Книга - Supernaturally

Supernaturally
Kiersten White


When your world is paranormal, be glad that you’re human… Exciting new author brings a fresh sassy take on paranormal romance, loved by Becca Fitzpatrick, author of HUSH, HUSH.A lot has changed since Evie escaped from the International Paranormal Containment Agency with her shapeshifter boyfriend, Lend. She's no longer occupied with bagging and tagging paranormals to be monitored at IPCA's headquarters. Instead, she spends her days at school like a normal teenager, eagerly awaiting the weekends when Lend comes home from college and trying not to be killed by overly enthusiastic soccer players in her gym class.Evie's world, in fact, has become overwhelmingly normal. And Evie is shocked to realise that normal can be…kind of boring. Then Raquel appears, asking her to help out at IPCA again. As Evie dips back into her former life, she learns that things are changing in the world of paranormals, and never-before-seen supernatural creatures are popping up left and right. Evie also has to deal with IPCA's newest teenage recruit who has the power to open faerie doors and a nasty tendency to show up in Evie's room unannounced. But nothing prepares her for the reappearance of her faerie ex-boyfriend Reth, who hints that a battle is brewing in the faerie world.And the prize they're fighting over? Evie's soul.Oh, bleep. So much for normal.















Dedication







TO NATALIE AND STEPH,

FOR HELPING ME MAKE THE STORIES

AND TO MICHELLE AND ERICA,

FOR HELPING ME MAKE THE BOOKS









Contents


Cover (#ulink_7732905e-938b-5c0c-b4a9-3086bc6f8d9c)

Title Page

Dedication

Out of the Blue

Flying Lessons

Job Interviews

Open Sesame

Sparkles Make Everything Better

A Trashy Life

Ex Marks the Spot

Dream on

Like Aphrodite on Steroids

There’s No Place Like Home

Old Haunts

Deadly Reunions

Bite My Tongue

Extracurricular Activities

Virgin Dreams

Oh, So Busted

Grim Prospects

Tourist Friendly

A Teeth-Gnashing Good Time

Like a Bad Movie

I Like the Night Life

Honestly a Liar

Lies, Lips, and Lunatics

Alternative Lifestyles

Caramel-Coated Complications

Happy Freaking Halloween

Uber-Bleep

Guilty Is As Guilty Does

Matters of Life and Undeath

Tree Hugger

Vamptastic

Going Nowhere, Going Somewhere

Matchmaker, Matchmaker

Old Friends

Do Ask, Do Tell

Family Reunions Always Suck

What He Said

The Truth Will Set You Free—or Break Your Heart

Sleeping Beauty

Dimpled Terror

Hello, Hell

Meet Me in the Middle

Acknowledgments

Praise for Paranormalcy

Copyright

About the Publisher













bleep. I was going to die.

I was going to die a horrible, gruesome, painful death.

My hand twitched at my side, reaching for the pink Taser I knew wasn’t there. Why had I ever wanted this? What was I thinking? Working at the International Paranormal Containment Agency might have been close to indentured servitude, and sure, I had some nasty run-ins with vampires and hags and creeptastic faeries, but that was nothing compared to the danger I faced now.

Girls’ gym.

We were playing soccer—without shin guards. The girl I was supposed to cover (a creature so hulking I swear she was a troll) charged toward me, steam practically flowing from her nostrils. I braced for impact.

And then I marveled at the clear blue autumn sky. Not a cloud in sight. But why was I looking at the sky? Maybe it was connected to my sudden inability to breathe. Come on, lungs. Come on. They had to start working at some point, right? Bright spots danced before my eyes and I could just see my obituary: Tragedy Strikes During Soccer. How mortifying.

At last, blessed air filtered through. A familiar face, framed by long, dark hair, leaned over me. My one normal friend, Carlee. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Green!” a tenor barked out. I was pretty sure that Miss Lynn had a deeper voice than my boyfriend. “Get off your butt and get back in the game!”

Ah, Green. It seemed like such a cute last name when Lend made it up to fake my legal documents. However, the more Miss Lynn shouted it, the less I liked it. “GREEN!” Carlee held out a hand and helped me up.

“That’s okay. I suck at soccer, too.” She smiled and ran off. She totally did not suck at soccer.

It wasn’t fair. Here I was, standing like an idiot on a muddy field, while Lend was away at college. What a waste of time. And who knew how much longer I had left, anyway? What if I was expending the precious remnants of my soul on soccer?

Maybe I could get a doctor’s note. I could see it now: “To whom it may concern: Evie has a rare condition in which she doesn’t have enough of her own soul to live a normal life. Therefore, she should be immediately and permanently excused from all physical exertion involving sweating and getting knocked down in the dirt.”

Ridiculous. But then again, it might be worth a shot. Lend’s dad had some connections at the hospital….

I ducked as the ball whizzed past my head. One of my teammates, a vicious redhead, swore as she ran by. “Header, Green! Header!”

Carlee stopped. “Just fake cramps.” She winked a mascara-heavy eyelid.

I put my hands on my lower stomach and shuffled over to Miss Lynn, who stood at the painted white line on the crunchy grass, surveying the game like a general at war.

She rolled her eyes. “What is it now?”

Hoping my pale face would come in handy for once, I whimpered. “Cramps. Bad.”

She didn’t buy it and we both knew it, but instead of calling my crap she rolled her eyes and jerked her thumb toward the sidelines. “Next time you play goalie though.”

Thanks a lot, Carlee. Brilliant idea. I put some distance between us and slumped to the ground, picking at the sparse, browning grass.

This wasn’t how high school was supposed to be.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m super grateful to be here. I always wanted to be normal, go to a normal school, do normal things. But it’s all so, so …

Normal.

Since school started a month ago, there hasn’t been a single catfight. No wild parties where the cops got called, either. And as far as masquerade balls and moonlit rendezvous and passionate kisses in the hallways, well, all I can say is Easton Heights, my former favorite TV show, has taken a serious hit in my estimation.

I still think lockers are awesome, though.

I kept a hand on my stomach for appearances. Lying on the ground was a much nicer position when voluntarily assumed. I watched a tiny wisp of a cloud stream across the sky.

I frowned. It was a weird cloud. All by its lonesome in the otherwise blank sky, and there was something else about it … something different. Was that a flash of lightning?

“I said, are you going to attend your next class?”

Startled, I sat up and grimaced at Miss Lynn. “Yes, absolutely, thanks.” I hurried inside. Things really were boring if I was looking for excitement in clouds.

I spent my next class calculating the exact number of minutes left until the weekend, when I could see Lend. The answer was far too many, but figuring it out was more interesting than, say, paying attention to my English teacher’s lecture on gender roles in Dracula—and don’t even get me started on that book. An accurate researcher Bram Stoker was not.

My head was drifting toward an inevitable collision course with the desk when the door banged open and an office aide came in with a note. “Evelyn Green?” I waved a hand and she nodded. “Checkout slip.”

I perked up. I’d never been pulled from school before. Maybe Arianna wanted to hang out. She was weird and moody enough to pull something like this.

Then again, not so much. She wouldn’t come out during a day this bright, what with the whole being-a-vampire thing. My stomach dropped. What if something was wrong? What if Lend had an accident on campus, got knocked unconscious, and turned invisible? What if the government took him and he was being entombed in some IPCA facility?

Trying my hardest not to run, I followed the aide, a short woman with shockingly unnatural blond hair. “Do you know who’s here to get me?”

“Your aunt, I think.”

Well, that cleared things right up. Or at least it would, if I had an aunt. I ran through the list of women, all paranormals, who could pass for a relative. It wasn’t a long list, and I couldn’t think why a single one of them would be here. I burst into the office. A woman with sensible (read: ugly) shoes and black hair pulled into a severe bun was standing with her back toward me. It couldn’t be.

Raquel turned around and smiled.

My heart jumped into my throat. On the one hand, it was Raquel, and she was the closest thing I’d ever had to a mom. On the other hand, it was Raquel, and she was one of the head honchos of IPCA, the organization that thought I was dead. The organization I really, really didn’t want to find me. And the organization I thought Raquel was protecting me from.

“There you are.” She shouldered her purse and gestured toward the double doors leading outside. “Let’s go.”

I followed her, thoroughly confused. Outside in the brilliant daylight at my normal high school, it felt wrong to be with the woman who represented everything I had left behind. I kept wanting to lean in and hug her—which was weird, since we’d never really had a hugging relationship. Of course, I also wanted to book it in the opposite direction. She was IPCA.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Judging by your surprise, I’m going to assume that David has not been passing on my messages.”

“Lend’s dad? What messages?”

She sighed. My interpretation skills were rusty, but it sounded like an I’m tired and this is going to take too long to explain sigh.

A shadow passed over the sun and I looked up to see my wisp of cloud. There was definitely something underneath it, but not lightning. Something shimmering. Something paranormal. Something with a glamour that only I could see through.

“What is—” I was interrupted by my own scream as the cloud dove out of the sky, wrapped itself around me, and flew back into the blue.













still screaming when I ran out of air. Gulping a breath, I stared down at the ground. Tendrils of cloud shifted around me, not doing nearly enough to obscure the fact that the tree-filled landscape was much too far beneath us.

I forced back another scream and stared at my waist. Wrapped around me were two arms that both looked and felt terrifyingly insubstantial. I had no idea how something that seemed as light as the breeze was holding me up here, but I couldn’t think about that right now. I had more pressing problems. Like where the cloud was taking me and why. Even worse, tiny sparks were flying around us, and I didn’t like my odds for avoiding electrocution. The hairs on my arms stuck straight out, tingling with the energy crackling around me.

So, so bad.

I was ready to bid the Earth good-bye when I saw my small town beneath us and something snapped. That was my town. I was done being manipulated by paranormals. If this thing could touch me, then I sure as Hades could touch it. And if I could touch it …

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It had to be done. It wasn’t because I wanted to—this was a matter of life and death. Odds were it wouldn’t work anyway. I might be an Empty One, able to suck the souls straight out of paranormals, but I’d only done it once before. And that was different; the souls had been trapped and they wanted to come to me. This thing probably didn’t want to give me its life energy.

