“Rouen!” Syl’s cry seems torn from her throat.
No, Syl, please.
Sheets of pure white flame leap from her hand, flaring, washing the entire construction site in brightness. Like daylight striking.
The barghest howls and then whines, its body bathed in the light. It lashes out, trying to use me to bludgeon her. I brace my feet against its hide and haul hard on it again. It staggers off balance.
Syl flicks her wrist, and flares of white fire strike it, washing over the black of the barghest, tiny white flames licking at the darkling circuits, consuming them one by one.
The Moribund beast howls and turns in on itself, revolving inside its skin in a desperate attempt to get away, but Syl pours on the heat, both hands lit up in blinding-hot white. It hurts my eyes. The Moribund in my hand cries out.
The tentacles loosen and fall away. I stagger to the ground and shield my eyes as the flames light up the beast, a brilliant funeral pyre consuming the Moribund, leaving nothing behind—no smoke, no circuitry, nothing.
The barghest is gone, and only Syl remains—beautiful, haloed in power. Beautiful and terrible.
A beacon of white flame. The sleeper-princess of the Summer Court Awakening.
But as soon as it comes, the power is gone. The flames die down, and Syl collapses. I dive to catch her, easing her to the ground. Her hands are smoking. I avoid touching them.
Every instinct screams for me to get away from her, from that white flame.
Look what she did to the barghest. She could do that to you. How’d you like to have only one hand, Rouen?
But I don’t listen. I cradle her in my arms, my heart pounding in fear for her. The output of power… Agravaine will have seen.
Staggering, I lift her up. I have to get her out of here.
She reaches out to touch my cheek. “Are you all right? Roue…?”
“Yes,” I say, pressing my lips to her temple. “I’m fine, princess.”
“Good,” she says, and then passes out in my arms.
An hour later, I’m taking her shoes off and laying her gently on her bed. Finally, she stirs as I pull the blankets up.
Her grey eyes open and pin me where I sit. “I messed up, didn’t I?”
Gingerly, I touch my sore ribs. “That thing almost killed me.” I hate admitting it, but I hate seeing her doubt herself more. And she did save my life, the little minx.
She smiles tiredly. “How many points was that last one worth?”
“All the points.” I brush the red hair from her face. “Rest now.”
“But, Roue… What about school tomorrow?” Her face is grim. She knows the truth. She lit up like a white beacon. There’s no way Agravaine would have missed that.
Still, I try to stay positive. For her. “He knows we didn’t run away, but he doesn’t know we’re still at school.” I lean over and turn her vanity mirror. “See? The Grimmacle’s holding up. Nothing to worry about.”
Even as I say that, I know it’s not true.
We still don’t know Agravaine’s endgame. I suspect he wants Syl, the last sleeper-princess. But we still have to wait until he makes a move. And if he’s drawing us out, we have no choice.
Her friends, my people, my entire world—everything is riding on us.
We have to stop him.
She knows it too. I see it in her eyes.
“So we go to school tomorrow,” she says, reaching out to touch my hand. “Business as usual.”
I squeeze her hand. “Business as usual.”
She smiles tiredly, and her eyes close in exhaustion. Business is how this all began. The business of freeing myself from Agravaine’s Contract, of saving the hearthstone and my people. But now…
I fix a stray lock of red hair and lean down. Gently, I brush my lips across her temple. It’s not business anymore.
I will do anything to protect her.
I clench my Moribund hand, wincing as the newly grown circuitry pulls at my flesh.
I only hope that will be enough.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Syl
Control will always
Be the hardest
For the most powerful
- Glamma’s Grimm
After last night’s crazy white-flame powerfest, I’m shocked to make it through first and second periods, all the way to lunch without so much as a side-eye from Fiann or Agravaine. Euphoria and I even pass them in the hallway on the way to our lockers.
Nothing.
Not even a second glance.
I breathe a sigh of relief. Lucky for us, the Grimmacle is holding. Even despite my stunt last night.
I lost control.
