Anger sweeps through me, cold and bitter. “So you can be Overking?” Yes, I know the old legends. “Fat chance.”
I dig even deeper for my power, calling it up from the depths of my soul.
It comes, thrumming and violent. Once more, I lash out. This time, my bolt smashes him in the chest, knocking him back three steps.
Only three steps. It’s like hitting an adamant wall.
He chuckles, brushes the remnants of black smoke off his shoulder. “You don’t think the fair Fae are telling her the same thing? It’s you or her, Rouen.”
My mind spins. It’s not true. “Syl would never betray me.”
“Promise to kill her on Midsummer.” He advances, spinning one blade, the Inimical rune glinting like fire on his cheek. “Sit at my right hand. Marry one of my Ebon Knights, and be the princess this realm needs.”
“A Circuit Fae princess?” My laugh is ice splintering. “I’d rather die right here.”
“Let me oblige you, then.” He windwarps in, slashing with both swords.
Barely, I dodge, one of his blades scraping my bicep. Blood hits the floor, the Throne, the hearthstone.
I can’t beat him. That knowledge sinks into me, a runaway, dreadful pulse. It’s echoed by the hearthstone, its energies fluctuating wildly.
The hearthstone!
That’s it, of course. The key to his plan to turn all of Dark Faerie into his slaves. If I can get the hearthstone away from him somehow, I can at least put a big fat monkey wrench into his master plan.
I windwarp the last few feet, pluck it from the jaws of the dragon, and tuck it into the crook of my arm like a football.
“Bad idea, daughter.” The pressure drops as he pulls on the power of Dark Faerie.
All the force of Winter slams into me, searing cold and biting winds, snow in my face, sleet whirling around me, whiting out all my vision.
I can’t see, can’t fight.
Another barrage of sleet and snow slams me to my knees. The cold doesn’t bother me, but the impacts… Nothing can protect me from those. Blood hits the floor, bright red, like fear. I cradle the hearthstone against my chest, helpless as his power slams into me over and over.
You can’t die here, Rouen Rivoche, I tell myself. Think of Syl.
As soon as I do, it’s like I can hear her in my mind, telling me to fight.
I feel Syl with me, in my heart, fighting alongside me. Syl! I fight to my feet in the swirling snow and call upon the Winter in my blood. I am a royal dark Fae, too, a princess in my own right.
I can defeat him. But it’ll take a tremendous amount of power.
Let me help you, my dark self whispers, nudging my mind. Together, we can defeat him.
Danger pulses in my chest. This is how my father fell.
No! I shore up my mental shields against my dark side. I don’t need you. I’ll do this myself.
Summoning the full force of my gramarye, I breathe deep from my gut. Chills wash over me, the magic coming at my beck and call.
I belt out power chord after power chord. Zzzorch! Zotch! Zzzap! Bolt after bolt after bolt slams into him, knocking him back.
But I’m tiring, and he looks fresh as a freaking daisy.
Let me help you, Dark-Rouen whispers, but I shove her away.
Father is a black shadow as he charges through the wall of wintry white. Like a rushing winter wind, he comes on, screaming in fury. “Give me the hearthstone!”
I grin grimly, showing my fangs. “Come and get it.”
Me and my big mouth.
His first cut slashes across my midsection, tearing leather and the skin beneath. The second grazes my arm. Blood trickles down my abs, my biceps. Snow swirls in the air around him, a mantle of power.
And me? I’ve seen better days.
His kick slams me back against the stained glass. Craaaaack! The spider webs spiral out at my impact. The glass beneath me buckles, nearly breaks.
“Oh, Rouen.” Father stalks toward me, one wintersteel sword elongating into a needle-sharp lance. I try to get away. The spear slams me back against the window, piercing my shoulder, pinning me in place. “You can hand over the hearthstone and promise to kill that fair Fae princess, or I can infect you with Inimical circuits.”
His eyes burn fiery red, his meaning clear: Either way, you’ll do my bidding.
“No!” I scream, even though the pain is excruciating, like my entire heart is being frozen. I don’t care. No pain, no torture will ever make me hurt Syl.