Still worth a shot. I threw my shoulder back, reached around, and put my hand flat against the first solid thing I felt, praying that whatever this cloud creature was, it had a chest.

I gave myself up, willing the channel between my hand and Cloud Freak’s soul to open. I want this, I thought, my mind screaming desperation. I need this.

My eyes flew open in shock, the soul crackling with dry, charged heat as it flowed down my arm and into my core, filtering outward until every part of my body tingled.

The creature let out a shrill cry of surprise and pain. It jerked back, breaking the connection; my head spun, drunk with the rush of new, strange energy.

And then we fell.

What a brilliant idea, Evie, go ahead and suck the energy out of the thing keeping you aloft thousands of feet in the air. But it was still holding it together somehow. We were spinning out of control, but we weren’t falling as swiftly as we should have been. If we could make it to the ground, we’d be okay.

It dropped me. I screamed, scrambling and grabbing onto its foot. It shrieked in frustration, kicking out, but I wasn’t about to let go. We were in this together. The earth rushed up toward us, a green and orange carpet of trees.

Before I could brace myself, I slammed through the canopy, leaves flying around me as I bounced off a branch and let go of my cloud’s foot. Another branch whacked my hip, slowing me enough that when the ground and I finally caught up with each other, it only felt like I’d been hit by a truck.

Every bone in my body had to be broken. There was no way I could be in this much pain and have any surviving appendages. I’d be in a body cast for the rest of my life. This was going to complicate cuddling with Lend. At least I’d get out of school for a while. And I’d definitely be off the hook for gym.

Electric tingling sensations rushed up and down my body, replacing the pain and making me feel buoyant, like my limbs were fuzzy and disconnected.

Oh, bleep. I was paralyzed.

Panicked, I leaped to my feet, running my hands over myself in horror. Well, duh. If I could do this, probably not paralyzed. Why did I feel so weird then? And where was Cloud Freak?

“Horrible thing!” a voice like the wind through dead trees rasped. “What has it done to me?”

Still covered in clinging tendrils of cloud, the small creature crawled across the dirt toward me. Although shaped like a person, it was delicate—almost childlike. Its eyes flashed brilliant white like lightning, but the rest of its features were blurred and indistinct; even its color matched the pale shade of cloud. To anyone else it would look like an animated section of solid fog, but my glamour-piercing eyes saw everything.

I took a step backward, trying not to stumble on the exposed roots of the massive tree kind enough to break my fall. “Hey, I didn’t ask to be snatched and flown off!”

“It took me—it took part of me away. Give it back.”

I backed up against the tree trunk. The creature levitated, turning upright and hovering in front of me. Thin traces of lightning surrounded it like a web. Its limbs blended in and out of the cloud—sometimes there, sometimes not—but there was an undeniable sense of power and force to it.

I was so out of my league here. I held up my hand and tried to look braver than I felt. “Leave me alone or I’ll take it all.” My voice trembled, part fear but part longing. My fingers tingled, my body yearned. A taste wasn’t enough. I wanted the rest.

No, I didn’t. I couldn’t have it. I didn’t want it. I wasn’t that person. I’d give it back if I could, but I didn’t know how.

Cloud Freak narrowed its large, flashing eyes at me. The air between us was dry and hot, charged with crackling electricity. It was going to kill me. I took a deep breath, wondering how much it would hurt, when the thing shot back up into the sky with a shrill blast of air. I watched as it went higher, occasionally veering to the side or losing altitude before climbing again. And then it was gone.

Letting out a trembling breath of relief, I leaned back against the tree. When I daydreamed about something happening to make my life more exciting again, this wasn’t what I had in mind. Clearly I forgot what being involved with paranormals—real, uncontrollable paranormals—entailed.

Fear.

Lots and lots of fear.

And now I didn’t even have Tasey with me for comfort. I stepped forward resolutely, taking stock of my situation. I had dropped my bag when Cloud Freak snatched me, which meant no cell phone. And while I was pretty sure we had been close to home when we fell out of the sky, who knew how far off course our fall had taken us? Still, how big could a forest be in the middle of Virginia?

No doubt I was going to find out.

By the time I hit a road an hour later I was tired, sweaty, and depressed. What were the odds that Raquel showed up the exact same time a paranormal tried to snatch me? What was she playing at, pretending to let me off the hook with IPCA and then coming back for me? I found it hard to believe that her goal had been to lure me out of the school so Cloud Freak could grab me, but it seemed the likeliest explanation. The idea that Raquel—who had been like a mom to me during my years at the Center—would do something like that broke my heart.

Fine, though. If IPCA wanted to play it like that, so be it. I stretched my hand and smiled, a vicious, smug thing. I could take care of myself now.

I shuddered, shaking out my hand to get rid of the tingles. No. I was never doing that again. Ever. I liked it too much.

My inner compass was better than I gave it credit for, because I managed to pick the right direction on the road. Practically crying with relief, I saw the turnoff to Lend’s house. My old house, before he moved out and I moved in with Arianna to avoid the awkwardness of living with my boyfriend’s dad. I ran up the long, winding drive and burst through the door into the family room.

Raquel was sitting on the couch.

“What the crap?” I shouted.

She jumped up and grabbed me before I could think to block. I tensed. And then I realized she was hugging me.

“I haven’t seen you in months and you go and get kidnapped first thing! I thought you were trying to be normal!” She pulled back, looking at me with tears in her eyes.

“You mean you didn’t send that thing?”

“Goodness no!”

“What was it?”

David stumbled into the room, a phone in his hand and a relieved look on his face. “You’re okay!”

“Besides being kidnapped by a living cloud and dropped thousands of feet to the ground? Yeah, I’m peachy.”

“So it was a sylph!” David pointed triumphantly at Raquel. “I told you they existed!”

Raquel’s lips tightened, and it was all she could do to hold back a sigh. “Yes, it would appear you were correct.”

“Wow.” David ran his hands through his thick, dark hair, eyes lit up with excitement. “Wow. A sylph. I think that’s the first confirmed contact ever!”

I raised my hand. “Umm, hello? Girl who was kidnapped by said sylph? Anyone want to fill me in on what it is and why it decided to give me an aerial tour of our fine state?”

“Sylphs are air elementals.” Raquel spoke quickly, shooting a perturbed look at David, like she wanted to prove that even if she hadn’t believed in them, she still knew more than he did. “Thought to be distantly related to faeries. It was commonly believed that they either never existed or had simply ceased to be, but this is because a sylph would never willingly touch the ground, thus making finding one impossible and looking for them an enormous waste of time.” She shot another one of those looks at David.

“Oh, come on, just because my specialty was elementals and you focused on common paranormals like unicorns and leprechauns.” David winked at me as if I were somehow in on this joke. “She’s always been jealous that I know all the really cool ones.”

Now I was the one holding back an annoyed sigh. “Air elemental, got it. Great. Now does anyone know why? You said they were related to faeries maybe?” All my annoyance squished itself into a ball of fear. I didn’t want the fey back in my life.

Neither one of them said anything. Then Raquel cleared her throat, her voice strained. “We could always ask Cresseda if she knows anything.” She said “Cresseda”—Lend’s mom and the resident water elemental—with a strange emphasis.

“No, we can’t, actually.” David shuffled his toes into the carpet. “I haven’t been able to get her to surface for a couple of months now. Ever since Lend moved out.” His voice was soft, but the pain underlying his words was obvious. I wanted to hug him. It was bad enough that he fell in love with an immortal water nymph, worse still that she only stayed human with him for a year. But now for her to abandon him entirely because Lend was gone? I couldn’t imagine the pain.

Actually, I could imagine it. I frequently imagined it. Some days it was all I could do not to imagine it. Being the mortal in a mortal/immortal duo was something I understood all too well.

I still hadn’t told Lend he was never going to die, though. The thought that he might give up this life—the one here, with me—to figure out how to be an immortal terrified me. I’d tell him, though. Soon. Soonish.

Eventually.

Raquel straightened, looking pleased. “Well then, this is something I can help with. I’ll get all my researchers on air elementals. It’s strange that it would show up now, especially given recent upheavals in elemental populations. We’ll figure it out. But it’s not why I’m here.”

I frowned. “Exactly why are you here?”

“IPCA needs your help.”













David’s voice was low and annoyed. “Evie is not going to get sucked back into IPCA. What was the point of telling them she was dead if you come here six months later and bring her back in?”

“I told you, the situation is different now.”

I held up my hand again, tired of them talking around me. “I can take this one, thanks. I miss you, sure, but I don’t want to come back to IPCA. You sterilize werewolves!” That was one of the many crimes I had discovered the International Paranormal Containment Agency committed in the name of keeping the world a safer place.

Raquel got a tight look around her eyes. “That practice is no longer in effect. As I’ve already explained to David, things have changed drastically in the time you’ve been gone. Our policies toward nonaggressive paranormals have undergone serious revision, including greater werewolf rights. Any and all eugenics have been done away with entirely. There was a lot wrong with IPCA—there still is—but you and I both know how much good it does. And I’m a Supervisor now, which means I have final say in most policies.”

I folded my arms, frowning. “I won’t work with faeries.” I hadn’t seen Reth since he had come to visit me in the hospital after I released the souls, and I never wanted to again. Him or any of the other creepy, manipulative, amoral, psychotic, insert-further-negative-adjectives-of-your-choice-here faeries. Especially after today, if the sylph was with them. I wasn’t about to draw their attention to me by holding hands through the Faerie Paths.

She smiled. “I understand. In fact, one of my first initiatives was weaning IPCA from faerie magic dependency. I think you’ll be pleased to find that we now use them a mere forty percent of the amount we used to.”

“Forty percent, huh? That’s still about one hundred percent more than I’m happy with.”

“We’ve got a way for you to be effective without any faerie interaction whatsoever.”

“Effective doing what?”

She glanced at David, who scowled. “I’m not having any part of this.”

“With that in mind,” Raquel said, a haughty lift to her eyebrows, “I’d appreciate it if you left the room. I can’t give classified information to two dead people, after all.”

I was confused until I remembered that David had worked for the now defunct American Paranormal Agency eighteen or so years ago, at which point he faked his own death to get out. That seemed to be a popular option around here. Of course, I didn’t fake mine; Raquel fabricated it for me, so that they wouldn’t come looking after I disappeared.

