Page 51 of Deadly Little Games

“Obviously.”

Still looking down at me, he hoisted me up more securely, and I looped my arms around his neck. The tension between us was so taut, it felt like it could snap at any moment. I was breathing so shallowly, I felt lightheaded.

He smirked, then lifted his eyes to continue walking, breaking the tension between us in an instant.

We reached the clearing beyond the forest. I could see the car still parked in the middle of the road, headlights illuminating the fallen tree. I saw Elena kneeling on the ground, and Crispin standing over her, their eyes on something else.

“Where is Gabriel?”

“He fell to a fairy blade. I believe some manner of poison was involved. I could not wait around to learn more, considering you required my immediate attention.”

A spike of ice stabbed through my chest. Gabriel, he… I fought against Sebastian until he let me down. Though my legs were still trembling, they carried me across the grass. One moment I had my eyes on Elena and Crispin, then I was standing right beside them. Ringo was there too, his little blue paws on one of Gabriel’s limp hands.

Elena gasped at my sudden appearance, then her expression fell. “Eva, I’m—”

“Move.” I sank to my knees, looking down at Gabriel. He lay on his back, unmoving. Elena had been holding Crispin’s shirt over the wound, for what good it would do.

I reapplied pressure, then reached my other hand toward his neck, feeling for a pulse.

My heart screamed as I waited. He couldn’t die because of me. He couldn’t dieperiod.

Relief washed through me as I felt his heart beat, but just barely. And his pulse was far too slow.

“He does not have long,” Crispin said softly.

“Like hell he doesn’t,” I cried. I didn’t know what I was doing. All I knew was that he couldn’t die here in this field. All I knew was that if anyone could help, it was Mistral.

And so I clung to Gabriel, and I thought of Mistral. I thought of the Bogs, a place that was oddly starting to feel like home.

I hung my head and I cried as stars exploded all around us.

“Eva,”Mistral said at my back. “What happened?”

I opened my eyes, looking down at Gabriel. His skin was sallow, almost gray in the moonlight. I gasped, inhaling the balmy air of the Bogs. It had worked. We had made it.

And Gabriel was still dying.

“A poisoned fairy blade, I think.” I couldn’t even remember who had told me that. The entire event seemed like a blur.

Mistral knelt beside me, bringing with him the scent of rain and warm vanilla. The scent relaxed me. He was here, with us. If anyone would know what to do, it was Mistral.

With nimble fingers he pulled the bloody shirt away from the wound, lifting Gabriel’s tattered shirt further to give himself a clear view. There was enough moonlight for me to see the wound’s jagged edges. At first I thought it was more blood, then I realized the edges had turned black.

I glanced around us, desperate to find something,anythingto help. But I didn’t recognize this place. We knelt in green grass, and around us were aspen trees, their leaves quaking in the invisible breeze.

“This is where my mother is buried,” Mistral said, shocking me. “Beyond the trees over there.” He nodded in that direction, then turned his gaze back down to Gabriel. “It is definitely poison, though not one I recognize. It is likely laced with magic rather than actual toxins, knowing the fae.”

My throat felt so tight it was difficult to speak. “How do we help him?”

“He is a goblin, and he is now in his lands. Either the magic of our people will help him, or it will not.”

I gripped his arm. “That’s not good enough.”

“That is all we have.”

A cold feeling trickled down my spine like icy water. It wasn’t good enough. We both knew it. Gabriel was going to die.

“We have to do something.”