I slam my locker overly hard, and Euphoria gives me a sidelong glance. She’s worried about me. I mean, I did collapse like a total dork. When I think of the way she carried me all the way back home, to my room, to my bed, her arms around me… The butterflies in my stomach start twerking like they’re trying out for Dancing with the Stars.
She wants to ask me if I’m okay. I can see it in her eyes. But she doesn’t. Truth is, she asked me like a dozen times on our way into school, and now that it’s clear that Fiann and Agravaine aren’t on to us…things should go back to normal, right?
I smile at her, trying to look convincing, and heave my backpack onto my shoulder.
She squeezes my hand for a sec. “Let’s go.”
We make our way through students pushing and rushing to get to their after-lunch classes.
I lost control last night. But what could I do? Euphoria was in danger. That thing nearly killed her. I couldn’t just stand by. I had to do something. The sight of her being crushed in the barghest’s tentacles… It messed me up a little.
The idea of losing her…
A shudder goes through me, and I shake it off as we walk down the hall, dodging other kids. People get out of the way for Euphoria without even knowing it’s her. As for me, I make myself small against the crowd. Just me, Susan Scurry. Nothing to see here.
My body is still sore from pushing so much power.
So much… It built up and built up in my chest until I couldn’t breathe, until I thought I’d explode. I hadn’t felt it since Homecoming night. That white-flame power inside me, building, burning, blazing in my heart. It was too much.
I had to release it. Besides, Euphoria needed me.
And I killed the barghest, didn’t I?
It’s got nothing to do with the fact that I’m super into her.
Nope. Nothing at all, I tell myself as we walk into geometry class.
Mr Barney is already at the board, writing equations and formulas. I swear, the guy has to be at least fifty, and he’s got more energy than me. “Good afternoon, class.” He turns, trusty laser pointer ready to go. His aura is all bright and bushy-tailed.
Ugh. Another class of boring lectures—all angles and formulas and fractals.
I’d rather be back in bio class dissecting frogs, even though it makes Euphoria squeamish. I glance at her as she sits. I think it’s hella cute that my girl is a badass dark Fae but gets squeamish about the idea of frog guts.
Don’t worry, E. I’ll protect you from frog guts and barghests. All in a day’s work for your friendly neighborhood sleeper-princess.
Now if only I could fully Awaken already.
I sigh heavily as I slump in my seat, the rest of the class coming in all noisy and tired. Seriously, the class after lunch is always the worst. Just when you think you can relax a bit—bam!—it’s right back to work, work, work.
Fiann passes by me, flipping her high ponytail over her shoulder. She looks back and winks at me, a gleam in her eye.
It’s that gleam that’s been there since Euphoria and I started this whole Minnie Maven/Susan Scurry thing. The gleam that makes me wonder… Can she see the real me?
Euphoria said Fiann could see through layer one of her Glamoury, but a Grimmacle is so much stronger. Not even the Wakeful can see through a Grimmacle.
But eve
r since last night, I’ve had a bad feeling in my gut. Revealing myself like that. Euphoria said I lit up like a white beacon. Ugh. Looking at Fiann, I’m sure she knows. I can feel it in my bones.
Relax, Syl. If she knows, why hasn’t she done anything about it?
She sits behind me, and I feel her gaze drilling into my back. She leans in and her voice is soft, sinister. “Have a nice night?”
Panic prickles down my spine. Next to me, Euphoria shifts in her seat. She heard it too, but she’s playing it cool. I should too. I turn around and look Fiann right in the face. I hope my shrug is casual enough. “Just some studying. You?”
She leans back and throws Mikhail Despres a heated look across the room. Gross. “Oh yeah… I had a great night.” She’s all making goo-goo eyes at him.
Relax, Syl. She’s just showing off. She just wants someone to brag to. “Yeah, uh, that’s great.” So gross. “Really great.” Like pukefest. I relax and then give Euphoria a sneaky thumbs-up under my book.