David huffed. “You seem to forget that I’m Evie’s legal guardian.”

“And you seem to forget that there’s absolutely nothing legal about your guardianship, considering all the documents were forged.”

“Don’t start with me about legality! An international organization acting with absolute impunity on American shores, not to mention—”

The front door flew open and Lend ran in. My heart did a happy flip in my chest, like it did every time he surprised me. His usual look, a dark-haired dark-eyed hottie, shimmered over his actual appearance, which was like water in human form.

And absolutely gorgeous.

“Evie!” He threw his arms around me, picking me up off the floor in a grip so tight I was suddenly aware that I had, in fact, sustained some serious bruisage.

I laughed through the pain, happy that at least I got some extra Lend time out of this whole mess. He put me down, holding me at arm’s length and examining me. “Are you okay?”

“Just some bruises. I’m fine, though, really.”

“How did you get away?”

Oh, crap.

Raquel and David gave me matching puzzled looks. “How did you get away?” Raquel asked. In their eagerness to bicker they had neglected to ask me. I kind of preferred that.

I bit my lip. “I, well, we were high? Really, really high. And it was this weird cloud and lightning and faerie thing. I didn’t know where it was taking me or why, and I was so scared I did the only thing I could think of.”

“Which was?” Lend prodded, worry shadowing his face.

I shrugged, a small, guilty gesture. “I took some.” Hating the concern in his eyes, I rushed on. “Only a little bit—not enough to hurt it, really, just enough to surprise it, and then we fell, and it tried to drop me, but I grabbed on and some trees broke my fall. And afterward the Cloud Freak was okay, really, it was. Just kind of pissed. And then it flew off.” I didn’t mention the erratic flight pattern. It was probably woozy.

My story was greeted with dead silence. And suddenly instead of feeling guilty, I was downright mad. Who were they to judge me? It’s not like I was going all Vivian, sucking the life out of everything around me. “I didn’t have any other options! You should be glad I had a way to defend myself.”

Lend quickly shook his head, squeezing my hand. “I am. Really. I just remember what it did to you before, and I worry that—”

“You don’t need to! It was barely anything. Promise.” Vivian had gone crazy and sucked the souls out of every paranormal she could find, under the guise of “freeing” them from this world, but really because she liked how it made her feel. Having all those souls in me after I took them from her—for a few minutes I was an immortal. It was strange and wonderful and dizzying to be that powerful, that disconnected from my mortal life. For a terrible moment I was tempted to abandon mortality entirely … to take Lend’s soul away from him. I didn’t like to think about it too much.

“Is it still inside you?” Lend asked.

I hadn’t even thought to look. A nervous pit formed in my stomach as I held out my arms, searching for anything under my skin. Nothing. But there—a tiny spark under my palm. And then it was gone. It was probably nothing. Definitely nothing.

“Nope,” I said with certainty. “Must not have taken enough for it to have an effect. Can’t see anything but plain old Evie.”

Lend grinned, pulling me in closer. “You’ve never been plain.”

David cleared his throat. “Well then, as long as you’re okay, that’s what’s important. Why don’t you two go get something to eat?”

Raquel’s lips pursed in annoyance. Apparently driving her crazy was a father-son thing for the Pirellos. Lend had the same knack for it. “I haven’t finished speaking with her,” Raquel said.

David looked ready to argue otherwise, so I jumped in. “Relax, it’s okay. She can tell me what she needs to; what’s it going to hurt?”

Lend and David wore matching frowns. There was no way Raquel and I would be able to have an actual conversation. And, unlike Lend and his dad, I liked her. A lot. I wanted to know how she’d been, find out how things went after I left, stuff like that. Suddenly my old life was sitting in the room with me, and I realized I missed parts of it.

Lish, especially, but she was gone forever.

I turned to Lend. “Why don’t you go see your mom? Ask her if she knows anything about the sylph.”

“Sylph? Really?” He looked at his dad, understanding how excited David would be over this. Or maybe Lend’s interest was based on the fact that he was half elemental. I wondered how much that world called to him, how much he wanted to know about it and therefore himself.

Best not to let him dwell on it. I wanted him to stay firmly in this world. “Yup. So your mom?” I would have offered to go with him later, but the truth was Cresseda still kind of scared me. Elemental immortals function on such a different plane than us, there’s very little that connects. Speaking to one is like trying to understand theoretical mathematics before you have your times tables down—you come away doubting you even understood what numbers were to begin with.

It was so weird to think that Lend came from Cresseda. He was so human, so connected. But that’d have to fade eventually. Would he slowly stop caring, slowly become like his mother, beautiful and strange and forever other? Or would he just snap one day—give up this life for an eternal one? How long would it be before he became like the other immortal elementals?

“She’s more likely to show up for you,” David said to Lend. I looked over at him. He was so good at hiding the pain from his son, but I could see it written in the downward turn of his shoulders.

Please, please don’t let that be me someday.

Lend seemed torn about leaving me with Raquel, but nodded. “I’ll be right back.” He hurried out the door.

“Before there are any more distractions, let me lay out the terms.” Raquel steered me to the couch and sat down. “You would be working for IPCA as a temporary, contract employee.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means that you work for us because you want to, and only on the projects that you choose. If you want to stop, you stop. You don’t have to come back to the Center. We’ll call when we need you. There’s no obligation, no oversight other than mine. You won’t be back at IPCA, not really—you’ll simply be helping me on some things that your abilities are particularly suited to.”

I frowned. She was willing to admit that I wasn’t really dead, and she had figured out a way for me to work with them without working for them. IPCA was all about control. If they were going to relinquish it to have my special glamour-piercing vision back, they must really be changing.

“How? What did you tell them? Didn’t you get in trouble?” I asked.

“Stranger things have happened than paranormals coming back from the dead. Since we never had ‘proof’ that you were dead, my fellow Supervisors didn’t question it when I said I’d found you alive. I made it clear that you wouldn’t communicate with anyone other than me, and refused to contact you until it was unanimously agreed that you would be completely autonomous, no longer classified or regulated by IPCA.”

“You didn’t get in trouble?”

“After the severe mismanagement last April that resulted in so many deaths and disappearances, no one is left in a position to get me ‘in trouble.’”

“But they agreed to all that? Really?”

Raquel sighed, an I need a vacation one. “Honestly, we’re struggling. After Viv— After those unfortunate events, we’re severely understaffed. We haven’t been able to respond as quickly or efficiently to vampire or werewolf reports, our tracking measures seem to be failing us entirely for paranormals that usually stay in one specific area, and there are unconfirmed rumors that a troll colony has taken over a neighborhood in Sweden. Also”—she grimaced—“a poltergeist has targeted the Center and no one has been able to pinpoint its location for an extermination.”

“Basically you guys suck without me.” I couldn’t keep the smug grin from my face. It was kind of gratifying to know that, without my eyes, IPCA was falling apart.

Raquel looked at the ceiling and heaved another long-suffering sigh. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“This isn’t Evie’s problem,” David interjected. “If IPCA is tanking, I say good riddance.” My eyes narrowed involuntarily, defensiveness for my old employers flaring up. Sure, the vamps here were self-regulating, but I had nearly been killed by one as an eight-year-old. The rest of the world wasn’t a paranormal haven like this town. Things were scary. Things were deadly. And most people had absolutely no idea, which meant they had no way to protect themselves.

Raquel ignored him. “Your assignments would be simple and safe. And, as I said, entirely voluntary.”

“How is that going to work? I’m in school.” As boring as it was, I needed to do well. I had to get into Georgetown like Lend.

“We’ll work around your schedule.”

“That’s sounding suspiciously Faerie Paths dependent.”

Lend slammed the front door, his face clouded with worry. “She wouldn’t come.”

David shook his head. “She doesn’t always. Don’t take it personally.” That was interesting—did Lend not know that Cresseda wouldn’t show up for David anymore? Raquel looked sharply at Lend and then David; it was clear the wheels in her head were turning, but I had no idea why.

Lend rubbed a hand over his face, then looked at Raquel. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I’m here to ask for Evie’s help with some projects. Yours, too, if you’re willing.”

David stood up straight and Lend’s jaw clenched; even his glamour rippled with barely contained anger. “We’re not.”

Was he answering for me? As much as I loved him, that wasn’t his call. “Lend, can I talk to you?”

He raised his eyebrows and followed me into the kitchen. The cheerful yellow walls didn’t do much for me today. He grabbed my hand, pulling me in close, his frown deepening. “You’re not seriously considering this, are you? I might have been the one they locked up, but you were just as much a prisoner there. After everything you’ve seen, how can you even think about it? And don’t you find it a little suspicious that we haven’t had any problems until Raquel showed up?”

Anger flared sharply in my chest. Sure, I had briefly thought the same thing, but she was Raquel. My Raquel. “She wouldn’t do that. She was as worried as you. Besides, what am I even doing here? Going to class, working in the diner, counting down the days until the weekend? At least with IPCA I was helping people!”

“Yes, helping people! But how many paranormals were you hurting?”

Tears stung my eyes. He didn’t understand. He never could see anything but evil in IPCA. But they’d taken me in, had taken care of me. I didn’t even want to think where I would have been without them.

“How many paranormals am I helping right now, huh? Things have changed at IPCA. I can help paranormals, too, like werewolves who don’t know what’s going on, or this troll colony—I can find them and convince them to relocate before they get in trouble!”

Lend shook his head. “We can do that with my dad.”

“We can’t! We don’t have the resources!”

“Like faeries?”

I hated that he was using my past against me. I hadn’t been sure I wanted to work for Raquel before, but for some reason his insistence that I shouldn’t was pushing me right toward it. It was all well and good for him, off at college, doing big important things for his future. A future that would last forever, even if he didn’t know it. But I was stuck here, bored and lonely, slowly burning out with nothing to show for it.

I was struggling for a comeback when the brilliant outline of a faerie door wrote itself onto the wall.













against the light, frozen with disbelief. I hadn’t seen a faerie door since that night with Vivian and Reth. I had hoped I never would again.

