Free. Never has a word been more beautiful.
7
After the party, I can’t get Valerian out of my mind. I spend every stupid waking minute remembering Inara’s kiss. The way she touched him. The way he flinched.
I’ve never been violent, but the molten fury that follows makes me feel like I could rip Inara and the rest of the Six apart with my bare hands.
When I’m not planning mass murder, I’m fantasizing what I’ll say the next time I see Valerian.
I miss you.
I love you.
Let’s run away and have ten million babies and damn everyone else to the depths of the Fae Hells.
What runs through my mind after our imagined conversations would convince Aunt Vi I’m going to the Baptist hell, which is an entirely worse fate.
And I don’t care. At this point, nothing could feel worse than being ripped away from Valerian. My mating bond is like an open wound festering inside me. Growing more painful every second away from him.
Shimmer save me, this is torture.
Seeing him only made my agony worse. I’m agitated, constantly pacing the balcony despite the sweltering heat, never able to sit still. Even in sleep I thrash and cry, and last night, I nearly burned down my poor bed.
If not for Ruby, the entire apartment would have been ashes.
It doesn’t matter that the last week before school is filled with packing, double-checking forms, and learning what’s expected of me as an Evermore—which is a lot. I’ve spent the last five nights studying the material I should have learned first and second year. I’ve read every study guide Eclipsa made me this summer. I’ve reread every textbook my tutor provided.
I’m supposed to be freaking out because the academy is days away, and I am not ready.
But my heart, mind, and soul belong to the torment that is Valerian Sylverfrost.
At least by the Friday before school starts, my nerves manage to eclipse my heartache. All Evermore arrive early to campus to settle in before the shadows arrive. The entire staff of my mother’s household wakes up early to help me prepare. When I’m suitably dressed in a timeless emerald green frock, I dutifully follow my mother into a black chauffeured town car.
She’s quiet on the way. No words of motherly advice or affection.
Leaning back against the immaculate leather seat, I check my phone for a return call from Zinnia. Nothing.
The shadow of the Larkspur and Associates high-rise falls over the tinted windows all too soon.
The recently installed portal in the top floor of my mother’s office smells of lilies and copper. My mother is all business as two lesser Faerie servants meet us by the private elevator. They catalogue my new Louis Vuitton luggage set while my mother finishes up a business call.
The luggage set is supposedly a gift from the Summer King.
Of course my mother bought them. The understated but obscenely expensive bags have her signature scrawled all over the monogrammed cowhide leather.
Sweat slicks my phone’s screen as I check my group chat labeled Fam. Nothing from Zinnia, Jane, or Vi. My last few texts to them sit unanswered, and the lonely feeling constricting my chest tightens.
They’re busy. This time of year in the Tainted Zone can make or break a family. They’ll be canning the last of the produce from the garden. What they don’t store Aunt Vi will barter at the markets for winter supplies. Coats, boots, frozen meat.
I send them money when I can but it always gets returned.
Should I text again?
I glance over my outrageously expensive luggage and designer frock, that familiar feeling of guilt pitting my stomach, and turn off my phone.
I don’t want to bother them.
“Hyacinth.”
My gaze darts to my mother.
“Head up, dear. You are the reigning top student for the season. Now you must act like it.”
As parental advice goes, I suppose her words are meant to inspire me to greatness. But somehow they plunge me further into panic.
This is really happening.
Since I crossed the Shimmer and met Valerian, not a moment has passed that I’m not painfully aware of my mortality. But now, as I cross the portal into the Everwilde, my humanness feels like a noose around my neck, tightening with every step I take into the lush world of the Fae.
A world that is supposed to be mine.
Deep down, I know it’s not.
It’s a prison of iron and fangs and twisted magic, a beautiful, unforgiving land of power and deceit, and I am about to dive headfirst into my gilded cage.
We are met almost immediately on campus by a Star Court Fae assistant from the academy. The assistant wears a crisp green and black suit and white gloves. My mother begins barking orders in lieu of greeting, the demands continuing as the poor Fae guides us to my new home for the next nine months.
Nestled deep behind the nature conservatory, the two-story miniature white chateau looks straight out of a town and country magazine. My mother wrinkles her nose at the unkempt roses and hedge bushes as her heels expertly navigate the stone path leading to the beautiful white oak front door, but I love it immediately.
The dusty pink climbing roses, overgrown purple lilac shrubs, and tall yellow sunflowers remind me of Zinnia. She would love this place.
An ache forms just below my breastbone, and I tamp down the urge to check my phone again.
“Everything needs to be trimmed back or ripped out,” my mother says. Her miss-nothing gaze darts to what I assume was once pure white stone, lingering over the moss clinging to the lower half. “The entire façade needs a scrub. And this door”—she focuses her wrath on the poor white wood—“needs paint. I’m thinking of a dark storm gray.”
The Star Court Fae hasn’t stopped nodding or writing since we arrived, and he adds that to the list.
I don’t dare say that I like the chateau exactly as it is. Mainly because I would be completely ignored, but also because the faster she gets this done, the quicker she’ll leave.
Is feeling smothered and breathless around your mother normal?
Somehow the inside is more disheveled than the outside. Trumpet vines have snaked through one of the living room windows and curl up the tall fireplace. Leaves and dust pile in the corners of the rooms, and the tattered couches look like they’ve been the home to a few squirrels and possibly a raccoon.
My mother takes the condition as a personal affront. “Really? This is how the school treats a high-ranking member of the Summer Court?” Her lips curl in a way I can only describe as feline. “Considering how much I donate to this school each season, this is very disappointing.”
The horrified Fae scribbles that into his magical notepad, his head never pausing from its up and down motion.
I can still hear her listing changes as I slip up the creaking wooden stairs. Giant climbing roses wind around the balcony level overlooking the living room. I brush a finger over one of the dusty pink petals. “Don’t worry. I won’t let her take you away.”
“Talking to the flowers?” a teasing voice asks.
My heart somersaults at the familiar tone. I whip around and drag Mack into my arms. “What are you doing here?”
She gives me a squeeze. “Really? You think I’d let my bestie face her first day on campus alone?”
Eclipsa slides from the shadows of the nearest bedroom, her eyes dancing with humor. “Surprise.”