We’re still secret. Whew! I slump back into my chair as Mr Barney begins his lecture, laser pointer whipping around like one of those will-o-the-wisps in the pages of Glamma’s Grimm.
Yeah, we dodged that bullet. Like The Matrix.
Just call me Neo. Whoosh. See all the bullets flying past me?
I’m feeling pretty smug about putting one over on Fiann and Agravaine when the devil himself comes to the door. I see him through the tiny slice of window, Agravaine in all his uppity masculine beauty. His white hair covers half his face. Dude, that style went out with the 80s, and it is so not coming back. He taps the glass to get Fiann’s attention. She raises her hand.
“Mr Barney?” Her tone gets all wheedling. “Can I please go to the bathroom?”
Ol’ Barn fixes Fiann with an eagle’s stare, but then waves her out the door. Fiann flounces out without a backward glance at Mikhail. It’s not like a mortal dude can compete with a dark Fae stud, anyway. I mean, if you’re into that thing.
I think about it for a hot second. Nope. Not in the slightest.
The door closes behind Fiann with a soft whump.
Euphoria slides me a note. Now’s our chance!
She’s right. I nod, and my heart is hammering like thunder as I slide from my seat. I made sure to have Lennon give Susan Scurry an IEP. She’s—I’m—allowed to just leave class to walk up and down the halls when I’m feeling “tense” or “anxious.” It feels weird taking advantage of the system, but we have to find out what they’re up to.
Are they finally making their move?
We previously decided, Euphoria and me, that I’d be the one to follow the Villainous Duo because Agravaine doesn’t have any power over me—not the way he does over Euphoria. If he finds her out, he could control her, make her do his bidding.
And that would be sooooo not good.
But me? I’m immune to his woojy-woo.
Barney gives me the nod. I slip out the door into the empty hallway with one last look back at Euphoria. Suddenly, dread hits me hard. Like I’m never going to see her again.
Quit it. You’re being ridiculous.
I force myself to turn away. Head in the game, Syl.
I slink down the hall, my Docs quiet on the tiles—quiet as a cat on little fog feet, Glamma would say. I stick close to the wall, hugging the lockers. Ahead of me, a door opens into the hallway. I catch a flash of blonde ponytail, and I duck into an empty bio room, my heart kicking like a jackrabbit.
Crap!
I hear footsteps approaching, two sets—one a pair of clack-clack heels and the other, stompy boots. I look around for anywhere to hide. The supply closet hangs open. Ugh, could it get any more lame and obvious?
The door to the room opens, and I practically dive for the closet. Lame, it is.
I barely get the supply closet door closed before they saunter into the room. Fiann takes up position near the black-tiled sinks and plays with one of the stray dissecting kits.
Agravaine leans on the counter, his presence huge and looming, seeming to suck all the air out of the room.
My heart is still going a mile a minute. Seriously? It’s so loud I’m sure they can hear it. I swallow hard and try to calm my breathing. A broom handle pokes me in the back, but I stay still. It would really suck to knock something over and get found out.
Then again… So what? I tell myself. If I get caught, I’ll just make something up. Agravaine will try his woojy power on me, and that’ll be that. They can’t see through the Grimmacle.
Last night proved that—and today.
If they didn’t jump me earlier, then they don’t know it’s really me. Right?
I peer through a crack in the door.
Agravaine seems agitated. He paces a bit, running a hand through his white hair. “Are you through playing your silly games now?” His deep, rumbling voice oozes like slime through the room.
I’m not sure what-all he means, but Fiann’s having none of it. She tosses her ponytail. “Whatever. Just lay out the plans already and tell me what you want me to do.”
With a disdainful snort, Agravaine takes out a folded-up piece of paper and opens it on the lab table. He pushes the dissecting kits aside and spreads it out. I’m practically looking over his shoulder at a map of the City of Richmond crisscrossed with red and blue lines.
Agravaine traces the red lines with his index finger. “The trolley tracks are nearly done. On the night of the Winter Formal, they’ll surround the whole city.”