Lend, however, wasn’t frozen. Darting to the other side of the kitchen, he grabbed one of the cast-iron pans his dad always left out. A figure stepped out of the darkness, turning his head just in time to see Lend swing with all his might.

The faerie dove, executing a roll and jumping up several feet away. Lend turned around to close in again.

“Hey-oh, what’s this?” the faerie said with a laugh.

There was something wrong, something off about the whole thing. I narrowed my eyes at the faerie. My height, with sandy blond hair, brilliant blue eyes, dimples, and—

“Lend, stop!” Reacting to my shout, he pulled his arm up short from the swing, lost his balance, and stumbled into the granite counter. He looked at me, confused. I shook my head, feeling the same way. I had no idea how it was possible, but there was no denying what I saw underneath the boy’s skin.

Nothing.

“He’s not a faerie,” I said. I looked back at the door, but it was already gone. I had watched the whole time; he was the only thing to come out. No faerie at all.

This was impossible.

“Are you sure?” Lend still held the pan at the ready, not taking his eyes off the boy. Or guy, really. He looked about our age, maybe a year or two younger.

The non-faerie smiled at me and winked, jumping up to sit on the counter. “Not quite the reception I was expecting, but I’ll give your boy this—he’s exciting.”

Raquel rushed into the room, then fixed a scowl on Blondie. “You’re late.”

He shrugged and helped himself to an apple from the fruit bowl next to him. “I got lost.” He took a big bite, crunching loudly before he blanched and spit into the sink. With a regretful sigh, he tossed the apple to Lend, who dropped the pan in his instinctive reaction to catch it.

The metal was still clanging when David came in behind Raquel. “Who is that?”

“Not a faerie, that’s for sure,” I answered. Blondie stood up on top of the counter, his head nearly brushing the ceiling. Then, with a jaunty salute, he flipped off, landing on his feet.

I kept staring, looking for something, anything under his skin. There was no glamour. His clothes were normal, too, a light blue printed T-shirt and nice jeans. “How did you do that?” I asked.

“Lots of practice. You should see me walk on my hands.”

“The door! How did you come through a faerie door by yourself?”

“Oh, that?” He ran a hand through his curls and looked back at where the door had been. “Easy. You walk up to a wall, and”—he leaned in close, all of us leaning with him, watching breathlessly—“open sesame!” He raised both arms dramatically in the air.

Nothing happened. “Huh.” He turned around and shrugged. “Well, guess I’m stuck.”

Raquel heaved a sigh I used to know well—it was her Evie, Evie, Evie sigh. But this time she followed it up with a tired, “Jack. Please stop playing around. We’re here for business.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, eyes wide and earnest. Raquel turned around to go back into the living room and Jack tugged lightly on the end of my ponytail, then sauntered out after her.

Who on earth was this person?

Lend took my hand. “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

I shook my head. I had never seen anyone who could go through a faerie door or navigate the Paths unless they were accompanied by a faerie. You couldn’t even let go of your faerie’s hand on the Paths or you’d be lost forever in the infinite darkness. I still had nightmares about being there alone.

David, Lend, and I walked cautiously into the other room, tensed for an attack. But Jack was sitting, casual as can be, on the back of the couch.

“Jack is who I was trying to tell you about, Evie.” Raquel smiled smugly at us. “Thanks to him, we can transport you to and from sites with the same speed as a faerie. You’ll never have to work with the fey.”

“How?” I had seen it with my own eyes, but I still didn’t believe it. Then something struck me. “Take off your shirt!”

“I’m not that kind of guy!” He frowned thoughtfully. “On second thought, why not?” He pulled the shirt over his head, revealing a lean torso that under other circumstances might have elicited admiration, but today was only more confusing. Once again there was absolutely nothing shimmering underneath it. So much for my theory that he was hiding something paranormal under his clothes.

I blushed angrily and looked at Raquel. “What is he? I don’t see anything!”

“He’s not ‘anything.’ Just a talented boy.”

“Then how did he make a door? How did he get through the Paths?”

“Wait, so am I allowed to put my shirt back on? Or did you want me to remove my pants, too?”

Lend and I joined forces in a dark glare. “Only if you want me to vomit,” I snapped.

Raquel’s communicator let off a small beep and she pulled it out, scanning the message. “Jack, we’ve got to go. Evie, think about my offer and we’ll talk again in a few days.” She looked up at me and smiled, this one touching her stern eyes and making her surprisingly lovely. “And it was nice to see you again.”

I threw my arms around her in a hug. “You, too.”

“David,” she said, her voice tighter as she turned to him and nodded. He nodded back, his eyes lingering on her a little longer than they needed to. “Lend.”

Lend shook his head, looking to the side in frustration.

Jack jumped off the couch, pulling his shirt back on. “Next time, if you’d like, I’ll just come without one,” he said, grinning at me. Taking Raquel’s hand, he walked up to the living room wall and put a hand on it. For the first time his face lost its cocky, playful cast, and he seemed to be straining in concentration. Far slower than it would take a faerie, the bright outline of a door formed on the wall, opening into black. Raquel and Jack walked through, and it closed behind them, leaving no evidence that it had ever existed in the first place.

Lend turned to me. “Well, that was interesting. And a waste of time. However, since I’m already here, what do you say we make up for your sucky afternoon?”

I wished I could make him understand that Raquel wasn’t just my former employer—or worse, my captor, as he seemed to view anyone who worked for IPCA. And Jack puzzled me to no end. But extra time with Lend quickly took my mind off those particular problems. “What are you thinking?”

“How about the Mall?”

“Wait—you mean the Mall, as in a bunch of museums in DC that we would wander around and I’d pretend like I understood modern art while really thinking, holy crap, a gremlin could have painted that and for all we know did, or the mall, as in picking out a new pair of shoes, eating food that’s terrible for us, and making up life stories for all the people that pass us?”

“I can see now that I must have meant the second.”

“What a smart boy.” I smiled and he pulled me close.



“I still say that guy was CIA. Spy all the way.”

I laughed, turning to face him as he parked in front of the diner. “Lend, he was like five foot nothing.”

“Exactly! You’d never suspect him. He’s the quiet, nondescript-looking guy, doesn’t seem like a threat at all until—BAM. Say good-bye to all your country’s secrets!”

“Okay, fine. He was a spy.”

“We should have gone to that movie, though. I think some explosions would have done you good, helped you relax after a hard day.”

“It’s not my fault I wasn’t allowed in without an adult and you forgot your license.”

Lend rolled his eyes. Silver shot through his nearly black hair and I laughed, shoving him.

“Knock it off. That’s creepy. Besides, if you pretend to be old to sneak me in, it’d be super gross if we started making out or something. No more gray.”

“Fine.” His hair rolled into corkscrew curls, turning a coppery red.

I laughed. “Quit it! Someone will see you.”

His eyes got serious and his hair shifted back to its normal appearance. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay? I can blow off classes tomorrow if you aren’t feeling well.”

“You really don’t have to.” Lend never missed class; I loved that he was willing to skip for me, and part of me was tempted by the offer … but I’d feel too guilty.

He sighed. “I do have a bio lab. You’re really okay? Nothing hurting from your fall? No weird side effects from the sylph?”

“I’m okay.”

“Alright. I’ll see you on Saturday.”

“Not Friday night?” I hated the whine that crept into my voice. I wouldn’t be that girlfriend, the whiny, clingy one who couldn’t have a life outside her boyfriend. Even though she totally justifiably wanted nothing more than to spend every minute of her life with him. Nope. Not that girl.

“I’ve got a group project in vertebrate anatomy, and the only time we could schedule it was then. I doubt we’ll get done early enough for me to get here at a decent hour, and if I stay in my dorm where there are no beautiful, fun distractions, I can finish up my homework and be absolutely yours all weekend. So first thing Saturday morning.”

He leaned in and kissed me. I wished he could melt away his glamour and kiss me as himself, talk to me as himself, but it wouldn’t do for someone to walk by and see me making out with a nearly invisible silhouette. The downside of dating a half-human, half-water elemental, I suppose.

Pulling back far sooner than I wanted him to (which, let’s face it, could have been several hours—I never got tired of kissing him), he got out and opened my door for me. The second I stepped out of the car, a strange chill breeze wrapped itself around me. All the hairs on my arms stood up in response. Shivering, I hugged Lend tightly, ignoring my bruises.

“Don’t do it, okay?” he whispered.

“Do what?”

“Work for IPCA again. Just—just don’t do it.”

I looked up into his face. “What if I can do some good?”

“You’re doing enough good being yourself. I worry about what might happen to you.”

I frowned, making a noncommittal noise, which he seemed to take as an agreement, judging by his smile. “I’ll see you Saturday.” He kissed me again and then waited for me to walk up the steps before getting back in his car and driving away.

Long-distance relationships? Suck. Majorly.

Sighing, I walked in and through the brightly lit diner. David bought On the Hoof a decade ago as a front for his paranormal-hiding operation. It provided jobs for paranormals in need and a good place for everyone to meet and keep track of one another. The decor was cheerful, a slightly tired fifties theme. Nona, the manager, waved at me, her gorgeous blond glamour hovering over oaky brown skin and greenish, mosslike hair. Allegedly she lived in the upstairs apartment with Arianna and me, but really she went back to the forest at night, setting down roots until the sun came up. Tree spirits—another species of paranormals I’d never met on bag-and-tag duty at IPCA. I was all about the violence and mayhem back then.

I nodded distractedly at several of the regulars, mostly vamps and werewolves, noting yet another new paranormal I’d never met, who made my heart hurt a little—she looked like a cross between Lish and a human, complete with gills on her neck and fins lining her bare legs beneath the glamour. Lately we’d been seeing more and more species neither David nor I had ever come across.

Come to think of it, a lot of new paranormals other than the werewolf or vamp variety had been visiting Nona, hanging around the diner or meeting her out back. And the sylph was certainly new. Maybe Nona would—

I shrieked, narrowly avoiding tripping over the kitchen gnome, a particularly grouchy specimen named Grnlllll. At least, I think that was her name. Or his name. Hard to tell with gnomes. Maybe that’s why she—he?—hated me. The glare seemed pretty feminine, though.