We belong together.
I thrash, but there’s no escape. Only the glass buckling beneath me.
Let me help you. Just a tiny push of power is all it’ll take. In my mind, Dark-Rouen reaches out her hand.
Fear nearly makes me reach back.
A quick glance over my shoulder tells me—if the glass shatters, I’ll fall hundreds of feet, through jagged towers and angular gables. All of Knockma laid out below me, the transept like the knotted black spine of a slumbering dragon.
Standing on it is a figure in a green gown, hood, and red cloak, white-streaked black hair flying.
The bain sidhe.
In a minute, I’m going to fall right into her backyard, and…
That’s it. I snatch my hand back from Dark-Rouen as a wild idea forms in my brain.
This time, when my father gestures, it’s a Moribund spear that shapes from his fingers, black and pointed at my heart. “One way or the other, you will kill her.”
I grit my fangs. “That’s where you’re wrong, Father.”
Cradling the hearthstone, I call upon all my power, dredging it up from the deepest well of my soul. Please work, please work. In a rushing chill, my fairy wind swirls around me.
“Not so fast, daughter!” The spear drives in.
In that moment, I reverse all my power, reversing my fairy wind so instead of sweeping me forward, it propels me back. Wham! In a rush, it slams me back against the glass. The spiderwebs open up.
Crick…crick…CRACK!
My bones break, but the stained glass breaks, too, shattering into a million fragments of light and shadow. Agony shoots through me. My vision riots with black spots.
I’m falling…falling…falling…
My father rushes to the broken windows. He can’t throw the Moribund spear. It’s part of his new circuit-infested body. But he can summon plenty of ice spears.
Shing! Shing! Shing!
They fly toward me. I’ll be impaled.
My back’s broken, I can’t dodge. I can’t even windwarp.
Take my hand, Dark-Rouen pleads inside my soul. Take my hand or we’ll be killed!
No choice. I reach out.
My dark self reaches back, her hand sliding into mine like chill velvet. Her power shivers through me then surges up, taking over and galvanizing me against the pain.
With renewed energy, I dodge, blast a spear from the air.
I windwa—
Slam!
The last spear jams into my shoulder, the impact knocking my hand from Dark-Rouen’s and speeding my fall.
Father’s about to throw another spear-volley.
The bain sidhe’s wail rocks the castle, soaring up over us. My father grabs his ears, the rest of his spears forgotten.
Thank the ancestors.
My triumph is cut short as I slam into a gable, sharp pain stabbing my rib cage. My vision goes grey, and all my pain and exhaustion rushes in to overtake me.
“Syl. I will get back to you. I promise.”
Then it’s lights out for yours truly.
9
SYL
The fair Fae have summer
In the blood
Just as the dark Fae
Have winter in theirs
- Glamma’s Grimm
* * *
My morning’s officially gone off the rails, I decide as I join the crush of kids heading into Richmond Elite High. I’m so worried for Roue, every step up the giant marble staircase feels like climbing a mountai
n. I’ve been reaching out for her every few seconds, and the silence at the end of our soul-bond is a raw nerve.
Like drinking ice water when you’ve got a toothache.
“Roue?” I can’t help it. I try again.
Silence.
Frustration and fear weigh me down. I trudge another two steps. Even my backpack seems to weigh a zillion pounds.
“Move it already,” a guy behind me mumbles then pushes his way past. Everyone’s hurrying. First bell’s rung, and we’re about to be late for class.
I can’t get my head in the game, though.
My thoughts are a spinning hot mess. I look up. Only seven steps left. With each one, I go over what I’ve learned.
One, the fair Faerie hearthstone is dying, just like the one in Dark Faerie. Two, the kings are both dying, too, and the fair Fae king? He’s my long-lost dad. Three, four: I have to save him because Fair Faerie and Dark Faerie are going all supernova-apocalypse. Five: unless I kill Roue on Midsummer.
Six: Or unless she kills me. Because only one of our realms can survive.
Seven: No one can help us. Not even my mom.
No pressure or anything.
