Crescent

28

Vera couldn't stop pacing. The heels of her boots clacked loudly against the hardwood flooring, and Eileen's glares were becoming more harsh every time she took a moment to throw one at her sister. Vera ignored her. They were wasting too much time—something Zeno could have easily solved if he only healed himself, but he had chosen to let Eileen stitch his wound instead, which left Vera with nothing to do but wait. She had already been told off for sitting and bouncing her leg. Pacing was the second best option. Anything else and the boiling itch to run outside and look for Wyn herself would take over.

Then the unseelie would kill her.

"You're just like the boys," Eileen muttered. "Sit down. You aren't making this go any faster."

She was kneeling next to Zeno, a needle and magic thread in her hands as she stitched the hole in his chest closed. Silver ichor coated the tips of her fingers, and her face was still a little pale from extracting the bullet Wyn had so kindly left in the wound. Even with her shaky control of magic, she had done it so easily. Just a written rune and the wave of her hand.

Envy reared its ugly head again. Vera had already tasted the power the fae wielded. When it poured through her, there was nothing she couldn't do. Wyn's spell fell apart with just a tug. What else could she do if she had kept it?

It was the bare minimum, the only piece that was missing which barred her from being a fae, being Vera Reite. And Zeno never intended for her to keep it.

You never needed magic, he told her, all smug and selfish as if he knew everything about her. They love you the way you are.

Love wouldn't kill the unseelie. Love wouldn't make her equal with other fae. Love was nothing without magic.

Vera raked a shaky hand through her hair. Her ponytail, loosening from the hold of the band, snagged on her fingers as she pushed them back. "Speaking of the boys, they could be dead by now," she snapped, jerking her chin out the parlor window where the sun was beginning to sink into late afternoon. "How long do you think they spent gathering their hunting party?"

"Longer than necessary, I assure you." Eileen pulled the thread taut, glancing up at Zeno again. He didn't even flinch—he never did. "Does it really not hurt?"

He shrugged his bony shoulders.

When Vera had dragged him out of the cellar, he was practically limp in her arms. It frightened Eileen so badly that she had turned almost as pale as him. They made it to the parlor where they plopped him down in the nearest chair, spreading his cloak over the fabric so he couldn't ruin their mother's decor, before Eileen managed to scrape together her wits. However, she greatly protested stripping him down to his trousers even for the sake of dressing his wound. Vera didn't care. He was skin and bones, as frail-looking as a drowned rat, and hardly desirable. Most importantly, there was a hole in his chest that needed to be stitched.

"That should do it," Eileen said, pulling the thread through a final time before tying it off with magic. Already, the wound was beginning to close. She beamed at her handiwork. "Better than Ferne's work, I might add. Though I'm sure he would have been able to patch himself up better than this. Since he's a homun... humu... whatever you called him."

"Homunculus," Vera supplied. She folded her arms over her chest, pinning Zeno with a glare as he examined the wound. "And he's stubbornly refusing to use any magic to take care of it."

He scowled at her. I can only use so much magic.

Bewilderment creased Vera's brow. His power was supposed to be limitless since he didn't draw from either the moon or the sun. The only parameters placed on him were from the key, which forbade the use of certain kinds of magic, or so she assumed. But he had healed himself before, and he had never been afraid of using more than so much power. "What's that supposed to mean?"