The desire to get away from Grnlllll’s baleful looks outweighed my desire to talk to Nona, and I slipped through the kitchen door. Upstairs at last, I collapsed onto the faded, floral couch.

“Evie?”

“Yup.”

Arianna skipped into the room, a glass in her hand. I deliberately did not look at what was in it. I never avoided looking at Arianna, though, even if her shriveled corpse body beneath her normal glamour (if you considered freakishly white skin and spiked red and black hair normal) creeped me out like all vamps did. It hurt her feelings, and despite our rough start last spring, I really did think of her as a friend. It wasn’t like she asked to be what she was, and she never drank human blood. Plus, she could be pretty fun when she wasn’t pissed off at me.

“Big afternoon?” Arianna settled onto the love seat and grabbed the remote, turning the television to our show.

“You could say that.” I rubbed my tender hip, wondering how black and blue I’d be in the morning.

“Okay. Loser does dishes for a week. I bet Landon and Cheyenne hook up but have a fight and break it off by the end of the episode.”

Trying to sound more enthusiastic than I felt, I countered. “No, Cheyenne rejects him because of some misunderstanding, and he starts shooting up again.”

“You’re on.” Arianna leaned forward, devouring the drama playing out on the screen in front of us.

I looked forlornly at the ceiling, trying to ignore the faint tingling sensation in my fingertips. I knew I should listen to Lend, stay away from IPCA, be grateful for my normal, boring life. I should live for the weekends, when I got to see him, and ignore the nagging pain always pulling at the back of my mind that it didn’t matter how much time I spent with him, how much I loved him, he could never really be mine because I was temporary and he was forever.

I was fine. This was enough. Besides, Lend didn’t want me to help IPCA.

But Lend wasn’t here, was he?













up,” a voice like water rippling over rocks whispered in my ear. I smiled and reached out my arms until I found Lend’s neck. I knew what I would see when I opened my eyes—almost nothing. My Lend in his true form. Squinting against the midmorning light, I looked into his water eyes.

“Good morning,” he said, and I melted.

“Morning.” I tried to pull him down next to me, but he laughed and ducked out from under my arms.

“Get up, lazy. Unless you want to sleep instead of hanging out with me?”

“I don’t know.” I closed my eyes again. “I am pretty tired.”

He answered by tossing a pillow onto my face. I laughed and rolled out of bed, brushing my teeth and changing while he chatted with Arianna out in the living room. My room was tiny—a glorified walk-in closet, really—but I’d painted the walls “obnoxiously pink,” to quote Arianna. I missed my posters from the Center, but I was slowly making the place mine. Sketches from Lend took up most of the free space, which made me feel like he was around even when he wasn’t.

“Of course I’m a necromancer,” Arianna explained to Lend. She was sitting in front of the sleek desktop, her favorite game running. “It’s ironic. In real life I’m one of the hordes of the living dead, and in my online life I control them.”

She spent nearly every daylight hour there, running quests with violet-skinned, scantily clad digital cohorts. A few weeks ago I was annoyed at never being able to check email and snarked that she should find something productive to do with her time. She made a point of showing me just how long a vampire can go without moving from a single spot.

It’s a long time.

But even worse, a couple of days into her sit-in, I overheard her sobbing. I haven’t mentioned anything since about how she uses her time. Having eternal life seems like a cool enough idea, but having it forced on you in that form? Not so much. Immortals like Nona try out being humanish every now and again for fun, but they were built to be forever. People weren’t, and Arianna’s corpse body under her glamour was a constant reminder to me of that.

“And that’s why I had to kill him—the Knife of O’orlenthaal should have been mine all along, the little skunk. Now we have to fight his guild, which is where my ability to raise armies of the dead comes in handy.”

“So what you’re saying is, you’ve been busy.” Lend grinned at her, and Arianna laughed. She treated him like a little brother. Lend, in turn, treated her like she was totally normal. I loved that about him; he took every paranormal at face value, and I could tell that it meant the world to ones like Arianna and most of the werewolves, who struggled with what they were. Lend had an amazing knack for balancing paranormal and normal and making everyone feel like they belonged.

“Totally busy. I also designed a few dresses—those reality show morons have nothing on me.”

“I’m telling you, start a website! You could make everything here and then sell online. You show me your dress sketches, I’ll make the site, and you and Evie can model.”

Arianna shrugged, squirming in her seat. She had been in fashion design school when she was changed. Lend was always trying to get her to pick it up again, but for some reason she never went through with it.

He looked up and smiled when he saw me in the hallway. “Ready?”

“Always. Sure you don’t want to hang out, Ari?” I asked. Please don’t want to hang out, I thought. We had plans for a movie with her this afternoon, but I wanted some time with just Lend for a few hours.

She waved a hand in the air, focused back on the computer. “Gotta finish this raid.”

A burst of affection for that stupid game welled up inside my chest. Hooray for role-playing and its effectiveness in de-chaperoning me!

Lend took my hand in his as we walked outside into the brisk October morning, a breeze rising to greet us as soon as we stepped onto the sidewalk. Summer had lingered this year, reluctant to give up her hold. Only in the last week or so had a chill crept into the nights. The leaves were hinting at change, gold and red weaving their way in. After living in the climate-controlled Center for so long, I was definitely a fan of this whole seasons thing.

I was also a fan of my boyfriend. The sunlight gave an extra sparkle to his water eyes, and his nearly black glamour hair was shiny and oh so adorable. The day couldn’t have been more perfect.

“I have a present for you,” Lend said. Did I say the day couldn’t have been more perfect? Because it totally just got better.

“What for?” I squealed, not trying to hide my excitement. Presents in the Center had been few and far between, and, with Raquel as the main giver, painfully practical. There was the travel-size first aid kit for my twelfth birthday, the infamous encyclopedia Christmas (honestly, who buys those anymore? It’s called the internet), and of course, the pinnacle of craptacular gift giving: socks. Every. Single. Year.

But the box Lend took out of his pocket definitely didn’t have socks in it. “Is it sparkly?” I bounced impatiently on my heels as he opened it.

He laughed and pulled out a delicate silver chain, threaded through an open heart-shaped pendant. Three pink stones lining one edge stood out in contrast to the dark metal of the heart. I pulled my hair off my neck and he clasped it there, the trace of his fingers against my skin raising goose bumps.

I fingered the cool metal. “It’s beautiful!”

“Oh good. I’ve never given jewelry before.”

“Well, you’ve set a ridiculously high standard for yourself. Should have started out with something tacky.” I put my arms around his neck and hugged him close, breathing in his cool scent.

“It’s not just pretty, though.”

“No?”

“Practical, too. The heart is made of iron.”

Warmth flooded through me, a spurt of affection I should have been used to by now but that still always managed to surprise me. Leave it to Lend to find a way to protect me with faerie-repelling iron. Of course, this meant that he was almost as practical as Raquel, but his practical was sparkly and pretty. I ran my fingers through his hair. “Perfect.”

“It is?”

“You are. But the necklace is, too.”

We kissed until an old lady walking her dog coughed loudly in our direction, reminding us that we were, in fact, on the sidewalk and not in our own little world. I smiled sheepishly at her, only then noticing that she was a glamoured paranormal. Her froggish face, mottled green, didn’t really go with her floral housedress and slippers. This town? Weird.

She wouldn’t quit staring; I couldn’t figure out what she was, and suddenly I was nervous. I glanced at the sky, to check for errant clouds, but didn’t see anything. Tugging Lend’s hand so we’d keep walking, I shook off my unease. “What else is on the agenda for this morning?” I asked.

“Doesn’t the necklace get me off the hook for planning things?”

“Fine. But it only buys you today. You still have to figure out something for us to do tomorrow. And as for right now, I think food is in order. Lots. I forgot breakfast.”

“Okay, we can—” Lend’s phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket, frowning at the number. “One sec.” He answered it and I plotted what to do with the rest of the hours in the weekend. The movies this afternoon with Arianna, after which I had a secret plot to drag her out for karaoke. She denied it, but I totally caught her belting Duran Duran in the shower. If that didn’t work out, I was thinking bowling. I’d never gone and was guaranteed to be horrible, but it’d be fun with Lend. Maybe we could even double with Carlee and whatever boy she was currently dating.

My stomach sank as I tuned into the conversation.

“All of it?” Lend asked, his voice tight. “Can you— No, calm down, it’s okay, it’s not your fault. I’m glad you didn’t get hurt. I can come back up. Are you sure everyone’s stuff is gone?” He closed his eyes, holding back a sigh. “Okay, give me an hour or two to get there.” He hung up and stared at the phone as though he could erase the conversation.

And, just like that, my weekend evaporated. “What?”

“Natalie, a girl in my group, was in charge of compiling everything. Some guy stole her bag at the Metro station—took her laptop, all the notes, everything. We’re screwed. I’ve got to go and help them put it all back together. It’s three weeks’ worth of work.” His jaw was clenched with stress.

For the briefest moment I was tempted to tell him that getting a double degree in biology and zoology didn’t matter. At all. In the grand scheme of his immortal life, this one stupid college group project? Not even a drop in the bucket. But … if he knew he was more elemental than human, would he quit school? Quit normal life?

Quit me?

Yeah, so not telling him. Not right then, anyway. I mean, if he had eternity, what difference did it make if I told him tomorrow or ten years from now? He wasn’t getting any less immortal. Of course, maybe if I told him, I could be around him without feeling guilty. But I’d waited this long, and I didn’t want to make today even worse.

“Evie?”

“What?”

“I’m sorry. I know this sucks.”

“Oh, yeah. I mean, it sucks, but you gotta do what you gotta do, right?” I gave him my best aren’t I a supportive girlfriend? smile.

We hurried back to the diner, the happy spring in my step dead. So the trees were changing color. Big bleeping deal. Lend made a few calls, but in spite of his best efforts it was clear he needed to be there to help fix it. He left me with a lingering, regretful kiss and nothing to do for the next two days except homework.

“Back already?” Arianna asked when I walked in, headphones on and voice way too loud.

“He had to go back to school.”

“Lame.” She actually looked up now and frowned, seeing my face. “That kinda makes your weekend suck, doesn’t it. Wanna go … I don’t know, hang out in some dark alley with me until the sun goes down?”