Trying to calm my thoughts, my heart, and all the parts of me that are freaking out over the impending Faerie apocalypse, I step onto the landing and push open the right-side door. Just in time for second bell to ring. Kids pick up the pace, full-on running to get to class.
Darn it all! On top of everything else, I’m late for my second day of summer school. I speed down Yellow Hall toward my locker, feeling like I’m rushing in the wrong direction. I should be rushing to Roue’s side.
But there is literally zero way I can help her. I can’t get to Dark Faerie unless she brings me. The best I can do is makes sure we don’t have a summer school apocalypse to go with our Faerie one.
I’m halfway to my locker in when…
Whammo! Pain slams into me, like being tackled by an eighteen-wheeler. I stagger into the lockers, grabbing them to stay on my feet. My entire body flushes with cold. It’s like I’m standing outside in a winter storm. What the—?
My heart knows in an instant. Rouen. She’s in trouble.
I’m feeling her pain through our soul-bond.
Wham! Pain rips across my body, invisible knives slashing me. She’s fighting, but who? Her father? The Ebon Knights?
I should be there with her!
More pain rocks me, and I double over, my breath wheezing out in a gasp.
“Roue!” I scream down the soul-bond, but there’s no answer.
She’s a realm away.
“Hey. You okay?” A kid we all call Skater Zim steadies me, concern in his eyes.
Get it together, Syl. “Y-yeah. Thanks.” I stagger to my locker and spin my lock, miraculously getting it open. Yay me. Worry for Roue grips me, my heart a spinning, pounding mess with the knowledge that I can’t help her.
Plus…
She’s losing, Syl, my inner killjoy whispers, but the rest of me refuses to believe. She can’t lose. She wouldn’t ever leave me.
Tears blur my vision, and before the last stragglers in the hall can see me, I duck into the bathroom. Class has started, but still a few girls crowd the mirror, talking and sniping, fixing their hair and makeup. I slip into one of the stalls.
No sooner does the door click shut than another wave of frigid cold slams into me. Whammo! I slump against the wall, panic shooting through me.
That was Winter power, and not just any old kind, either.
That was Fae king power.
Her father. She’s fighting her father. I knew that jerk couldn’t be trusted.
I clench my fists and send as hard as I can, hoping she’ll hear me, feel me—something. “Roue! Fight him! Fight!” I send and send, gripping the stall door as impacts rock my body, those invisible blades slashing me.
Red lines appear on my arms, my legs. A spearing pain in my shoulder makes my vision go grey.
I clench my teeth over a cry. Don’t scream, don’t scream, don’t scream…
Barely, I manage it, then a sharp impact to my rib cage, and I feel her sending clear as day. “Syl. I will get back to you. I promise.”
“Roue…?”
Nothing. No answer.
Commence freaking out in three…two…
Wait. I take a deep breath. Don’t freak. Focus on what she said.
“Syl. I will get back to you. I promise.”
I trust in that. I trust in her.
Still, sometimes trust needs a little push. My mind goes immediately to Miss Jardin, the librarian and one of our summer school teachers. She’s also a pocket púca, a type of unpredictable dark Fae that rules small pocket dimensions. In this case, the school library and the apartment below ours.
She’s helped me and Roue out before. Well, for a price. Púca don’t work for free.
Roue doesn’t trust her, and I’m not sure if I should, but what choice do I have?
I need to get to Roue, and I can’t snickle-step to UnderHollow on my own.
Slowly, I straighten, suck in more deeps breaths to calm my thrashing heart. Glamma always said, “When you’re going through hell, keep going.”
I keep going. It’s my only choice.
I crack open the stall door and slip out.
The girls are gone now, so I catch myself in the mirror. My grey eyes are red, but my cover story is that I’ve had mono for the last four months, so at least I look the part. My red curls are a rat’s nest, and the makeup I slept in is smeared. My freckles stand out, but they always do.
My Irish stars. Roue loves them.
Roue.
Wiping away my tears, I head out, toward the library and Miss Jardin.
“Hiiiiiii, Syl!”
