight a Reaper, than marry me?” He was clearly trying to stay calm, but his words were sharp and his arms flung in each direction as he spoke. “I can tell you that I’m not that bad.” He finally noticed the Grimoire laying on the ground and leaned down to pick it up.
Mina argued, “Hey wait a minute, that belongs—”
“—to me,” he finished. But Mina grabbed the journal from him and pulled.
Teague wasn’t prepared to let go, and the book ripped into two pieces. “You tore it!” He growled in frustration.
“No, you did!” she yelled back.
“I can’t believe you stole from me.” Shocked, he held his ripped half up.
“Borrowed,” she corrected indignantly.
“When were you going to give it back? After you ran away from the ceremony and killed one of the Fates’ Reapers to save a fugitive? I bet you were coming right back to give it to me, weren’t you?”
“Um, okay.” She bit her lip and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Borrowed with the intent to not return…right away.”
He crossed his arms and held the damaged book in front of her. “If you wanted it that badly, I would have given it to you.” His hand glowed, and he waved it in front the damaged book. It began reknitting itself. He did the same to Mina’s half, and her front cover and few pages filled out into a completely separate book.
“Now we both can have one. See?” He flipped his open, stopping to stare at the image of the ogre on one page and the Reaper locked in battle of scythes with Mina on another.
Mina held her half of the Grimoire tightly and eyed the one Teague held. She started to shake. It couldn’t be. This wasn’t how it all started, was it? Was she the reason the Grimoire had been split in the first place, creating the two books? Could all this really have happened before? It was too much for her to take in.
The sky spun and she felt light headed. She could barely make out Teague dropping the book and running for her as she slid to the ground in a faint.