I forced a laugh. “No worries. You keep exacting virtual revenge. We’re still on for the movie this afternoon.”

“Fine, but I’m not holding your hand.”

“Thank heavens for that.”

She put her headphones back on. I trudged to my room and flopped onto my bed.

And screamed as my door slammed shut. A figure stepped out from behind it. “Rather pink in here, isn’t it?”













heart stopped. For one horrible moment I thought Reth was in my room. And then I picked up the nearest object—a shoe—and threw it straight at Jack’s head.

“What are you doing in here, you little weasel?”

He picked up my shoe from where it had clattered to the floor after hitting the door behind him. “How do you walk in these heels?” He sat and removed his own shoe, trying to jam his foot into my purple sling-back.

I stalked over and yanked it away. “What are you, five? Answer my question.”

He looked up at me, impossibly big blue eyes wide with innocence. “I thought we were friends, after you made me strip and all.”

“I’m calling Raquel.”

“Fine, fine. I was just doing some reconnaissance.”

“Reconnaissance?”

“Oh, sorry, that’s a big word, isn’t it? It means I was scoping the scene, getting the—”

“I know what it means! What, is IPCA investigating me now? Screw them, they can forget about any help from—”

“Do you ever let anyone else finish a sentence?” He smiled at my glare, flashing his dimples. “That’s more like it. You’re much prettier when you aren’t talking. True of most people, I’ve found. Anyhow, I needed to see the address Raquel gave me so that I could find it again.”

“Why?”

“As you so graciously pointed out the other day, I’m not a faerie. I need to see a place before I can open a door there. Or at least open a precise door there. Otherwise it’s anyone’s guess how close I’ll get.”

I sat down on the edge of my bed. As long as the weirdo was already here, I might as well get some answers. It had been nagging at me: how he could do what he did? It shouldn’t be possible. “How did you learn? To use the Paths, I mean.”

His mouth twisted into an impish grin. “Don’t let my good looks fool you. I’m terribly clever.”

I rolled my eyes. “Clearly. But you still shouldn’t be able to use the Paths.”

He shrugged, standing. “Watch and wait long enough, want something bad enough, and you can figure out a way to make it happen. I make a lot of things happen.” Smiling enigmatically, he reached out a hand to my wall. “I’ll pick you up later?”

“I haven’t agreed to anything.” I narrowed my eyes.

“Of course,” he said, distracted as he focused on the white lines snaking out to make a door. “So, I’ll pick you up later, then.”

“No! Don’t you listen to anything? Tell Raquel I’m not going to—”

Before I could finish my sentence he walked through the faerie door, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, “Girls are annoying.”

The wall formed again behind him, becoming the innocent recipient of my withering glare. Jack might look my age, but he was like a little kid on a sugar high—in need of a good spanking.

Good heavens, that sounded creepy. I lay back on my bed and closed my eyes. What a mess. I focused on letting the stress melt out of my body, letting myself drift into a restful, weightless state. It felt like if I could find peace, think things through, everything would be okay with my life, with Lend and me. I could figure out how to tell him the truth just right so that he wouldn’t even think of giving up on his mortal lifestyle. I’d come up with some way for us to work, some way for me to have all the important people in my life in my life, for as long as I wanted them to be.

A loud rapping on the door jarred me, shattering whatever epiphany I was undoubtedly about to reach.

“EVELYN, GET YOUR LAZY, SCRAWNY, PALE BUTT OUT OF BED RIGHT NOW.”

I opened my eyes with a roll, then walked out to the hall, feeling justifiably surly. “You have volume control on that mouth?”

Arianna shrugged. “You sleep like the dead. Nona needs help downstairs.”

“Great. Exactly how I wanted to spend my weekend. Lend free and grease filled.”

“Funny, I’d choose sleeping in and going shopping, but to each her own. Get down there.”

“What about our movie?” I whined, hoping that Arianna would help get me out of work.

“Creature of the night and all that jazz. I’m good with a late show.”

“Fine.” I stomped down the stairs, sulkily pulling my apron down off its hook on the wall and fastening it. It was great having an income now that I didn’t have an IPCA spending account (and, trust me, I missed that account something fierce), but working in a diner was a little less interesting than going on bag-and-tag missions.

And by a little I mean a lot. Keeping with the charming diner cow theme, we had to wear skirts—poodle-style skirts—in cow print. Cow print. There are many animal prints that are fabulous in any style. Cow is not one of them. It’s insulting, really. Which was why I stubbornly kept my own skinny jeans on. I wasn’t scheduled, I wasn’t going to dress bovine.

Just my luck, Grnlllll (or was it four l’s? Or a double r, triple l? If you think Welsh is weird, try reading Gnomish) was in the kitchen. Gnomes are earth elementals and usually live under the ground, mining and digging. They even look kinda like moles, with furry heads of hair; small, squinty eyes; and noses more snoutish than anything else. They’re happiest burrowing around in the dark and damp. What on earth Grnlllll was doing in this bright kitchen I had yet to figure out, but whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t making her happy.

And her French fries? Not good.

Grnlllll growled something at me that I didn’t bother trying to interpret, and I went out to take orders. Afternoon business was pretty typical—mostly the local paranormals, which meant an abundance of steaks so rare I could hardly stomach looking at them and shakes, the ingredients of which I didn’t even want to think about.

Things picked up as evening began curling against the windows with its cold insistence. My feet and back ached, and if I had to smile one more time and pretend like I didn’t notice the vamp in the corner licking his lips whenever I walked by, I was pretty sure I would scream. It was bad enough that half of the local vamps tried to use their mind-control powers to convince me I didn’t want a tip.

I always want a tip, you undead creeps.

Still, it was kind of funny watching vampires get more and more frustrated when they couldn’t persuade me. David and Arianna had kept my glamour-piercing abilities secret, which I appreciated. It made things less complicated.

I ripped off the bill and slapped it down on Lip-licker’s table. “Fifteen percent, like always.”

He scowled, then his face smoothed into a stunning smile. Stunning if you couldn’t see through his glamour to notice that every single tooth was grinning out at me through his rotting cheeks. He reached out to try and take my hand, but I whipped it away.

“Seriously. Fifteen percent or I’m slipping garlic powder into your next Bloody Mary.”

He fixed me with a scowl that could launch a thousand horror novels. I smiled. Muttering murderous things under his breath, he pulled out his wallet and handed over the money.

“Come back soon,” I chirped, beaming as I went back to the cash register. I might not have Tasey on me regularly, but I could still best vamps.

Nona swished by. Even the way she walked looked like a tree swaying in the wind. Local guys, non-paranormals, came by the diner sometimes to watch her. If they could see her hollowed-out tree trunk of a back, complete with tail, they’d probably feel different.

Then again, you never know with guys. And she was a pretty hot tree.

She stopped in front of me, smiling. “Thank you for working tonight.”

“Sure. Oh, hey,” I said, remembering my earlier question. “I’ve been seeing more and more paranormals that I don’t recognize. Does David know about them?” I met with him and Arianna pretty regularly to go over paperwork and details for their little operation, but I didn’t know everything.

Nona waved a hand gracefully through the air. “There is no danger. Would you mind helping Grnlllll in the kitchen? She cannot get the trash out on her own.”

My stomach sank. Trash duty. Great. The gnome was shorter than the trash bags, but of course we couldn’t get smaller bags, oh no, so I got to be on call any time the filth was full. And taking out the trash meant the Dumpster, and I had to actually touch it to get it open, and it was sticky.

STICKY.

I’m really not a lazy person, but for the last eight years of my life all I had to do was pick up my things. I couldn’t exactly take the Center’s trash out to the curb, considering it was a sealed underground complex. Diner trash was enough to make me nostalgic for those sterile white halls. Better sterile than sticky and smelly.

Back in the kitchen Grnlllll pointed in the direction of the trash—which she had let overflow and spill onto the floor. Trying to ignore the gag building at the back of my throat, I heaved the bag out of the can. It flopped into my leg, leaving a vile, dark smear of disgusting on my jeans. Brilliant.

Grnlllll’s voice graveled something at me as she pointed angrily to the streak I was creating as I dragged the bag along the floor, but at this point I didn’t care. I should have had this whole weekend off. I should have been snuggled up next to Lend right now, making fun of a bad movie with him and Arianna. I didn’t ask for this.

Besides, she may have been too short for the Dumpster, but she wasn’t too short to mop.

I kicked open the metal door leading to the dark back alley, gulping at the night air as the stench of rotten food assailed my nostrils. I could feel it lodging in my sinuses, and I wondered if I would ever be able to smell anything else.

The single light above the door flickered. I’d probably have to replace the bulb, too. Stupid gnome. Taking a deep breath, I walked to the Dumpster between our brick wall and the next building, flipped open the lid, and threw in the bag—and a big glop of something fell straight out onto my shoe.

“Bleep!” I screamed to the wall in front of me. “Bleep, bleep, bleep!” I kicked the Dumpster, then grabbed at my foot. Now I was dirty, my toes hurt, and I felt like an idiot. I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. It was okay. This was okay. I would go upstairs, take a shower, and go to bed. For the rest of the weekend.

The light flickered off, then came back on. Too bright. Way too bright. I opened my eyes to see the lines of another faerie door forming on the wall next to the Dumpster.

“Go away,” I snapped. “I’m not in the mood.” If Raquel thought sending idiot Jack repeatedly would help her cause, she was wrong.

A figure, taller than Jack and more beautiful by far than anyone else I knew, stepped out of the door.

“Now really,” he said, his voice liquid gold, “that’s hardly the welcome I expected, my love.”













In front of me. In the alley behind the diner. I couldn’t sort out whether the fluttering in my stomach was fear or excitement. How had I forgotten what a beautiful, beautiful thing he was? Looking at him now, glowing faintly with warmth in the cold dark, all the feelings for him I’d ever been overwhelmed with flooded back in.

Including all the terror and pain he’d caused, so yeah, I wasn’t going to jump him or anything. But still, he was pretty to look at. And the last thing I wanted to see right now. Or ever, really. I held up a hand, palm out. “I’m not going anywhere with you!”