The second I step foot in Yellow Hall, Becca Buchanan’s voice rings out.
Ugh. My first thought is, Could I have, like, a second here? followed by What is she still doing in the hallway anyway?
Oh, right. She’s still in the hallway because she’s Principal Fee’s new favorite, and she can do no wrong in his eyes.
Even if I have missed the last almost-six months of school, it’s not rocket science. Becca’s taken over as head mean girl of Fiann’s old squad—a bunch of privileged drama queens who basically run the school, cutting class whenever they like.
Like now.
“Hey,” I mumble, ducking my head as I head back to my locker.
Becca and I’ve got history. I don’t want to think about it, much less repeat it.
Her squad clusters around her at her locker—Danette Silver, captain of the girls basketball team; Maggie Xiao, varsity cheerleader; Jazz Martinez, head of the anime club; and newcomers Kate Doucette and Bella Carver, two of the richest girls in school.
Bella’s actually nice. She reminds me of my bestie Lennon.
The other girls? Not so much.
Jazz and Dani openly glare at me, and Katey D speaks in a stage-whisper, “That’s the girl Fiann was so hung up on? Doesn’t look like much to me.”
Wait. Fiann was hung up on me? That’s the new rumor?
Barf. I open my already unlocked locker and drag out my books.
“You should see her girlfriend.” Maggie leans in to Kate, and Kate giggles.
“Too bad Euphoria has such bad taste,” Dani says, looking me up at down with complete scorn.
Whatevs. I haven’t let these girls get to me in a long time. I’m not about to start now. Besides, I’m a girl on a mission.
And that mission is: get to class before I’m probably expelled and make a solid excuse for Rouen so she’s definitely not expelled.
The click of heels tells me I’m not off the hook.
Becca doesn’t so much flounce toward me as stalk, and I have to remind myself she’s not Fiann. Fiann was a bull in a china shop.
Becca’s more like a snake in the grass. Shiny, pretty, but venomous.
She leans on my locker and nudges my shoulder—a holdover from when we were besties. “He
y, Syl.”
“Hey, Becca.” Wow. Super-awkward much? I finish stuffing my backpack and heft it to my shoulder. “Just heading to the library to talk to Miss Jardin.”
Becca tosses her glossy chestnut-brown hair. “Well, I can save you the trouble. Miss Jardin’s out today.”
Crap. This changes everything. Now I have no way to get to Roue.
Worry swells inside me like a coming storm. I’m racking my brain to put together a new Faerie plan, but none of the pieces fit.
Only one idea makes sense: find Miss Jardin and beg her to help.
I’m not super-keen on the begging part, but my girl’s in trouble. If Miss Jardin’s not in the library, there’s only one other place she could be: the second floor of our tenement building.
I turn on my heel, but Dani’s suddenly in my face. “We all know what you did to Fiann.” She dials the tension right to eleven. “Don’t we, girls?”
“Wait…what?” I do not have time for this.
“We know you’re the reason she had a mental breakdown and took the big dive to Deadtown.” Jazz shoves in, and now the rest of the mean-girl posse surrounds me.
“Took the what now?”Anger rushes through me, hot as summer. Fiann tried to kill me and Rouen, tried to turn every single dark Fae into a Circuit Fae puppet.
All so she could be queen. Important. Special.
And Becca’s mean-girl posse calling me out on that? It’s only keeping me from helping Roue. “Fiann made her own choices.” I say it deadly-quiet. “And you need to get out of my way. Now.”
My eyes flare with power, and I don’t bother with a Glamoury, either.
Kate and Jazz see the heat in my eyes and back off, fast.
Not Becca.
“Wow, that’s really rude, Syl,” she says, all passive-aggressive.
“Yeah.” Dani muscles in closer. “You better watch your back, Skye.”
“Or we’ll watch it for her.”
Pru and Lennon come around the corner. Pru’s got her serious face on and is cracking her knuckles. Her chocolate-brown eyes take in the situation in a flash, and she swipes her mermaid blue-green hair away from her face. “You starting something, Buckanon?” She voices Becca’s nickname –the Buck—as an insult.
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