Rise of the Fey Read Online Free PDF

everyone now.”
    I feel my cheeks burn. “I wasn’t lying! I came here, and the wall moved away to form a staircase. Even Puck knows about it, he’s the one who showed it to me!” I wrench the hobgoblin away from me and hold him before the hedge. “Show them, Puck,” I urge the small hobgoblin. “Show them where the staircase is.”
    But Puck just looks over his shoulder at me and lets out a loud burp.
    “See?” Irene says scathingly. “She’s nothing but a filthy, two-tongued little—”
    “There’s no need to lose your civilities, Lady Irene,” the presiding judge says.
    “What is more,” Gauvain says, his French accent thick, “Fey don’t lie.”
    “She’s part human,” Irene retorts. “It could make her capable of falsehoods.”
    “Says the woman who’s lied to me all my life,” I mutter, facing the hedge again.
    Sweat pools under my armpits as every gaze is back on me, waiting to see what I’m going to do next. I wave my arms before it, my heavy chains clinking together. Then, as I don’t get any response, I push my hand through the wall of roots. Maybe I can force the vines away from the passage…
    But as I try to clear them away, the roots suddenly tighten around my wrist, a long thorn embedding itself deep into my hand. I bite on my lower lip to refrain from screaming, tears springing to my eyes as the thorn keeps pushing itself through my flesh. I reach in with my other hand to free myself, but more vines creep over my arm, keeping me locked in place. A knife suddenly flashes in my vision before attacking the hedge.
    “Hurry,” I whisper to Arthur as a blood-red flower blooms at the thorn’s base, a drop of nectar beading at the tip of its long pistil.
    Arthur finally manages to pull me free, causing the bead of nectar to fall on my manacle. The metal sizzles as it comes into contact with the flower’s liquid and I gulp as the iron dissolves, leaving a wide hole behind.
    “And to think that could’ve been your arm,” Percy says, patting my shoulder.
    Holding my bloody hand up to my chest, I keep my eyes on the make-out hedge. Not only do Carman and Irene want me dead, but now I also have to add a stupid tree to the list?
    “The girl is wasting our time,” Luther says, “and I’ve got pressing matters to attend.”
    I nervously rub my hands together, the hole left by the thorn in my palm already closing over. Why won’t the stairs show up?And why does the tree suddenly not like me? I’m still the same person who—
    I freeze. “I’m not the same,” I say out loud.
    “I beg your pardon?” the judge asks.
    I whirl around, my long chain wrapping itself around me. “The tree doesn’t recognize me anymore,” I say. “But I haven’t changed at all except for—”
    “The seal,” Arthur says.
    “You’re saying the seal…acted like a keycard?” Father Tristan asks.
    I nod emphatically. “Exactly! That’s the only way—”
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” Luther says already heading back the way we came. “This girl’s excuses are getting more outlandish by the minute. The longer we stay here, the more we’re getting involved in her little games. We came here, we saw nothing. Period.”
    Resigned, the judge follows suit, trailed by the rest of the Board members and KORT knights. With an evil smirk, the guard pulls harshly on my chain to get me going.
    “Looks like it’s the end of you after all,” he tells me with a wide grin. “And believe you me, I’ll be more ‘n happy to chop off that she-devil head of yours.”

    “But she can’t be trusted!” Irene snaps after the judge and the jury members have deliberated, their whispers never distinct enough for me to hear what they’re saying about me.
    “And she has repeatedly gone against express orders,” Luther adds.
    I sag against the podium to which I’ve been chained again, letting Puck play with my manacles. I look up at the clear sky-lakethen breathe in deeply, letting the fresh air fill my lungs. In a