Reth raised one eyebrow. “There’s no need for crass threats. I don’t wish to take you anywhere. Except perhaps out of this alley, in an effort to escape some of the stench.” He looked pointedly at my stained apron.

“Oh.” I lowered my hand, deflated and confused, and put my nose surreptitiously to my shoulder. Did I really smell? And since when did Reth not want me? He always wanted me. But I didn’t want him to want me—so why was I disappointed? Leave it to him to take me from angry to confused in five seconds flat.

“Walk with me? I would offer my elbow like a gentleman, but your hand looks rather sticky.”

I scowled. “Why on earth would I walk anywhere with you?”

He held out one perfect, slender hand toward the kitchen door of the diner. “My apologies; by all means, go back in. No doubt more filth awaits.”

I looked at the door, at war with myself. On the one hand, I hated doing anything Reth wanted me to. On the other hand, there was a mop with my name on it inside….

“Fine, but if you try anything—”

“Really, Evelyn, how I’ve missed your charming company.”

Keeping a wary eye on the faerie, I followed him through the alley. We made our way down the lamp-lined street, his step so light it bordered on dancing. I felt like a graceless clod next to him. Then there was the aspect of his ethereal, near-angelic beauty compared to my … well, for the sake of my self-esteem, it was probably best not to compare.

I hugged myself, shrugging inward against the cold, tickling breeze as my breath fanned out in front of me. I had no doubt I’d regret going with him, but part of me was glad for these strange new happenings. They reminded me I wasn’t just a girl who was bad at soccer. Even though I no longer knew his true name and thus couldn’t control him, for once I felt almost equal to Reth. The knowledge that I could hurt him if I needed to—if I wanted to—gave me a heady feeling of power.

It probably wasn’t healthy.

Still, if he did something stupid and forced me to drain him, well, I wouldn’t cry about it. “So, is there any point to this walk? Because I’m kind of cold.”

Reth laughed, that silver, ringing laugh, and unconsciously I leaned in closer to him. Shaking my head, I took a firm step toward the street. We were nearing the border of thick trees that pushed in along the small town’s edges. I looked over at him, noticing for the first time that he had his glamour on. Not that it was much less gorgeous than his real face, but it surprised me. When he was IPCA and required to wear a glamour he almost never did; I couldn’t figure out why he would care now that he was free. (Which was mostly my fault, but, really, a girl can’t be expected to outsmart a faerie when running from her own death, now, can she?)

“Still cold, my love? I can take care of that.”

“Yeah, I remember. I think I’ll pass.” I rubbed my wrist, where I could see the faint pink print of his hand, forever burned there. I’d had enough of his warmth to last a lifetime.

Reth stopped and I did, too, reluctantly facing him. Latent rage welled up. I wanted to scream at him, attack him. It was his fault that Lish was dead—he was the one who let Viv into the Center. But if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t ever have gotten out of IPCA. And I definitely wouldn’t have been able to rescue Lend. For all I knew, he would still be in a cell in the Center and Vivian would still be slowly but surely killing every paranormal around. It made me sick to think about.

Nothing was ever, ever simple with Reth.

“Why are you here?” I asked, all my pent-up anger draining away to exhaustion.

He reached out a finger, nearly touching my face but instead stroking the air in front of it. “Would you believe I merely wanted to see you?”

“Nope.”

He smiled. “No, I suppose not. Initially I thought to take you. I could, you know. I’ve always been so gentle with you.”

“Gentle?” I glared incredulously at him.

“Yes, I can’t fathom it, either. Other methods would have been so much simpler. But for whatever reason I find myself charmed by you and concerned with your best interests.”

“You just can’t help topping your own levels of crazy, can you? My best interests? You kidnapped me! You burned me! You tried to force me to become something I never wanted to be!”

“Evelyn, dear child, simply because you cannot understand what is in your best interests doesn’t mean that I do not. And if what is best for you also hurts you, well, that doesn’t change the necessity of becoming what you should be.”

“You’re—I—AUGH! You have no idea how insane you are. If you really cared about me, you wouldn’t hurt me. But you don’t care, because you can’t! You can’t care about anything except yourself.”

His eyes flashed, the gold darkening. “I care for you more than anyone in this sad, spinning world does. I couldn’t have poured my own soul into you if that weren’t true.”

I was glad I’d let out whatever soul Reth had given me along with all the others. Knowing that I’d had part of his soul in me made me feel, well, icky. I raised my chin defiantly. “Lend loves me. He’d never hurt me.”

“And no doubt he’d do anything for you.”

“Yes!”

“Do whatever it took to protect you.”

“Yes!”

“And if the only way to protect you and save your life was to hurt you?”

I snapped my lips shut against the yes that was about to come out. Could I hit Reth? Could I please, please just hit him?

He smiled, knowing he had me there. “Lend can’t love you because he doesn’t truly know you. No matter how much you want this life, it isn’t yours. It never has been. This isn’t your home, Evelyn.”

Angry tears pricked my eyes. “Go away.”

“Come with me.”

“Never! And you can’t make me. If you really could have taken me, you would have by now.”

He clicked his tongue impatiently. “My previous methods met with … disapproval from my queen. Sometimes I wonder if I chose quite right when aligning myself with a court.”

“What do you mean? You’re either Seelie or Unseelie.” I might not know as much about faeries as I should, but I did know they were in one of the two courts: Seelie, meaning good—or rather, goodish, since no faeries were really good—or Unseelie, meaning definitely, definitely bad.

His smile shifted, and I saw something feral and primal beneath his refined features. “No one is either good or bad, my love. We all have bits of both; we simply choose to align ourselves with whichever side has a stronger pull. My choice to get involved was motivated by a very sad, empty girl with eyes like streams of melting snow.”

So now Reth was saying he only went with the good court because of me? Or was he saying something else entirely? Only he could do this to me—make me feel this awful and confused. When I was with Reth, everything lonely and heartbroken in me seemed to well to the surface, begging to let him take it away. “I hate you,” I whispered, my voice cracking.

He locked his eyes on mine, drawing me closer, his voice slipping around me like a golden net. “Nonsense. My queen’s forbidden me to force you to come with me again, but I can’t understand why I should need to. It doesn’t have to be this way. It can be easy, safe, warm. And when you come home, none of this will matter—it will slip away, all the dark and cold, less than a dream. You’ll never have to worry or wonder again. Just choose it, Evelyn. Quit clinging to this world of loss and come with me. I can fill all the emptiness that you are. Become what you should be, and help us get back to where we belong. Leave with me.”

I sighed, breathing in deeply, my cheek against his chest. The heartbeat there was strange, too slow, but he was warm, and his arms around me were wonderful, and how did I get here again? I didn’t want his arms around me. Did I? There was someone … something … some reason. Did it matter?

Reth jerked away, his perfect nose wrinkled. “Oh, that necklace is monstrous. Where did you get such an abominable thing?” I blinked, dazed, and my fingers drifted up to my pendant. When I touched the cold iron, reality snapped back into place.

“Are you kidding me? You come here and use your stupid faerie mojo and then you back away from me? Is there anything in your golden head that makes sense? What, you thought, hey, Evie’s probably having a bad night, why don’t I go mess with her? While you’re at it, there are probably some puppies you could kick!”

I whipped around, stalking back to the diner. I should have known—had known—this was a bad idea. Idiot Evie.

Turning a corner, I stopped short at the sight of Reth, leaning casually against a lamppost, surrounded by a puddle of light and looking like an ad for an impossibly perfect reality.

“You need to come with me. Things have been set in motion, and I cannot control all the variables. I can’t hide you forever. I can, however, keep you safe and make you happy. Give me your hand.” He held his out; I could almost see waves of heat radiating from it.

I frowned, thinking of the sylph. Clearly something had found out where I was. Come to think of it, who was to say he didn’t set the sylph on me himself to trick me into thinking I was in danger? It would be just like him. The whole thing reeked of faerie mischief.

“Screw you. Me and my magic hands will be fine, thank you very much. I’m staying right where I am.”

He smiled, straightening to stand in front of me. “Very well. Clearly this life you so desperately craved is everything you hoped it would be. It warms me through to see you this fulfilled and”—he leaned in, whispering right in my ear—“happy.”

I closed my eyes, clenching my jaw. If he thought he could swoop in here and start messing with my life again, he was wrong. “Look, just because—”

I opened my eyes to find myself utterly alone. The lamplight that seemed to glow before was now harsh, creating shadows and sharp lines but illuminating nothing. The darkness of the night pressed in on me from all directions, and my teeth started to chatter.

“What am I doing here?” I whispered. And then quickly corrected: “Out here. I meant out here.”

I walked back to the diner. Ignoring Grnlllll, I went straight upstairs, stripping off my filthy clothes and standing in the shower until the hot water ran out. Miserable and unaccountably sad, I wanted to call Lend. I never felt empty around him. But then I’d have to tell him about tonight, and he’d be worried that Reth showed up again, and I didn’t want him to stress out about it. Instead I told Arianna I felt sick, climbed into bed, and willed myself to sleep.

Things would feel better in the morning. They had to.

My brain and body finally disconnected and I drifted off to blessed sleep.

“Hey, stupid,” Vivian said.

“Oh, Viv.” I broke into tears. “I’m so glad you’re here.”













wrong?” Vivian asked. We sat on a hill overlooking the ocean, stars in the black night sky reflected on the water. She put her arm around me awkwardly and I leaned my head into her shoulder.

When she first started showing up in my dreams again after last April, it scared the crap out of me. She was so lonely, though, and I couldn’t help but talk to her. I still hadn’t forgiven her for killing Lish—I don’t think I ever will—but it was a topic we both avoided so that we could get to know each other. I understood now a little better where she came from, and I’d always sympathized with how deeply alone she’d been. Plus, being raised by faeries, she was bound to make bad choices. We treaded lightly around the hard topics, and somewhere along the way it felt like we really had become the sisters she always wanted us to be.

Except she never took my stuff, which was nice.

I wiped away tears. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m sad, and I don’t know why, and I shouldn’t be—and here I am, complaining to you when you aren’t even—” I stopped, unable to finish. Vivian wasn’t going to wake up, ever again. When I took the souls from her, she hadn’t had enough of her own soul to live a normal life. It was my fault.

