The Consumption of Magic (Tales From Verania 3)

“Aww, babe.”

“I want to go home,” Justin mumbled.

“Chin up, dude!” I told him, trying to sound cheerful. “If you’re into that sort of thing, I’m pretty sure Dimitri’s been eyeing you a little bit. Or you can just wait till we get back to the castle and I’ll totally find you a boyfriend.”

“Because that worked so well last time,” Justin said.

“Oh,” I said with a frown. “Right. My bad. No more personal ads because of people who want you to be their meat puppet.”

It had been five days since Dimitri and his fairies found us in the Dark Woods and dumped a few more revelations in my lap. Most of that time had been spent trekking deeper into the Dark Woods than I’d ever traveled. The canopy above wasn’t so thick that we couldn’t see the sky, but it was still eerie being this far in. The Dark Woods were the heart of Verania, and I didn’t know that anyone had actually been to their center and made it out alive. It was a wilderness that would most likely remain untamed for generations. There was no incentive for men to spread into the Dark Woods; in fact, all the stories of monsters and Darks were enough to keep even the bravest from going too far.

Except for us.

Because we were a special kind of stupid.

Kevin had had a difficult time at first, knocking down trees left and right, much to the horror of the fairies. They way they’d screamed, you would have thought he was murdering their families. We had all stared at them when, after Kevin crunched a particularly large tree, they started wailing and hovering above the tree, shrieking in a language I’d never heard before that reminded me of birds.

Dimitri had not been impressed.

He told Kevin to fly.

Kevin refused, saying he was not going to leave his beloved to the wild machinations of the forest.

Gary had rolled his eyes at the dragon’s protectiveness, but unfortunately, his erection had given him away.

Which was not something I cared to remember.

Boundaries. We really needed new boundaries.

So instead of Kevin flying or killing more trees, the fairies had flown ahead and coaxed them to lean away, creating a winding path through the forest where the trees bent at odd angles, all to avoid Kevin’s feet. The control they had over the forest was impressive, which made me wonder why they allowed the Darks to stay there to begin with. I asked Dimitri, but he started spouting off a long speech about the balance between good and evil, and literally four seconds later, I was bored out of my mind and started collecting pinecones. I had picked up about thirteen before one of the fairies saw me and starting screaming that I was picking up forest babies and taking them away from their homes. That, of course, had set off all the other fairies, and if you’ve never had a hundred naked men flying around your head while they scream at you for stealing forest babies, then I absolutely recommend avoiding it at all costs.

Nights were spent around a fire while the fairies blinked in and out as they whispered to the trees.

So to say that by the fifth day we were all cranky would be an understatement. The trees were getting thicker, and it was getting harder and harder for Kevin to make his way through without crushing anything. Gary was wet and miserable. Tiggy’s nose was leaking like a faucet. Justin didn’t want me to find him a boyfriend. Ryan liked when I lifted up my tail. Dimitri was still naked.

All in all, not one of our best adventures.

(Except for the Ryan thing. That was pretty okay. We had tried to sneak away one night to get a little alone time while everyone was sleeping, only to be interrupted by Gary opening his eyes and shouting, “WHERE ARE YOU GUYS GOING? CAN I GO? WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHAT IS HAPPENING? CAN I GO?”

I didn’t get laid.

Gary got punched in the throat.

Fair is fair.)

It also didn’t help that we’d been steadily climbing all day, heading toward what felt like a more mountainous region of the Dark Woods. I didn’t remember a mountain range on any map of the Dark Woods, and the peaks weren’t anything in comparison with the Northern Mountains, but we were much higher than I’d ever been in the Dark Woods.

I just wanted this whole thing to be over with so we could go back to Castle Lockes and sleep in our own beds. I missed my parents. I missed the King. I missed Pete and the City of Lockes. I missed the labs. And I missed Morgan so, so much. I needed to apologize more than I’d already done. I wanted everything to be set r

ight between us. Then I could do the same with Ryan, promising him that I would never keep anything from him again for as long as we both lived (the length of which I didn’t much like focusing on). After that, we’d kick Myrin’s ass and have our happily ever after.

That was what kept me going.

It was enough.

“How much farther do we have to go?” Gary asked behind me.

“I don’t know.”