Okay, we knew that, but what are the blue lines? They seem to travel inside the red ones, making a smaller circle…
Fiann shrugs one shoulder like she could not care less. “We’ve been over this, Ag. Bored already. Let’s just get to it.”
“We wait,” he rumbles, absently tracing the blue lines, his shark-black eyes intent. “Until the winter solstice, the perfect time.” He seems to be almost talking to himself.
Creepy.
Fiann puts a hand on her hip and pushes. “Why does it have to be the same night as the Formal? Can’t you cast your spell or whatever on another night?”
He gives her the stink eye. “My…spell? Is that what you would call it?”
“Isn’t it? I mean, you’re basically creating a dark Fae paradise on Earth. With magic.”
My breath freezes in my throat. We were right. That is what they’re up to. Holy—
Fiann tosses her head as though they’re talking about the latest fashions. Like creating a dark Fae realm on Earth is nothing more serious than getting a new wardrobe at Bloomingdale’s. “But seriously, can’t it be some other night?”
Agravaine looks like he wants to smack her one. “No. It cannot be some other night. I need the power of the solstice, and I need all of the infected present.”
Okay, the students and the solstice. And a night of peak dark Fae power.
But how does solstice + Moribund students + trolley tracks = dark Fae paradise on Earth?
I run it over in my mind again: infected students, the Moribund, the solstice, the tracks, the night when the dark Fae are most powerful, a night when the… Dread jolts through me.
When the ley lines are the most powerful.
Euphoria told me all about the ley lines and how they power the gates and Snickleways to UnderHollow, how they tie the entire dark Fae realm to Earth. If they were shattered…
A cold sweat breaks out across my skin. The trolley tracks in red. They’re made of iron and Moribund. Those blue lines he’s tracing…
The ley lines.
This is so not good.
He’s using the iron and the Moribund in the trolley tracks to corral the ley lines, to shape them into a circle. I’m no expert on dark Fae magic, but I know from watching a gazillion movies that when bad guys start making a circle of power around the city it’s a bad thing.
A very, very not good, nasty-bad thing indeed.
I take a shaky breath. I’ve gotta get back to Euphoria and tell her, but… I can’t exactly move right now.<
br />
Fiann sniffs. “I still don’t know how you’re going to push that kind of power through all the infected students and out into the city?” She tips a skeptical look his way.
Agravaine’s look is shark-sly. “That’s for me to worry about.”
“Fine.” She tosses her blonde ponytail. “As long as you make me the dark Fae queen.”
Whaaaaaaaat? I nearly choke. Fiann? The dark Fae queen?
Fat chance.
If anyone’s going to be the dark Fae queen, it’s Euphoria.
“You’ll get your reward, no matter what happens,” he rumbles, and I hear the warning in his voice even though she clearly doesn’t. Ugh. What an idiot. “Now there’s just one more thing we need to do.”
“And what is that?” She’s sure snotty to him, especially for a girl who wants to be crowned his queen.
“Just a few loose ends.” He turns around and meets my gaze dead-on through the crack in the door. “Isn’t that right, Syl?”
Oh, crap. Crappity crap crap crap.
For a hot second, I think about running. I could maybe get away, from them, from the school, but Euphoria’s still here, and Agravaine’s smart. If he knows about me, he knows about her.
He might already have some sicko plan to hurt her.
Old Syl might’ve run, but new Syl? No way, buster.
I push the door open and step out of the closet. Maybe I can get him to monologue. I mean, all villains like to monologue, right? “How’d you know it was me?”
Agravaine holds out his right hand, and his flesh teems with black Moribund circuits, twisting and turning, forming a fist then knotted, outstretched fingers. “I’m tied to every circuit of the Moribund. The instant you destroyed my barghest, I felt your power. Your white-flame power.”
Yay, monologue!
He stalks toward me now. “I think it’s time to break that little Grimmacle of yours. It’s been fun and all, watching you and Rouen these past weeks.” He closes his hand into an anvil-like fist. “But the fun is over.”
Moribund Page 24