“Hey, shush, don’t you worry about me. I’m fine.”

“You haven’t visited in a while.”

“Haven’t I?” She looked thoughtfully out over the water. “I’m here, or I’m nowhere, or I’m somewhere else entirely. It gives me a lot of time to think. But I never seem to get anywhere with it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know. Me, too. I try to make my life different in my mind, be the one who was strong enough to let go.”

“You were, though.” I nudged her with my elbow. “You didn’t take my soul.”

“That’s something, but it doesn’t really make up for the ones I did take, does it?”

No. No, it didn’t.

“Sometimes … sometimes I wish you had sent me with them.” She took my hand in hers, tracing the outline of the gate in the stars I had sent the souls through. Neither of us really understood what happened that night. We might both be Empty Ones, capable of opening gates between worlds, but that didn’t mean we had any idea how it worked. “I wonder what would have happened if the faeries hadn’t sent me after you, if they’d realized I had enough energy to open a gate myself. Lucky for us that my faeries were idiots, but I can’t help imagining it. I think I’d like to see what’s out there.”

I let out a heavy sigh. “Someday we both will.”

She laughed again. “Hey, stupid, it’s not a bad thing.”

“It’s another way of losing people,” I whispered. “I feel like I’m doomed to lose everyone, always. I can’t seem to keep the people I love.”

She squeezed my hand. “I know. On the bright side, I’m not going anywhere.” Her voice had that edge of irony I remembered so well; funny that what used to scare me about her was now comforting, familiar. Being together was like a little touch of home—a foreign concept for both of us. She looked down at my hand; I thought I saw a tiny flash of light, along with tingling. “What was that?”

I had forgotten about the stupid sylph. This was hardly the place to bring it up. Another thing to worry about. “I didn’t see anything,” I said.

“If you’re going to lie you really ought to get better at it.” She lay back on the grass to stare at the sky. “So, you’re sad. What’s the problem?”

Sighing heavily, I lay back, too. “I don’t know. I’ve finally got the life I wanted for so long. And it’s great, really, and Lend—”

“I like hearing about him.”

“I like talking about him. And he’s wonderful. But I haven’t … I still haven’t told him.”

“Yeah, I figured. You’re not really good with the honesty thing.”

“You’re one to talk!”

“Hey, I was always honest about what I was doing.” She flashed a wicked grin, reminding me that she wasn’t as innocent as I liked to pretend. “But that’s not what this new crying fit is about, because you’ve known about Lend’s immortal soul for a while now.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “Reth visited tonight.”

“Really? Wish he’d visit me….”

“Vivian!”

“What? A girl gets lonely in a coma, and faerie or not, he’s pretty.” I wasn’t sure if she wanted him to mess around with or to suck dry—and equally unsure which option creeped me out more. “Go on, though.”

“I don’t know. He implied that I’m not really happy with the life I chose.” I hated how he always seemed to see straight through me. If he didn’t have to deal with squirmy, unpredictable mortal emotions, why did he have to be so good at reading them?

“Well, are you happy?”

“Yes! I am! Of course I am. It’s what I always wanted.”

“But …”

“Nothing. It’s stupid.”

“Well, duh. You, my darling sister, are stupid about a lot of things.”

I glared at her. “Gosh, tender much?”

She shrugged. “Like I said, I’m honest. Go on. It’s what you always wanted, and?”

“And it’s not, you know? Lend’s gone so much, and even when he’s here I can’t help but worry that this isn’t the life he’ll choose when he finds out that he’s like his mom. And then Raquel showed up this week, which reminded me of how things used to be. They weren’t great, but I kind of miss …” I thought about what my life had been like at IPCA, how much I had dreamed of being normal, of this life I had now. What was it that I missed? It wasn’t the missions, the restrictions, the lifestyle.

It was mattering.

“I miss being special. With IPCA, I was special. They needed me. And in the real world, I’m … not.” Tears started streaming again and I wiped them away, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. How lame am I, whining my whole life about being different, and then hating being the same as everyone else.”

Viv pushed up onto her elbows, frowning at me. “But you’re not. You’ve never been the same. So I don’t get it—you haven’t changed. What’s the problem here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Get over it then. Do something.”

“What?”

She waved a hand dismissively. “Whatever you freaking want to. That’s the glory of being you, Evie. You’ve got a choice. I wouldn’t recommend going on a massive paranormal killing spree, though. It didn’t turn out so hot for me.”

I let out a strangled laugh. “You’re terrible.”

“Tell me about it.”

We were quiet then, both lost in our problems. Finally, Vivian took my hand in her even colder one again, pulling me up to sit next to her. “Well, enough with this pity party. If I’ve been gone for a while, there are important things we need to talk about.”

“What’s that?”

“Umm, hello? You need to catch me up on Easton Heights. I didn’t listen to a rundown of the first three seasons for you to leave me hanging now.”

I laughed. “Important, huh? Fine.” And I shared what little I could of the outside world, here in my dark dream-world where Vivian and I met.

Sometimes it felt more real than anything else.



When I woke up in the morning my hand was still curled like I was holding Vivian’s. I sighed. Viv nights always left me with the weirdest combination of well-being and regret. And then, of course, guilt over being friends with the girl who murdered my Lish, but Lish would understand. I hoped.

The faeries who raised Vivian never let her think she had any choices. She always felt like her life had been determined for her. I think she realized it wasn’t, now that it was too late. It made me wonder if I had connected with her sooner, if I could have stopped it all.

It was enough to make a person crazy, thinking about it.

In the end Vivian had made her choices and paid for them. Thanks to the faeries, she was out of options. But I wasn’t. I would make this life what I wanted it to be. Screw Reth—I’d be happy. I was going to have my cake and eat it, too.

Or rather, be normal and have my paranormal, too. I was special; why pretend otherwise? I needed to email Raquel. I was about to make her day.













up.” I laughed, closing my locker.

“No, really,” Lend continued. “Dead serious. Dude’s a leprechaun.”

“Your technical writing professor is not a leprechaun.”

“How do you know? This is why you need to ditch next week and come to class with me. You can confirm. Right now all I know is that he has red hair, red skin, is about four feet tall, and wears nothing but green.”

I rolled my eyes, knowing he couldn’t see it through my shiny, pink cell phone. “And why would a leprechaun have a PhD?”

“I don’t know. Hanging out at the bottom of rainbows got boring, he was tired of clovers, pots of gold lost their sparkle for him—take your pick. But I’m right. In fact, did I tell you that my lab assistant may or may not be a dryad?”

“Wait—aren’t they notoriously lusty?”

There was a pause at the other end of the line.

“Oh, you are not going to that lab again.”

Lend laughed and I closed my eyes, picturing how he would look in front of me. “Trust me, there’s only one paranormal I’d like to be notoriously lusty for me.”

I sighed. “Okay, but I don’t think I can find a hag on such short notice.”

He laughed again, almost covering the sound of the bell. I looked around, panicked. A stray paper drifted across the now forsaken hallways.

“Crap, I’m gonna be late! I’ll talk to you later, okay?” Flipping my phone shut, I ran for the locker room. At least it was gym and there was a little wiggle room.

Or so I thought. Miss Lynn, that hideous creature, was waiting outside the door, marking off girls as they came in. She looked up and smiled, pleased to have caught me in an obvious infraction. “That’s half your participation points for the day, Green. Another tardy and I believe you’ll qualify for in-school suspension.”

Where was Tasey when I needed her? It took all my willpower to suppress an eye roll as I skulked into the locker room. The faint aroma of sweat and mildew greeted me, and I passed girls in various states of undress to get to my locker. I wasn’t nearly as fond of this one.

Carlee pulled on her tennis shoes, already good to go. Honestly, how her boobs could be so perky in a sports bra I’d never understand. Or stop envying.

She shook her head. “You should be more careful. Miss Lynn really doesn’t like you.”

I sighed, pulling out my gym clothes. What school chooses yellow and brown for their colors? Gross. Just, gross. “The feeling’s mutual.”

“So how was your weekend?”

“Sucktastic. Lend had to go back to school.”

“Lame. I’m sorry.”

“How was yours?”

Her face lit up. “Great! So John and I got back together, right? And at first I was all like, awesome! But then Friday night he was supposed to call, and he totally didn’t, so then I was like—” My eyes glazed over as I tried to pay attention. I liked Carlee, and appreciated having a friend that wasn’t undead, but sometimes the effort it took to keep up girl relationships felt like too much.

“—and then he was like, ‘If you don’t want to’—”

A scream erupted from another aisle. I didn’t know whether to be grateful for the interruption or scared of what could be happening. Carlee and I both darted around the corner and found girls covering themselves and shrieking. “What is it?” I shouted, vowing to never again leave Tasey at home.

One of the girls pointed to the next row and I crept toward it, every muscle tense and my back to the wall. The aisle opened in front of me and I shouted, ready to spring at—

Jack.

Stupid, stupid Jack, standing up on one of the wooden benches that lined the middle of the aisle, hands on hips as he surveyed the empty row like some sort of bizarre conqueror.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, horrified.

He looked down at me. “Oh, there you are. I’m supposed to give you something.”

“And you couldn’t have given it to me somewhere else?” I looked around, exasperated and anxious. Girls were starting to trickle over, past their first shock and now curious.

“What’s wrong with here? Here seems plenty nice to me.” He patted his pockets, finally muttering, “Aha!” before pulling out a familiar white phone-like device. An IPCA communicator. I’d forgotten how boring they were compared to my supercute cell. He smiled and let it slip through his fingers. I gasped and lunged forward, but he bounced it up off his foot and snatched it out of the air. Grinning, he handed it to me with a flourish.

“Raquel wants you to call so she’ll know a good time to talk again, since she doesn’t want to disrupt your life.”

“And what the bleep do you think you’re doing right now?”

A throat cleared next to me and I noticed Carlee standing there. Her shoulders were thrown back and she was giving Jack a weird look. No, not a weird look … a hey, baby, fancy meeting you here look. “Who’s your friend?” she asked, a giggle following her question.





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